scholarly journals Blind love, Romanticism, and Rousseauʼs novel Julie ou La Nouvelle Héloïse

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 305-350
Author(s):  
Alexandra Schamel
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Epistolary Novel ◽  
Threshold Phenomena ◽  
Rhetorical Dimension

The article examines to what extent Rousseau’s epistolary novel Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse modifies the visual paradigm of eighteenth-century anthropology, as seen in Rousseau’s ideology of substantial nature, by introducing dynamics which produce obscurité, an unattainable dimension of inwardness. The argument leads to the proposal that the subject’s strategies of hiding, masking and transforming its epistemological darkness in the penetrating regime of virtue create central aspects of the romantic mind. The term obscurité is illustrated as a dynamic of semantic “desubstantialisation” originated from the love-wound which permanently requires the supplément (Coelen, Derrida). The need for subordination under Wolmar’s “omniscient eye” effects a process of sublimation, in which the obscure semantics of love are transferred into legitimate areas of ontological diffusion, such as dreams, memories, wistfulness and even sacrifying death, the very precursors of romanticism. Respective examples, set in the context of romantic painting, illustrate how Rousseau constructs these threshold phenomena as semantic (and specter-like) substitutes for the love affect which is also more and more transmitted into the rhetorical dimension of the letters.

The Rise and Decline of the Epistolary Novel, 1770–1832

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ros Ballaster
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Charlotte Lennox ◽  
Frances Burney ◽  
Tobias Smollett ◽  
Charlotte Smith ◽  
Epistolary Novel ◽  
Colonial Experience ◽  
Main Protagonist ◽  
Epistolary Exchange

This essay charts the fortunes of a specific genre, the epistolary novel, which delivers plot and character exclusively through letters whether from a single correspondent, a couple, or many. In the shadow of Richardson’s dominance, there are successive attempts to innovate and experiment both of personality (presenting new kinds of voice and main protagonist) and geography (sending letter-writers to parts of the globe ‘new’ to English readers). It opens with the healthy flourishing of letter fiction from 1769 to 1780 and the twin traditions of domestic (Elizabeth Griffith, Frances Burney) and picaresque (Tobias Smollett). The epistolary mode is next experimented with in the 1790s to describe and define both revolutionary turmoil and colonial experience by authors such as Charlotte Smith, Eliza Fenwick, Phoebe Gibbes, and Charlotte Lennox. The early decades of the eighteenth century see the troubled departure from and live burial of epistolary exchange in the novels of Edgeworth, Owenson, and Scott.

scholarly journals Le roman épistolaire français au siècle des Lumières

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 89-98
Author(s):  
Luisa Messina
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Personal History ◽  
Temporal Distance ◽  
Epistolary Novel

The eighteenth century is considered as the golden age of epistolary art. If we analyze the historical and social value of letters, we will notice that epistolary change soon becomes one of the principal ways of communication and of providing information. The most relevant merit, which is attributed to the epistolary novel, is the immediate reproduction that touches feelings. So, the epistolary novel removes the temporal distance existing between the personal history and its written reproduction. The most famous writers of the time (like Montesquieu) and libertine writers (Laclos and Sade particularly) have employed the epistolary novel showing several intentions. Le dix-huitième siècle est l’âge d’or qui concerne le roman épistolaire. Si l’on analyse la portée historique et sociale de la lettre, il est fondamental de mettre en relief que l’échange épistolaire représente l’un des principaux moyens d’information et de communication de l’époque. Le plus grand mérite que l’on attribue à la lettre est de représenter l’expression « à chaud » des sentiments parce qu’elle supprime la distance temporelle existant entre le sentiment vécu et sa reproduction écrite. Enfin, l’absence du narrateur garantit l’authenticité des faits car personne ne pense et ne parle à la place des personnages. Les auteurs les plus célèbres de l’époque (Montesquieu) ainsi que les écrivains libertins (Laclos et Sade en particulier) ont fait recours au roman épistolaire en montrant des propos très différents.

scholarly journals The Epistolary Novel in the Late Eighteenth Century.

1941 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert Brown ◽  
Frank Gees Black
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Epistolary Novel ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth

scholarly journals “Chizhiki tak i mrut”

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 172-187
Author(s):  
Inna Tigountsova (Hellebust)
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Relevance ◽  
Methodological Basis ◽  
European Literature ◽  
Epistolary Novel ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth

My article will investigate the ways in which metaphors for birds, especially birds of song, in the correspondence between the protagonists of Dostoevsky's novel “Poor Folk” (Бедные люди, 1846) — Makar Devushkin and Varen'ka Dobroselova — refer back to Goethe's scandalously popular epistolary novel “The Sufferings of Young Werther” (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, 1774). I propose that Dostoevsky involves a metaphoric net as an oblique subtext of references to recent popular European literature to convey the idea of Romantic death (bearing in mind the extent to which “Werther”, though written in the late eighteenth century, retained its cultural relevance for Russian readers in Dostoevsky's time). As I am investigating the larger picture of Dostoevsky's treatment of death and suicide in his shorter fiction as well as his dialogue with Goethe on this subject, I also argue that in “Poor Folk” the parody and stylization of Romantic discourse in Rataziaev's texts (and elsewhere) reveals thematic parallels between the Russian and the German narratives, and demonstrates Dostoevsky's viewpoint on death, Romanticism and Realism. For the methodological basis of my study, I will apply Mikhail Bakhtin's ideas on parody and stylization from his seminal “Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics” (especially from the chapter “Dostoevsky's Discourse”.

scholarly journals Les traductions polonaises des Lettres persanes de Montesquieu

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-75
Author(s):  
Paweł Matyaszewski
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Epistolary Novel ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
History Of

Polish translations of Montesquieu’s Persian Letters The purpose of the present article is to show the history of Polish translations of a famous epistolary novel Persian Letters written in 1721 by Montesquieu. In his work, the author neither introduces linguistic matters of the translations, nor he analyses their correctness; however, he presents strictly historical and cultural aspects of the process of translation. What is more, the article aims at presenting the intentions of Polish translators, the historical context of their work and its importance for a Polish reader. Regardless of the era when they produced their translations, starting as early as the eighteenth century, Polish translators always saw in Montesquieu’s Persian Letters something more than a simple and light epistolary novel of the Regency era.

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