Epistolography

Sidonius C. Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius, Die Briefe. Eingeleitet, übersetzt und erläutert von Helga Köhler, Stuttgart: Hiersemann 2014, XXXVII + 355 pp., ISBN 978-3-7772-1414-6, € 224 (hb). Die Briefe des Apollinaris Sidonius sind seit eh und je eine erstrangige Quelle für das Gallien des fünften Jahrhunderts und haben bis in den Humanismus hinein die europäische Literatur entscheidend beeinflusst. Als prototypi-sche Mischgestalt aus Aristokrat und Seelenhirt, römischem Präfekt und Bischof von Clermont, Hofpoet und liturgischem Autor ist Sidonius wesent-lich für unser Verständnis des spätantiken Christentums. Helga Köhler (K.) stellt ihn nun erstmals in einer mustergültigen Übersetzung seiner ganzen Korrespondenz dem deutschsprachigen Publikum vor. Dank ihrem wegwei-senden Kommentarband zum ersten Buch der Korrespondenz (Heidelberg 1995) ist K. eine der Urheberinnen der heutigen Sidonius-Renaissance. Das Buch enthält, neben der Übersetzung, eine Einleitung, eine Auswahl-Bibliographie und ein Namen-und Sachregister. Die Einleitung ist eine gekonnte, äußerst zugängliche Zusammenfassung unserer Kenntnis auf dem heutigen Stand der Wissenschaft. Binnen dreißig Seiten wird der Leser infor-miert über den Autor, seine Briefkunst und sein Nachleben. Zudem legt K. Rechenschaft ab über die Entscheidungen, die sie bei der Übersetzung getroffen hat. Einige, für die Übersetzung wichtige Aspekte möchte ich hier hervorheben. Die Sammlung von 147 Briefen in neun Büchern würdigt K. zu Recht als mehr als ein historisches Dokument, nämlich als ein sorgfältig angeleg-tes Gesamtkunstwerk aus Prosa und poetischen Einlagen, das Politik und Privatleben, Weltliches und Geistiges verbindet zu einem Kaleidoskop wech-selnder Stimmungen. Form und Sprache der Briefe stehen dabei stets gleich-rangig neben ihrem Informationsgehalt. Dem Stil des Sidonius gerecht zu werden war Hauptaufgabe dieser Über-setzung. Die sehr langen Perioden, die alle denkbaren Stil-und Gedankenfi-guren häufen, überforderten schon nachweisbar manche Zeitgenossen. K. hat sich für die weitestmögliche Nachbildung des Originals entschlossen, da die deutsche Syntax ja die Möglichkeit zu Schachtelsätzen bietet. Das Ergebnis ist eine vornehme, zuweilen leicht altertümliche, aber immer kristallklare Über-setzung. Die erfindungsreiche Wortwahl und der präzise Aufbau steuern den langen Atem, den der Leser braucht. Die Übersetzung wäre besonders dazu geeignet, vorgetragen zu werden. Bemerkenswert sind die poetischen Einla-gen, die K. virtuos gemäß der ursprünglichen Metren übersetzt.

"Jeder Lumpenhund sagt: nur Weiber können Briefe schreiben; denn Briefe erfordern eine Leichtigkeit, ein ungezwungenes Uebergehen von einer Materie zur andern, und Männer bleiben immer bei der Schnur.” — Diese Passage aus einem Brief David Veits an Rahel Varnhagen vom November 1795 gab den Ansporn zur Veranstaltung einer wissenschaftlichen Tagung vom 3. bis 5. März 2017,  die sich mit der weiblichen Kultur nach 1750 auseinander setzt. Zugleich wurde die Travestie des oben zitierten Satzes zum Motto für die hiermit präsentierte Ausstellung von Handschriften, die in der Jagiellonen-Bibliothek aufbewahrt werden. Während Forscherinnen und Forscher im Laufe der Tagung mit Korrespondenzen von Autorinnen vorwiegend aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum wissenschaftlich befasst sind, ist der geographische und sprachliche Umfang der Ausstellung wesentlich breiter. Das Hauptziel ist es nämlich, nicht so sehr die Vielfalt von Briefe schreibenden Frauen nach 1750 zu zeigen, sondern vielmehr deren immensen Beitrag zur europäischen, darunter der polnischen und der deutschen Kultur zu veranschaulichen, der auch durch Korrespondenzen erfolgt ist.  Als Eckdatum wurde dabei das Jahr 1750 festgesetzt.  Selbstverständlich führten Frauen auch in den früheren Epochen nicht selten rege Briefwechsel, jedoch erst mit der Aufklärung und der Verbreitung von emanzipatorischen Bemühungen — und in der Konsequenz auch mit einer immer größer werdenden Präsenz von Frauen im gesellschaftlichen, kulturellen und  intellektuellen Leben — erlebt auch deren Epistolographie eine besondere Blüte. Und genau darauf möchte die Ausstellung hinweisen.

Este trabalho reúne documentação de natureza epistolar que originalmente publiquei, de forma separada, in Mare Liberum. Revista de História dos Mares  (números 4 e 17, respetivamente de 1992 e 1999). Trata-se de textos constantes dos espólios dos dois historiadores e escritores que os assinam, que se conservam no Arquivo de Cultura Contemporânea Portuguesa  da atualmente designada Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, em Lisboa. Conto divulgar, talvez muito proximamente, por este meio (Academia.edu), não só o conjunto dos documentos já por mim publicados em edições tipografadas pertinentes à marcante obra historiográfica coletiva que foi a História da Colonização Portuguesa do Brasil, editada há quase cem anos, como dezenas de outros textos que selecionei, compilei e transcrevi, baseado no exame dos mesmos dois espólios ---- e que correspondem, praticamente, à totalidade dos neles incluídos que à H. da C. P. do B. dizem respeito, visto que, sobretudo, o vastíssimo e fundamental espólio de Malheiro Dias foi alvo de uma quase exaustiva investigação da minha parte.

Founded in Coimbra in March 1927, the literary and critical journal Presenca undertook the formidable task of recalling Portugal to the lessons and possibilities of modernism that emerged first with the publication of the two issues of Orpheu in 1915. Early on, the journal's young editors invited Fernando Pessoa, the most famous living poet associated with Orpheu, to help them in their task by contributing to its pages. The older poet agreed to do so. It is his correspondence with the various editors of Presenca, running through the last eight years of the poet's life, that is the subject and provides the substance of Enrico Martines's book.
Much of the primary matter in Cartas entre Fernando Pessoa e os directores da Presenca has appeared previously, some of it as long ago as 1957 in the case of the correspondence between Pessoa and the young Joao Gaspar Simoes, his first critic and, later, his first biographer. Yet there are over fifty previously unpublished letters here, and the conjoining in one place of the letters exchanged between the great modernist poet and the so-called "men of Presenca"-Jose Regio, Gaspar Simoes, Adolfo Casais Monteiro, and, in an appendix, Adolfo Rocha (Miguel Torga)-along with a few other documents, makes this a useful production for anyone interested in the literary history of the twentieth century in general or, more particularly, the role played by Presenca in championing the centrality of the poet the journal's editors themselves called the "Master" of modern Portuguese letters.
Of the "new" letters published here, those comprising the Regio-Pessoa correspondence are the most surprising, for their relative paucity and for the comparative brevity of the letters themselves. The editor speculates that Regio's interest in Pessoa cooled off somewhat after his and Simoes's meeting with the Master in Lisbon at the Cafe Montanha in June 1930, when "he" failed to show, sending in his stead the obstreperous heteronym, his "own engineer" Alvaro de Campos. They exchanged only two rather businesslike letters after this awkward and, to Regio apparently, unpleasant encounter, both in 1934. Even though Pessoa continued to send his regards to the older editor of Presenca in his far more frequent letters to Simoes, the latter's replies offer no indication that Regio was in any mood to reciprocate.
Of course, it was Simoes who maintained, until December 1934, Presenca's closest connection with Pessoa. Their correspondence came to a halt, however, when Simoes left Coimbra for Lisbon, a removal that also seems to have diminished his role in the journal's management. His function seems to have been assumed, to a lesser or greater extent, by Adolfo Casais Monteiro, the young poet who joined Presenca's editorial staff after the defection of Branquinho da Fonseca, the journal's third founding editor. It is to that change in management, incidentally, that is owed the fortuitous exchange of letters between Pessoa and Casais Monteiro which extracted from the poet of Orpheu the now-celebrated account of the genesis of his heteronyms and his explanation of their "personal" and intertextual relationships. Rereading that letter in the context of all the letters in this collection might even tempt one to think that in his last years the wily poet was improvising still another unfolding drama, this time involving the young men of Presenca. As he warned Casais Monteiro in the year of his death, "Behind the poet's involuntary masquerade as a reasoning being or what have you, what I am essentially is a dramatist."
In keeping with the rules laid down for the Critical Edition, Cartas entre Fernando Pessoa e os directores da Presenca, the second volume in that major edition's "Studies" series, is a full-scale performance. Among other matters, it includes, besides a substantial introduction, a record of variants and cancellations in the letters, the details of their prior publication, and ample annotations that serve to contextualize and to explain references.
Review by George Monteiro (Brown University)

Tradução comentada das primeiras cartas jesuíticas sobre o Brasil a serem publicadas, extraídas de coletâneas impressas em Coimbra em 1551 e 1555. Inclui cartas de Manoel da Nóbrega, José de Anchieta, Leonardo Nunes, João de Azpilcueta Navarro, Leonardo Nunes, Afonso Brás e Pero Correa.

Basing on the preserved and published epistolographic legacy of Teofil Lenartowicz, the author reconstructs the sculptural process used by the artist. Starting from outlining the research problems connected with the letters of a solitary from Arno, he focused on the stages of the Polish art master’s work on sculpture. The author of the article analyses fragments of letters addressed to: Julia Jablonowska, Maria Konopnicka, Jozef Ignacy Kraszewski, Helena Mickiewiczowna, Ksawery Mroczka, the Resurrectionist Fathers, and Tekla Zmorska. The conclusions resulting from the analysis of epistolography, concerning particular stages of sculpture creation, allow us to compare Lenartowicz’s sculptural process with practices characteristic of art techniques of Renaissance and 19th century sculptors.

Two noteworthy and successful vernacular rhetoric manuals printed in sixteenth-century England are actually writing manuals , books on how to compose letters: William Fulwood's The Enimie of Idlenesse (1568), and Angel Day's The English Secretorie (1586). Both works reflected and sought to influence literacy habits in the book-reading public, and reveal a wider range of cultural engagement than has previously been thought. In particular, three aspects are likely to have stirred reader interest: a connection for vernacular learners with both the humanist and dictaminal epistolary traditions that formed the core of prestige education; a focus on practical letter exchanges that carry familial and social significance; and a large collection of model letters, in which readers would have found exemplary discourse coupled with proto-fictional and amatory elements that could be enjoyed as entertainment. Understanding the varied appeals of these two books helps us fill out the larger picture relating to how vernacular literacy was valued, developed, and applied.

This contribution shows, on the example of the letters of Paulinus of Nola, called the Christian Cicero, issues related to the power and role of the word, both spoken and written. Paulinus, being a master of the word, repeatedly indicates in his letters the word as having the power to embody the interlocutor during his physical absence, to know another man, to instruct, and to strengthen. Paulinus’ letters, but also his poems, are a practical implementation of these postulates, and that is why Paulinus of Nola appears to us as well as an example and a model of broadly understood responsibility for the power and role of the word.

Resumen: El presente artículo sostiene que en las Ep. LXXVII y LXXVIII Séneca utiliza el discurso ejemplar críticamente con el objetivo de mostrar que la evaluación moral de una acción no es unívoca, lo cual habilita vías alternativas para convertirse en un héroe ejemplar. En particular, la Ep. LXXVIII enfatiza cómo la capacidad de superar las molestias físicas y psicológicas de una enfermedad crónica puede permitirle al proficiens estoico alcanzar un estatus ejemplar. La narratio autobiográfica situada al comienzo de esta carta guía la atención del lector hacia el ego epistolar en tanto exemplum viviente de lo que la epistula defiende.

Plutarch, Alex. 27. 8, records a letter of Alexander to his mother Olympias about the visit to the Oracle of Zeus Ammon in the Oasis of Siwah: he wrote that he received some secret responses after the dialogue with the priest, but he would reveal them to her, and to her alone, on his return.
This letter, considered genuine by many modern scholars (such as Tarn and Hamilton), is very interesting for studying the links between Alexander and the Egyptian/Oriental behaviour, chiefly because the letters are often little considered for the historical research: on the contrary, these sources are important because they are contemporary.
This paper aims at understanding which responses Alexander received and at demonstrating that Alexander – also after Siwah – did not regard himself as a god, but that the dialogue with the priest was of great political importance. Firstly, it is useful to recall that Plutarch, 28. 1-6, records – just after his account of the visit of Siwah – that Alexander bore himself differently towards the Greeks and the Oriental people and that he used his presumed divinity for the subjugation of the Barbarians; secondly, in 27. 4, it is written that Alexander asked the priest about his conquest of Asia. For these and other reasons, I will propose that the secret responses received by Alexander were about his oriental policy.

La monografia indaga nella sua globalità il fenomeno dei manuali o dei trattati per imparare a scrivere lettere del XVIII secolo, ossia di pubblicazioni anche molto diverse fra loro che, nonostante oggi siano spesso dimenticate, ebbero talvolta grande successo di pubblico nel XVIII secolo e anche nel XIX. In questo lavoro ho studiato l'epistolografia settecentesca partendo, quindi, da una prospettiva tutta interna e in gran parte nuova per l'Italia: oggetto di studio principale è, infatti, la manualistica. Spesso alle ampie platee, questa letteratura diventa ora per noi lo specchio fedele di convinzioni diffuse e ben radicate, di sicuro presenti anche nella formazione delle persone colte. Ne esce un panorama ricco di nuove voci, nel quale si notano sia il grande successo della produzione epistolare e precettistica francese tradotta in italiano, sia la buona accoglienza di opere più legate alla tradizione italiana oppure che già proponevano come modelli le lettere di scrittori italiani settecenteschi. Questa seconda edizione, completamente rivista, è arricchita da una Premessa di Amedeo Quondam, da nuovi capitoli e da una aggiornata bibliografia.

Der Beitrag ist der Sammlung der deutschen Postkarten von Rafał Kubica aus Mieszkowice (Bärwalde), die fast 500 Sammelstücke umfasst, gewidmet. Die Sammlung wurde nach genauen geographischen und geschichtlichen Kriterien angelegt. Es handelt sich um die Postkarten aus dem Gebiet, das zwischen Cedynia (Zehden), Trzcińsko-Zdrój (Bad Schönfließ), Warnice (Warnitz) und Czelin (Zellin) liegt und die vor 1945 herausgegeben wurden. Wie der Sammler sagt, bedeutet das Sammeln der Postkarten für ihn „eine Reise in die Vergangenheit“, das Entdecken von Landschaften in der Neumark, die nicht mehr existieren. Die Kollektion ist ein umfangreiches ikonographisches Archiv, das das Kennenlernen, die Analyse der Kulturlandschaft und die Feststellung der Veränderungen in der Region in den letzten 100 Jahren möglich macht. Die Karten sind jedoch nicht nur Bildmaterial. Sie beinhalten auch die Texte, vor allem die Postkarten, die abgeschickt wurden. Dann werden sie zu einzigartigen Dokumenten, die aus Bild, einer Narration über das Bild, aus Informationen zum Autor und zum Empfänger der Karte, sowie aus genauen Informationen zum Datum und dem Ort des Entstehens, bestehen.
Alle diese Informationen haben dabei eine einheitliche und synthetische Form, was die methodische Untersuchung und Interpretation einfacher macht. Das sind die Gründe, für die die Sammlung von Rafał Kubica einen großen Wert für die die Forscher der Geschichte der Region hat.

Die einzelnen Beiträge verbindet das Bestreben der internationalen Brieforscher_innen, die Ästhetik des weiblichen Briefes aus drei Jahrhunderten einer kulturhistorischen Bilanz zu unterziehen, den Einfluss von gesellschaftlichen und kulturellen Faktoren auf die Entfaltung der weiblichen Briefkultur zu untersuchen sowie die Aufgaben der heutigen Briefedition und den Umgang mit Nachlässen zu erwägen. Diesen Zielen entsprechend werden keine abgeschlossenen Studien präsentiert, sondern eher pionierartige, die den Weg zu weiteren, notwendigen Forschungen eröffnen wollen.

Durante la Edad Contemporánea tuvieron lugar acontecimientos traumáticos (migraciones, guerra y exilio) que trajeron consigo un auge de la escritura epistolar. Tras la derrota republicana en la Guerra Civil más de medio millón de españoles cruzaron la frontera con Francia y, muchos de ellos, fueron recluidos en campos de internamiento. Estos refugiados se sirvieron de la carta como instrumento para mantener su nexo de unión con el exterior y como arma para solicitar ayuda. De ahí que fuera tan importante tener un servicio de correos que les permitiera el intercambio epistolar. Propiciado por los mismos refugiados, apoyado por el gobierno francés y consolidado gracias a diversas organizaciones asistenciales, la organización del correo en los campos fue una realidad que ayudó a los exiliados a sobrellevar este momento de crisis. En la presente ponencia se tratará de arrojar luz sobre el funcionamiento de este precario sistema de correos, así como, sobre los esfuerzos llevados a cabo por diversas instituciones de ayuda para facilitar esta tarea a los exiliados. Analizaremos este problema partiendo de los testimonios que los propios refugiados dejaron en sus memorias, de los diversos informes realizados por los delegados de la UGT sobre los campos y de diversa documentación de la Cruz Roja Internacional.

This article discusses three recent studies on the Letters of Pliny, including a biography (Winsbury, Pliny the Younger. A Life in Roman Letters), a commentary (Whitton, Pliny the Younger. 'Epistles' Book II), and a critical study (Gibson and Morello, Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger. An Introduction). It pays specific attention to recent interpretations of letter collections as structured unities.

In the corpus of apocryphal Cynic letters those attributed to Diogenes stand out: they form the bulk of the letters and they are the most humorous. This corresponds with representations of him as a provocateur elsewhere in imperial Greek literature. This article focuses on the topic of sex in Diogenes’ letters, and answers two main questions: first, whether the sexual humor of the letters is more risqué than what we find in the other sources; second, how this sexual humor con- tributes to the overall purpose of the apocryphal Diogenes letters. I suggest that even though in the letters euphemistic language persists, they treat the Diogenes anecdotes about sex in greater detail than anywhere else. The provocative, risqué humor contained in these anecdotes would serve to entice and entertain audiences in order to get them engaged in Cynic philosophy.

Primo paragrafo dell'Introduzione della tesi triennale, in cui si chiarisce il quadro storico che porta Biondo Flavio a scrivere il suo "De expeditione in Turcos", vero e proprio trattato geo-politico in forma di epistola inviato ad Alfonso il Magnanimo. Alla vigilia del 1° agosto 1453, data della stesura dell’epistola "Ad Alphonsum Aragonensem serenissimum regem de expeditione in Turcos", i territori conquistati dal "Magnus Turcus" erano sempre più numerosi: i nemici ottomani erano sempre più vicini alla penisola italiana e la minaccia riguardava anche gli Hungari e i Germani. Biondo era stato lungimirante, considerando che nell’aprile dell’anno precedente aveva pronunciato la sua "Oratio" alla presenza dello stesso Alfonso e dell’imperatore Federico III d’Asburgo in occasione delle nozze di quest’ultimo con l’infanta del Portogallo Eleonora d’Aviz.

This paper provides an overview of the Roman military correspondence on papyrus, ostrakon and tablet.The first part presents the four main corpora of Roman official military letters (the Vindolanda tablets, the ostraka from the Eastern Desert of Egypt, the Dura Europos papyri and the ostraka from BuNjem) and the second one deals about the mail management and transportation on the basis of epistolary documentation. A final section collects the main official letters dealing about military topics.

Este artículo pone en cuestión la integridad textual de la carta más conocida de César Vallejo y urge a los especialistas a que pongan en cuarentena ciertas citas que Orrego hace de su correspondencia con Vallejo. En él se llama la atención sobre el afán del primero por hacer del poeta un autor ajeno a la influencia foránea o limeña, así como sobre su insistencia en resaltar su apoyo inicial hacia el poeta y su condición de su figura tutelar durante toda su etapa peruana. Esta última aseveración, sin embargo, no está contrastada y ha opacado influencias más significativas durante el periodo 1918-1922 que merecen ser investigadas. En el trabajo se analizan, especialmente, los avatares de la famosa carta de César Vallejo a Antenor Orrego tras la publicación de Trilce. El texto, tempranamente divulgado por José Carlos Mariátegui en 7 ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana (1928) merece ser cuestionado ya que el hecho de que Vallejo sea su autor en su literalidad es, cuando menos, dudoso. Para poner de relieve las razones de nuestras dudas enumeramos, en primer lugar, las diferentes instancias de la historia textual de esta carta; en segundo lugar, hacemos un recorrido por algunos escritos de Antenor Orrego para tener una visión panorámica de cómo utilizó su correspondencia con Vallejo en su lectura de la obra del poeta.

The Karamazov Correspondence: Letters of Vladimir S. Soloviev represents the first fully annotated and chronologically arranged collection of the Russian philosopher-poet's most important letters, the vast majority of which have never before been translated into English. Soloviev was widely known for his close association with Fyodor M. Dostoevsky in the final years of the novelist's life, and these letters reflect many of the qualities and contradictions that also personify the title characters of Dos-toevsky's last and greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov. The selected letters cover all aspects of Soloviev's life, ranging from vital concerns about human rights and the political and religious turmoil of his day to matters related to family and friends, his love life, and early drafts of his works, including poetic endeavors.

Learn more & purchase: https://www.academicstudiespress.com/russianandslaviclit/the-karamazov-correspondence

All’interno dell’Europa rinascimentale una figura emerge come baluardo e principale tramite della cultura greca in Occidente: è quella del cardinal Bessarione, l’“ultimo bizantino”, intellettuale, letterato, bibliofilo, punto di riferimento per tutti gli immigrati greci in Italia. Le lettere greche del Cardinal Bessarione. Nuovi percorsi di ricerca è la prima monografia interamente dedicata alla collezione di epistole greche del cardinal Bessarione: in essa trovano spazio nove saggi inediti, ognuno dei quali contiene una nuova edizione di una o più lettere greche, con traduzione italiana e note di commento. Non si tratta però solo di un libro dedicato a Bessarione: grazie allo studio del suo epistolario nuova luce viene gettata sulle vicende di suoi illustri corrispondenti, come Giovanni Eugenico e Giorgio Gemisto Pletone. Inoltre, la grande ricchezza di contenuti rende le lettere di Bessarione una fonte importantissima per gli studi riguardanti la filosofia, la politica e la storia tardobizantine, la storia dei manufatti librari e la fortuna dei classici nell’Umanesimo italiano.