Notes on the epistolary reading protocol

Abstract

Based on the confession of Clarice Lispector, which defines the characterMacabéa of The Hour of the Star as someone who “never received a letter in his life”,this text aims to promote theoretical and literary interfaces capable of orienting thevicissitudes of the epistolary and its reception in contemporary times. The letters aretools that lend themselves to essentially autobiographical writing connecting fictionand reality. In addition to the phatic function inherent to mail, our reflections onwriting and reading letters cultivate the principle of reciprocity envisaged by Foucault,the “camaraderiedevice” suggested by Helene Hanff, the presentification processdeveloped by Landowski and the construction of a singular space and metonymy of thebody defined by Arrou-Vignod. The aim is thus to analyze the intricacies that overlapthe sender and recipients, public and private, presence and absence and truth andfiction. Also it is intended to recognize resemblance between diary and letters fromreadings by Philippe Lejeune and Blanchot. From the perspective of autobiographicalwriting and reading, in order to question the ownership of a letter, the strategies tosearch for the anonymity and the specifics of the discursive practice of letters.