TY - JOUR

T1 - Immaterial Correspondence

T2 - Letters, Bodies, and Desire in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette

AU - Koehler, Karin

N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Bronte Studies on 6 March 2018, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14748932.2018.1425038.

PY - 2018/3

Y1 - 2018/3

N2 - This article argues that Charlotte Brontë’s Villette (1853) rewrites a prevalent narrative convention, encoded in eighteenth-century literary culture, of using letters as substitutes for correspondents’ bodies. The novel features a character/narrator who deliberately represses the material aspects of correspondence, staging a gradual disembodiment of epistolary exchange. Lucy Snowe, I propose, uses the epistolary medium to circumvent prescriptive accounts of sexual difference and hierarchy. Letters become a crucial instrument in Lucy’s endeavour to reconcile her romantic, intellectual, and professional ambitions, as they allow her to erase her body – and its culturally encoded meanings – from the process of communication.

AB - This article argues that Charlotte Brontë’s Villette (1853) rewrites a prevalent narrative convention, encoded in eighteenth-century literary culture, of using letters as substitutes for correspondents’ bodies. The novel features a character/narrator who deliberately represses the material aspects of correspondence, staging a gradual disembodiment of epistolary exchange. Lucy Snowe, I propose, uses the epistolary medium to circumvent prescriptive accounts of sexual difference and hierarchy. Letters become a crucial instrument in Lucy’s endeavour to reconcile her romantic, intellectual, and professional ambitions, as they allow her to erase her body – and its culturally encoded meanings – from the process of communication.

M3 - Article

VL - 43

SP - 136

EP - 146

JO - Brontë Studies

JF - Brontë Studies

SN - 1474-8932

IS - 2

ER -