Epistolary Stevens

Surely, Samuel Richardson's experiments with the epistolary novel, Montesquieu's and Rousseau's philosophical explorations in Persian Letters (1721) and The New Heloise (1761), and, of course, Crèvecœur's Letters from an American Farmer (1782) on the other side of the Atlantic ha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Wallace Stevens journal 2021-01, Vol.45 (1), p.7-30
Main Author: Utard, Juliette
Format: Article
Language:eng
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Summary:Surely, Samuel Richardson's experiments with the epistolary novel, Montesquieu's and Rousseau's philosophical explorations in Persian Letters (1721) and The New Heloise (1761), and, of course, Crèvecœur's Letters from an American Farmer (1782) on the other side of the Atlantic have in their own times demonstrated the richness of this literary terrain, as these works doted on the malleable nature of the letter as a form and genre to probe into issues of self, nation, and social change in times of deep transition. Understood literally, the parting words read as a pledge of sincerity, promising to embrace the confessional mode of, say, sentimental writing; yet what they do in reality is perform what Erving Goffman once called an "interaction ritual" meant to maintain—not bridge—a safe distance between the author of the letter and its recipient (see Goffman). While the overarching premise of this double special issue is that poets' letters offer a fertile, largely neglected terrain for literary investigation—not just biographical investigation—would we all agree that they deserve to be recognized as a full-fledged genre, as Howard suggests? I will be arguing here that the value of epistolary Stevens may in fact lie in its ability to open up a space in his writing that functions as a site of transitions and transactions, a space in which to negotiate—and redefine–the contours of his poetic space. Since the authors of essays gathered in this double issue are poetry scholars, there is a good chance our answers will lean against such a rigid boundary. According to the list drawn up by Milton J. Bates, his library contained the letters of James Russell Lowell (acquired during his Cambridge years) with handwritten comments by Stevens, a volume of Matthew Arnold's letters, letters from John Keats to his
ISSN:0148-7132
2160-0570
2160-0570