IMC 2013: Sessions
Session 212: The Pleasure and Pragmatics of Epistolary Exchange, I: Love, Friendship, and the Art of Letter Writing
Monday 1 July 2013, 14.15-15.45
| Sponsor: | Prato Consortium for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, Monash University, Victoria |
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| Organisers: | Diana Marie Jeske, School of Philosophical, Historical & International Studies, Monash University, Victoria Sita Steckel, Historisches Seminar, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster |
| Moderator/Chair: | Sita Steckel, Historisches Seminar, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster |
| Paper 212-a | Writing to Friends and Enemies: Alcuin’s Letters and the Carolingian Salutatio (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Rhetoric, Theology |
| Paper 212-b | Literary Play and Epistolary Flexibility: Letters of Love and Friendship in the 11th and 12th Centuries (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Latin, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Women's Studies |
| Paper 212-c | Classicizing Form, Classicizing Friendship: Petrarch and the Ars Dictaminis (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Rhetoric |
| Abstract | The pleasure of corresponding with friends and colleagues is a strong feature of letter writing across the medieval period. This session aims to explore the specific relationship between concepts of good letter writing practice and their execution in real letters exchanged between friends and colleagues (as opposed to letters of patronage, business or diplomacy). Our first paper will examine the connection between Alcuin's reliance on works of classical rhetoric, and his epistolary style in letters to colleagues on the topic of Adoptionism, a subject which has been understudied in the past. Our second paper will examine the relationship between a flexible epistolary form in the 11th and 12th centuries and the highly literary correspondence between men and women on the subject of love and friendship. Our final paper will explore the connection between Petrarch's deliberate attempts to break with medieval epistolary practice (and return to a classical ideal), and his cultivation, through the exchange of classicized letters, of a circle of intellectual, literary friends. |