Romanticism and the Poetics of Epistolary Writing

Abstract

In recent years, literary critics and historians have begun to challenge the traditional assumptions about the superiority of poetry over prose in eighteenth-century studies and studies of Romanticism. To claim for the privileging of poetry over prose, especially letters in the eighteenth century, does not seem to be historically valid. The eighteenth century witnessed the emergence of the epistolary novel as a distinctive genre. Samuel Richardson’s epistolary novel Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded was a great success when it was first published in 1740. The eighteenth century also witnessed the emergence of letters as a formal literary genre. The letters of Lady Wortley Montagu and Lord Chesterfield were greatly admired by readers when they were published in 1763 and 1774 respectively. Thanks to the Penny Post’s efficient service, letter writing and letter exchange were crucial to people’s everyday lives in eighteenth-century Britain. This is the gist of epistolary literature and culture in the eighteenth century. The importance of letters— the letter form in the novel or the epistolary form in any literary work—has been increasingly recognized in eighteenth-century studies. By contrast, the importance of letters has been underestimated in Romantic-period studies.