File(s) not publicly available
Letters As/Not A Genre
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 09:26 authored by Margaretta JollyMargaretta Jolly, Liz StanleyWith the rise of life writing studies, letters have become the subject of an increasing number of interdisciplinary analyses. The following essay ruminates on what common characteristics hold such analyses together and the peculiar difficulties they encounter in theorising a genre that perhaps, out of all writing practices, most exposes the limits of genre theory itself. The essay is written, appropriately, as a dialogue, in which Margarettas Voice asks general, if not straightforwardly generic questions about letters and Lizs Echo answers them in relation to her current two epistolary projects, theorizing the epistolarium, and editing a new Olive Schreiner collected letters for publication. The echo here is a voice that, unlike most echoes, answers back in an argumentative way. While Margaretta suggests that letters are proto-genres whose distinctive yet infinitely malleable features can be best understood through the social and literary codes of relationship, Liz explains how, after her scepticism about the concept of genre in her influential The Auto/Biographical I, she understands what makes Schreiners letters distinctive.
History
Publication status
- Published
Journal
Life WritingISSN
1448-4528External DOI
Issue
2Volume
2Page range
91-118Pages
22.0Department affiliated with
- Centre for Community Engagement Publications
Research groups affiliated with
- Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research Publications
Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2012-02-06Usage metrics
Categories
No categories selectedKeywords
Licence
Exports
RefWorks
BibTeX
Ref. manager
Endnote
DataCite
NLM
DC