The Epistolary Renaissance: A Critical Approach to Contemporary Letter Narratives in Anglophone Fiction (Buchreihe Der Anglia/Anglia) (Buchreihe Der Anglia / Anglia Book Series, 62)

Since the late twentieth century, letters in literature have seen a remarkable renaissance. The prominence of letters in recent fiction is due in part to the rediscovery, by contemporary writers, of letters as an effective tool for rendering aspects of historicity, liminality, marginalization and the expression of subjectivity vis-à-vis an ‘other’; it is also due, however, to the artistically challenging inclusion of the new electronic media of communication into fiction. While studies of epistolary fiction have so far concentrated on the eighteenth century and on thematic concerns, this volume charts the epistolary renaissance in recent literature, entering new territory by also focusing on the aesthetic implications of the epistolary mode. In particular, the essays in this volume illuminate the potential of the epistolary (including digital forms) for rendering contemporary sensitivities. The volume thus offers a comprehensive assessment of letter narratives in contemporary literature. Through its focus on the aesthetic and structural aspects of new epistolary fiction, the inclusion of various narrative forms, and the consideration of both conventional letters and their new digital kindred, __The Epistolary Renaissance__ offers novel insight into a multi-facetted (re)new(ed) genre. * provides a new approach to letter fiction * covers a wide variety of epistolary forms * written by experts in the field of epistolary studies Table of Contents Introduction to this Volume Part I: Contemporary Epistolary Fiction: New Approaches Epistolarity. Theoretical and Generic Preliminaries Part II: The Epistolary Short Story The Epistolary Short Story and the Representation of History Enveloped in Epistolary Illusion. The Aesthetics of Reading and Writing Letters in Selected Short Stories by Alice Munro Epistolarity in Twenty-First Century Nigerian Short Fiction Wish I Was There. Economies of Communication in Annie Proulx’s Postcards and “Brokeback Mountain” Part III: The Contemporary Epistolary Novel Epistolary Forms as Semiotic and Generic Modes in the Multimodal Novel Isolation, Participation and Communication in Young Adult Unidirectional Epistolary Fiction From Ireland with Love: The Use of Epistolary Writing in Cecelia Ahern’s Fiction An Open Letter to Nick Bantock OR Letters and/as Ephemera(l): Desire, Transposition and Transpoetic Possibility with/in Epistolary Form The Epistolary Revenant: Teaching Against Linearity Part IV: Literature and Electronic Correspondence E-Mail Epistlemologies Stuplimity and Quick Media Epistolarity in Lauren Myracle’s Internet Girls Series In the Age of Vlogging: Functions of the Letter in YouTubers’ Fiction and Non-Fiction E-pistolary Novels and Networks: Registering Formal Shifts between Henry Fielding’s Shamela (1741) and Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story (2010) The Right Sort of Form for “The Right Sort”: David Mitchell’s Tweet-Story Contributors Index

Since the late twentieth century, letters in literature have seen a remarkable renaissance. The prominence of letters in recent fiction is due in part to the rediscovery, by contemporary writers, of letters as an effective tool for rendering aspects of historicity, liminality, marginalization and the expression of subjectivity vis-à-vis an ‘other’; it is also due, however, to the artistically challenging inclusion of the new electronic media of communication into fiction.
While studies of epistolary fiction have so far concentrated on the eighteenth century and on thematic concerns, this volume charts the epistolary renaissance in recent literature, entering new territory by also focusing on the aesthetic implications of the epistolary mode. In particular, the essays in this volume illuminate the potential of the epistolary (including digital forms) for rendering contemporary sensitivities. The volume thus offers a comprehensive assessment of letter narratives in contemporary literature. Through its focus on the aesthetic and structural aspects of new epistolary fiction, the inclusion of various narrative forms, and the consideration of both conventional letters and their new digital kindred, The Epistolary Renaissance offers novel insight into a multi-facetted (re)new(ed) genre.

The Anglia Book Series (ANGB) offers a selection of high quality work on all areas and aspects of English philology. It publishes book-length studies and essay collections on English language and linguistics, on English and American literature and culture from the Middle Ages to the present, on the new English literatures, as well as on general and comparative literary studies, including aspects of cultural and literary theory.