The Correlation between Historiography and Literature of Confession

Abstract

Correspondence, alongside with autobiographies, memoirs and diaries, belongs to the literature of confession. Being a literary perception, it also maintains its quality as a source of information for historiographers. It is difficult to identify from confessional writing how much belongs to the actual history and how much is literature. The present study will offer some suggestions on this perspective and will provide a historical retrospective of the Epistle which reveals its contradictory way to great literature. We shall try to delineate between the actual and the literary correspondence, making some reference to the poetics of communication. In this respect, we shall address the following dichotomies: private/public correspondence, documentary/authentic/fictional correspondence etc.

Cuvinte-cheie: corelaţie, istoriografie, literatură, confesiune, scriere

REZUMAT

Corespondenţa, alături de autobiografii, memorii şi jurnale, aparţine literaturii confesiunii. Fiind o percepţie literară, ea îşi menţine şi calitatea de sursă de informaţii pentru istoriografi. Este dificil de identificat din scrierea confesivă cât aparţine istoriei propriu-zise şi cât este literatură. Prezentul studiu va oferi câteva sugestii în această perspectivă şi o retrospectivă istorică a epistolei, care dezvăluie drumul său contradictoriu către marea literatură. Vom încerca să delimităm corespondenţa propriu-zisă de cea literară, făcând referire la poetica comunicării. În acest sens, vom aborda următoarele dihotomii: corespondenţă privată/ publică, corespondenţă documentară/autentică/ficţională etc.

LANGUAGES OF PUBLICATION

English (main text); English and Italian (corpus)

UDC: 821.135.1-6.09 

REFERENCES

Bădescu, L. (2007). The Epistle in the Medieval Portuguese Literature. Parallel 45.

Cernovodeanu, P., Florin, C. (Eds.). (1980). C. Brîncoveanu. Academy of  the Socialist Republic.

Cesereanu, R. (2005). The Gulag in the Romanian Consciousness. Memoirs and the Literature of Communist Prisons and Camps. Polirom.

Chiţimia, I. C., Toma, St. (Eds.). (1984). A Reader of Old Romanian Literature (vol. I). Editura Dacia.

Ciocîrlie, L. (1981). Big Correspondence. Romanian Paper.

Mazilu, D. H. (2003). The Voievod beyond the Throne Room. Editura Polirom.                                         

Munteanu, S., Oancea, I. (1972). A Romanian Reader. Reading Literary Texts. Old and Early Modern Age.

Papadima, L. (1999). Literature and Communication. Author-Reader Relationship in the Prose of 1848. Editura Polirom.

Roche, D. (1981). The People of Paris. Editions Aubier.

Săndulescu, Al. (1972). Epistolary Literature. Editura Minerva.

Toma, R. (1982). Episteme, Ideology, Novel: French Eighteenth Century. Editura Univers.

Tournier, M. (2009). Public Journal (S. R. Ruba, trad.). Humanitas.

Ursa, A. (2006). Metamorphoses of the Mirror. Limes.

Received: February 13, 2015 | Reviewed: February 25, 2015 | Accepted for publication: February 27, 2015

Google Scholar cited by