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Epistolary exchange and the modern s...

Singer, Jonathan A.

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Epistolary exchange and the modern subject of narrative (France).

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Epistolary exchange and the modern subject of narrative (France)./
Author:	Singer, Jonathan A.
Description:	260 p.
Notes:	Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-11, Section: A, page: 4188.
Contained By:	Dissertation Abstracts International65-11A.
Subject:	Literature, Romance. -
Online resource:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=3154967
ISBN:	0496156780

Epistolary exchange and the modern subject of narrative (France).
Singer, Jonathan A.

Epistolary exchange and the modern subject of narrative (France). - 260 p.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-11, Section: A, page: 4188.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Irvine, 2005.

This dissertation argues that letter-writing practices of the Restoration and eighteenth century promote specific models of subjectivity that are recognizable within epistolary novels in England and France, and that inform other genres of eighteenth-century life-writing. While letters are clearly products of self-performance that serve as textual proxies for presence, their circulation as commodities effects a uniquely epistolary subjectivity:

ISBN: 0496156780Subjects--Topical Terms:

1019014
Literature, Romance.

Epistolary exchange and the modern subject of narrative (France).
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035 $a (UnM)AAI3154967
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040 $a UnM $c UnM
100 1 $a Singer, Jonathan A. $3 1902855
245 1 0 $a Epistolary exchange and the modern subject of narrative (France).
300 $a 260 p.
500 $a Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-11, Section: A, page: 4188.
500 $a Chair: J. Hillis Miller.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Irvine, 2005.
520 $a This dissertation argues that letter-writing practices of the Restoration and eighteenth century promote specific models of subjectivity that are recognizable within epistolary novels in England and France, and that inform other genres of eighteenth-century life-writing. While letters are clearly products of self-performance that serve as textual proxies for presence, their circulation as commodities effects a uniquely epistolary subjectivity:
520 $a Epistolary exchange inserts the correspondent into a textual commerce, dependent upon another's affirmation and response; self-expression therefore hinges upon unambiguous, transparent communication. Yet circulation grants a letter social meanings in addition to its referential content, which disrupt reliable communication and introduce the unanswerable question of whether letters should be interpreted as social performances or as honest representations of the author's mind. Born of this crisis, epistolary subjectivity seeks to overcome or exploit the unpredictable interpretations wrought by the letter's public dimension, in order to control self-representation and its interpretation.
520 $a This dual identity of the letter---simultaneously medium and object, signifier and referent, referential and symbolic---uniquely qualifies it to figure the era's momentous conceptual shift from conceptions of identity, value, and meaning as grounded in inherent qualities, to notions of them as conventional and arbitrary. Epistolary novels interrogate the nature and evidence of their letters' truth, thus enabling authors to stage the most vital social and philosophical debates of the age.
520 $a Individual chapters analyze the significance of letters for the explicit negotiation of contemporary debates on aesthetics in the Abbe d'Aubignac's Le roman des lettres (1667) and Frances Burney's Evelina (1778), on economic value and the monarchic authority in Aphra Behn's Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684--7), and on epistemology in Samuel Richardson's Clarissa (1747--8). These authors all initially seek to resolve crises of value and identity by figuring through epistolary narration a self-presence that promotes an understanding of intrinsic, fixed, self-evident identity. Paradoxically, all become obliged to manipulate and undermine that chosen structure, warding off the principles of extrinsic valuation and relativism implicit in epistolary polyphony. In their effort to restrict the range of epistolary interpretation, they aim to recuperate the notion of reliable identity and self-evident meaning.
590 $a School code: 0030.
650 4 $a Literature, Romance. $3 1019014
650 4 $a Literature, Comparative. $3 530051
650 4 $a Literature, English. $3 1017709
690 $a 0313
690 $a 0295
690 $a 0593
710 2 0 $a University of California, Irvine. $3 705821
773 0 $t Dissertation Abstracts International $g 65-11A.
790 1 0 $a Miller, J. Hillis, $e advisor
790 $a 0030
791 $a Ph.D.
792 $a 2005
856 4 0 $u http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=3154967