Framing National, Literary, and Gender Identities in Early American Epistolary Fiction

Abstract

Much of the historical appeal of early epistolary fiction arises from the contradictions involved in the fictional scheme of turning private documents into a public book. This highly transgressive feature turns epistolary novels into heuristic forms where cultural tensions, the limits of the private and the public sphere as well as the limits of the body can be gauged. As a crucial mediating interface, the construction of the communicative situation in early American fiction provides a reward...