THE EPISTOLARY FORM IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY FICTION DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Catherine Gubernatis, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2007 Dissertation Committee: Professor Sebastian D.G. Knowles, Advisor Approved by Professor Brian McHale Professor David Herman ______________________________ Advisor English Graduate Program ABSTRACT In my dissertation, I argue the use of the epistolary form in twentieth-century fiction reflects the major principles of the modern and postmodern literary movements, separating epistolary practices in fiction from their real world counterparts. Letters and letter writing played an important role in the development of the English novel in the middle eighteenth century. A letter is traditionally understood to be a genuine depiction of what the writer is currently feeling, and when used in fiction, letters become a way to represent characters’ internal states and to present accounts of recent events. Thus letters in eighteenth-century fiction establish that language can clearly reveal the subjective experience. The modernists, however, believe that all knowledge, even subjective knowledge, is limited and after World War I, lose confidence in language’s ability to describe the modern era. They revive the epistolary genre and use letters in their works precisely to reject the conventions that had been founded in the eighteenth century. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the use of letters in fiction continues to evolve. Postmodern authors use the epistolary form to investigate the ways language complicates representations of the subjective experience and to explore the letter’s relationship to different states of being. The letter in fiction, then, can be adapted to express different theories about art and literature. Thus letters are used in twentieth- century literature not so much because they are a vital part of a media ecology, but ii because their relationship with actual media is dissolving. In addition, comparing the functions of letters in the eighteenth century and the functions of letters in the twentieth century demonstrate that using the letter in fiction automatically puts novels in conversation with texts from previous literary eras. The majority of epistolary studies have discussed the relationship between letters and literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. My study argues that despite their apparent anachronism, letters are a dynamic literary form that has contributed to the evolution of fiction over the last 100 years. iii To Pat, the one who understands me iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I believe the best scholarly work is a collaborative effort, so I would like to acknowledge the following individuals: First of all, I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee for all of the time they have invested in this project, for all the feedback they have given me, and for reading all of my horrible first drafts. I am especially grateful to my advisor Sebastian Knowles for his belief in the importance of my work and his unwavering support throughout this progress. I would also like to thank Brian McHale, whose ideas not only influenced this project, but whose previous work with me became the cornerstone of this dissertation and inspired me to pursue this avenue of study. Thanks also to David Herman for his willingness to discuss any aspect of my scholarly work and for taking the time to write thorough comments on all of my drafts, helping me to understand the subtle nuances of language. I also wish to thank members of the English department not on my dissertation committee. My conversations with Aman Garcha not only helped develop my job materials, but helped crystallize my ideas about this project and provided me with a vocabulary to discuss them. I am also grateful to the late Kitty Locker who always emphasized the importance of asking good questions. I would also like to thank Kathleen v Gagel Griffin for her calming demeanor and for helping me navigate the OSU bureaucracy. Lastly I am especially grateful to James Phelan: distinguished professor, role model, mentor, excellent writer, and sincere listener. Even though he is not officially on my committee, our discussions have left a mark on this project, have greatly improved my writing, and have helped me realize my full potential as a scholar. Special thanks to Jared Beglinger for suggesting I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I am also grateful to my friends: “There is such a shelter in each other.” I would like to thank Robyn Malo-Johnston for her constant solidarity and empathy throughout this last, stressful year of graduate school. I would also like to thank Akhila Ramnarayan for her mentoring, her cheerleading, and her insightful comments, specifically on the introduction to this dissertation and on graduate school in general. I would also like to acknowledge Anna Nogar, my childhood best friend who has now become my colleague. Thank you for being there when I needed to talk and always being willing to share both my failures and successes. I am also grateful to the support my family has shown me. I would like to thank my dad for always encouraging me to follow my dreams of being a professor, even though as a PhD himself, he was surely aware of the bumpy road ahead. And I am especially grateful to my mom for always believing in me and for taking up the sword to fight the endless battles against typos and bad grammar in my writing. vi Lastly, I want to acknowledge my fiancé Patrick Dannen. I cannot begin to describe the ways you’ve supported me over the last couple of years, and language fails me when I try to express how grateful I am to you, so hopefully this will suffice—thank you and I love you. vii VITA December 19, 1976…………………………....Born—Los Alamos, New Mexico 2003……………………………………………M.A. English, The Ohio State University 1999……………………………………………B.A. English/History Cum Laude, Mount Holyoke College 2001-03, 2005-06……………………………...GTA, The Ohio State University 2003-05…………..............................................GTA, Writing Center The Ohio State University 2003-05…………..............................................GAA, University-Wide Undergraduate Curriculum Review Committee, The Ohio State University 2006 ……………………………………………Recipient of an English Department Summer Fellowship, The Ohio State University viii 2007……………………………………………Recipient of the Mary Lundie Stewart Vorman Scholarship and an English Department Two Chapter Dissertation Fellowship, The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major field: English ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………....ii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...iv Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………..v Vita…………………………………………………………………………………..….viii Chapters: Introduction: “It isn’t going to be what we expected”: The Surprising Use of Letters in Twentieth-Century Fiction…………………… 1 1. “Till this moment I never knew myself”: Letters in Nineteenth-Century Fiction ……………………………….................24 The Integration of the Epistolary Form: Pride and Prejudice and The Moonstone......…………..............................……..27 The Questioning of the Epistolary Tradition. ……………………………..........51 2. “Venerable are letters, infinitely brave, forlorn, and lost”: Modernism and The Epistolary Form…………………………………...............70 The Personal Document Becomes Impersonal…………………….....................74 Letters and Lying.......................………………………………………………...88 x The Struggle to Write……….....………………………………………………..100 The Epistolary Form and Art…….........................................……………..........103 3. “All the world’s in want and is writing a letters”: Joyce’s Experiments with the Epistolary Form.......…………………………....118 Dubliners..........…………………………………………………………............119 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man……………………......………………124 Ulysses…………………………………………………………............……….127 Finnegans Wake………………………………………………………………...149 The Letter as Literature.......………………………………………...…………..165 4. “You’ve got mail”: The Epistolary Tradition in the Postmodern Era......…………………………………………………………………………..171 The Problems with Language...............................................…………………...173 The Fragmentation of the Storyworld.................……………………………….185 Letters and External Readers…………………………………………………...198 Communication in the Postmodern Era...............................................................207 Conclusion: “There’s something stuck here”: The Future of the Letter in Fiction...................................................…................222 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………236 xi INTRODUCTION “It isn’t going to be what we expected”: The Surprising Use of Letters in Twentieth-Century Fiction One may as well begin with Helen Schlegel’s letters to her sister Margaret in EM Forster’s Howards End: “Dearest Meg, It isn't going to be what we expected” (3). In her letter, Helen writes that the historic, bucolic house at Howards End appeared to be an unusual home for the capitalistic, urban Wilcox clan, but for readers of the novel, Forster’s choice to incorporate letters into the first chapter can be seen as equally unusual. Forster wrote the majority of Chapter I of his novel in a style that was influenced by eighteenth-century fiction. The epistolary novel was one of the most pervasive forms of fiction during the 1700s, but the end of the century saw a sharp decline in the number of epistolary