Drago, AT and Hodkinson, O orcid.org/0000-0003-0837-5715 (2023) Ancient Love Letters Form, Themes, Approaches. De Gruyter ISBN 9783110999693
Abstract
This volume investigates the form of love letters and erotic letters in Greek and Latin up to the 7th Century CE, encompassing both literary and documentary letters (the latter inscribed and on papyrus), and prose and poetry. The potential for, and utility of treating this large and diverse corpus as a ‘genre’ is examined. To this end, approaches from ancient literary criticism and modern theory of genre are made; mutual influences between the documentary and the literary form are sought; and origins in proto-epistolary poetic texts are examined. In order to examine the boundaries of a form, limit cases, which might have less claim to the label ‘love letter’, are compared with more clear-cut examples. A series of case studies focuses on individual letters and letter-collections. Some case studies situate their subjects within the history and literary evolution of the love letter, using both intertextuality and comparative approaches; others placing them in their cultural and historical contexts, particularly uncovering the contribution of epistolarity to erotic discourse, and to the history of sexuality and gender in diverse eras and locations within Classical to Late Antiquity.
Documents origins and development of the Love Letter in European literature up to the early Middle Ages.
First systematic approach to Love Letters/Erotic Letters in antiquity (Greek and Latin, prose and poetry, literary and documentary letters).
Metadata
Item Type: | Book |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Editors: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Epistolary literature; correspondence; sexuality; genre theory |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Humanities (Leeds) > Classics (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Riksbankens Jubileumsfond 543423730 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 21 Apr 2023 11:05 |
Last Modified: | 30 Jan 2024 01:14 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | De Gruyter |
Identification Number: | 10.1515/9783110989472 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:198432 |