LETTERS IN EIGHTEENTH- CENTURY BRITAIN Announcements Context Presentation Q&A: Technology and Research Tips Wendy Jones on Alexander Pope s Letters Pamela Clemit on William Godwin s Letters Watermarks and Seals Anonymous Woodcut Source: The Mind Is a Collection
ANNOUNCEMENTS I will be out of town next Monday through Wednesday, but I will be checking email in the evening. Classes next week will be at the Museum of Papermaking. There s a link to a map on the website Schedule. I will not be at Tuesday s workshop, but there will be a faculty member standing in for me there to field any questions you have and relay them to me. The education curator, Virginia Howell, and guest artist Jerushia Graham will lead the workshop. It is important that you attend both days: you will be making the paper required for the Omeka letters archive. Please contact me if you miss on Tuesday. Assignment Q&A: Coates letters. Context presentation. What else?
PRESENTATION TIPS: TECHNOLOGY Gadgets Desk at Library s Front Information Desk Desktop USB microphones available from the Writing and Communication Program (contact me if interested) Beck Multipurpose Room in the Multimedia Studio (soundproof, condenser microphones) Presentation Rehearsal Rooms in the CULC
PRESENTATION TIPS: RESEARCH Course Reserve (Library from Information Desk; course number and instructor): print edition of Between the World and Me; critical editions of other course readings Make an appointment with the subject librarian for Literature, Media, and Communication for research/library guidance: Karen Viars, karen.viars@library.gatech.edu Follow the footnotes: use the Works Cited of your assigned source to direct you to other relevant, already vetted sources. Find the Selected Bibliography in the critical edition. University presses: Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, University of Pennsylvania. Ask me! Journals: PMLA, Eighteenth-Century Life, Romantic Circles, Common-place, American Literature, American Literary History, Callaloo, Modern Language Quarterly
ALEXANDER POPE (1688 1744) What was the scandal over Pope s role in the publication of his letters? Who cared and why? (Jones 7 13) Literary tradition: Cicero s letters and Seneca s letters (14 17) Historical event: 1680 / the penny post (18) Cultural practice: letter-writing manuals and decorum (18) Anonymous Woodcut Source: The Mind Is a Collection
POPE (CONTINUED) Richmond Bond distinguishes three types of eighteenth-century letters. First, there was the intimate message intended only for its recipient; second, the more formal public letter designed for a wider audience; and, third, the fictitious letter used as a literary device (19). Jones questions the value of the distinction, based on Pope and others. There is a curious discrepancy [on the matter of self-conscious, literary letter writing] between Augustan profession and practice (21). If the preferred Augustan epistolary style was a kind of talking on paper (a figure enthusiastically appropriated from Seneca), the preferred content of the eighteenth-century letter was its author s heart (ibid.). The window in the bosom (the author s true character) only worked if the letter was written without publication in mind. The eighteenth century early established and consistently maintained a link between the familiar letter and moral instruction (22).
Pamela Clemit, editor of the Oxford University Press edition of William Godwin s letters Who is William Godwin? In order to understand the value of Godwin s letters, we need to understand what they are as objects. (22:54) In each case, Godwin has made an effort to gratify a particular individual. In writing a letter, he s focused his attention on that individual for a substantial amount of time, perhaps several hours. He sought to communicate a signal which is unique to that person. The value which the letter conveys is the value of regard. The recipient, to paraphrase Adam Smith, is being observed, attended to, and taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation (The Theory of Moral Sentiments). The letter is a unilateral signal of approbation, in other words, a gift. (26:00) What three agents transform the value of letters as historical objects? Letter to Harriet Lee, 1798 (Abinger Papers)
WATER MARKS AND STAMPS