Enmities in Writers’ Correspondence

EPURE / Editions et Presses Universitaires de Reims, 2023, 252 pp.

ISBN: 9782374962115
256 pages
Price: €20
Publication date: 15 September 2023

There are few friendships that do not, at some point in their development, threaten to turn sour. Yet, between correspondents, acrimonious letters can only be exchanged if the antagonism retains even a hint of friendly attachment. It is therefore not so much hatred as specifically epistolary and literary enmities that the contributions in this volume analyse. Could the literary enemy constitute a sort of alter ego? Is taking one’s adversary to task not an effective way of honing one’s style? Does the palpable animosity in the letter-writer’s correspondence find concrete expression in the writer’s work?

These are the questions that guide the exploration of spiteful or at least unfriendly correspondence, drawn from a corpus of study belonging to the post-Romantic era.