Emotions and the Letter - (History of Emotions) by Katie Barclay & Diana G Barnes (Hardcover)

About the Book

This collection explores the relationship between letter writing and emotions through time, using case studies from antiquity to the 21st century.

Book Synopsis

From hate mail to suicide notes to begging letters, this book explores the relationship between letter writing and emotion through case studies from antiquity to the 21st century. It shows how the epistolary form has offered a wide range of ways to communicate private feelings, make public statements and offers a rich historical source to explore how people have performed emotions for a range of audiences.

Emotions and the Letter shows how this long-standing historical source can provide insights into a diversity of emotion traditions. Uses of the letter in different periods and its emotional potential reflect important interactions between individuals and society, private and public, aesthetics and authenticity. Applying approaches and methods from the history of emotions, literary studies and affect studies, this collection significantly advances our understanding of why letters remain a critical mode of communication and explores how to analyse letters for historical emotions research.

Review Quotes

This collection will be of major value to scholars and students working across the history of emotions and literature. The essays address an impressive range of examples, from Cicero to Langston Hughes, demonstrating the centrality of emotion to the epistolary genre and the ways in which both change over time. Emotions and the Letter offers genuine new insight into the place of the letter in human culture.
Anne Sophie Refskou, Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, Aarhus University, Denmark

We write letters, like our ancestors, for many reasons: love letters, consolation letters, suicide letters. This book reveals letter-writing as a way of doing emotion. Covering human history from the Roman period to our times, we learn about the changing taxonomies and traditions of conveying feelings through written conversation.
Ute Frevert, Professor of History and Director em. at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany

About the Author

Katie Barclay is ARC Future Fellow and Professor in History, Macquarie University, Australia.

Diana G. Barnes is Associate Professor in Literary Studies, University of New England, Australia.