Letters as Literature: Reclaiming a Lost Art Form
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Authors
D. Lehman, Eric
Issue Date
2023-03-24
Type
Other
Language
en_US
Keywords
Letter , Language , Henry Miller
Alternative Title
Abstract
For thousands of years, letters were considered literature, from Seneca to St. Paul, from Heloise and Abelard to Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. But since the 20th century, the rise of the personal essay and blog forms has relegated letters to a narrower audience. Most bookstores dedicate no shelf to the genre of letters. Worse, perhaps, is that even those who read these letters (academics in the humanities, usually) no longer consider them literature, and relegate them to tools for biography or fandom only. There are few class periods or lesson plans about letters, and fewer courses dedicated to them. When literary forms are listed - novels, poetry, memoir - letters are left off the list. Even more rarely, do people who write letters think of themselves as creating literature.That would not have been the case until recently. The change can be partly attributed to a cultural shift away from "written" forms, but in fact people continue to write letters all the time. They just use computers to do it. The style of the correspondence is not the same as the form. When someone sends a postcard with a short greeting, this is not a letter. It is a message sent by mail. Likewise, a letter form can be written in an email, though perhaps not in a hundred-character text message. Any message between two people is correspondence, but a letter is a certain form of that correspondence.
Description
UB RISE 2023, College of Science and Society, University of Bridgeport.