An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of letters between the fictional characters of a narrative. The term is often extended to cover novels that intersperse documents of other kinds with the letters, most commonly diary entries and newspaper clippings, and sometimes considered to include novels composed of documents even if they do not include letters at all. More recently, epistolaries may include electronic documents such as recordings and radio, blog posts, and e-mails. The word epistolary is derived from Latin from the Greek word epistolē, meaning a letter . This type of fiction is also sometimes known by the German term Briefroman or more generally as epistolary fiction.
A letter is a written message conveyed from one person to another through a medium. Something epistolary means that it is a form of letter writing. The term usually excludes written material intended to be read in its original form by large numbers of people, such as newspapers and placards, although even these may include material in the form of an "open letter". The typical form of a letter for many centuries, and the archetypal concept even today, is a sheet of paper that is sent to a correspondent through a postal system. A letter can be formal or informal, depending on its audience and purpose. Besides being a means of communication and a store of information, letter writing has played a role in the reproduction of writing as an art throughout history. Letters have been sent since antiquity and are mentioned in the Iliad. Historians Herodotus and Thucydides mention and use letters in their writings.
An epistle is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as part of the scribal-school writing curriculum. The letters in the New Testament from Apostles to Christians are usually referred to as epistles. Those traditionally attributed to Paul are known as Pauline epistles and the others as catholic epistles.
Juan Luis Vives y March was a Spanish (Valencian) scholar and Renaissance humanist who spent most of his adult life in the southern Habsburg Netherlands. His beliefs on the soul, insight into early medical practice, and perspective on emotions, memory and learning earned him the title of the "father" of modern psychology. Vives was the first to shed light on some key ideas that established how psychology is perceived today.
Dispositio is the system used for the organization of arguments in the context of Western classical rhetoric. The word is Latin, and can be translated as "organization" or "arrangement".
Panaetius of Rhodes was an ancient Greek Stoic philosopher. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon and Antipater of Tarsus in Athens, before moving to Rome where he did much to introduce Stoic doctrines to the city, thanks to the patronage of Scipio Aemilianus. After the death of Scipio in 129 BC, he returned to the Stoic school in Athens, and was its last undisputed scholarch. With Panaetius, Stoicism became much more eclectic. His most famous work was his On Duties, the principal source used by Cicero in his own work of the same name.
Charles Blount, 5th Baron Mountjoy, was an English courtier and patron of learning.
The Correspondence ofPaul and Seneca, also known as the Letters of Paul and Seneca or Epistle to Seneca the Younger, is a collection of letters claiming to be between Paul the Apostle and Seneca the Younger. There are 8 epistles from Seneca, and 6 replies from Paul. They were purportedly authored from 58–64 CE during the reign of Roman Emperor Nero, but appear to have actually been written in the middle of the fourth century. Until the Renaissance, the epistles were seen as genuine, but scholars began to critically examine them in the 15th century, and today they are held to be inauthentic forgeries.
The Education of a Christian Prince is a Renaissance "how-to" book for princes, by Desiderius Erasmus, which advises the reader on how to be a good Christian prince. The book was dedicated to Prince Charles, who later became Habsburg Emperor Charles V.
Lawrence of Aquilegia was a thirteenth-century Italian canon and teacher. He is best known for his treatises on the ars dictaminis—the medieval art of letter writing. Lawrence’s major works found inspiration in Ciceronian rhetoric but introduced a new phatic element to writing and include the Summa dictaminis edita iuxta doctrinam Tullii and the Practica sive usus dictaminis edita ad utilitatem rudium. The Practica is his most popular work and characterizes his pragmatic, phatic approach to letter writing through the use of tables.
The Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, also known as the Moral Epistles and Letters from a Stoic, is a letter collection of 124 letters that Seneca the Younger wrote at the end of his life, during his retirement, after he had worked for the Emperor Nero for more than ten years. They are addressed to Lucilius Junior, the then procurator of Sicily, who is known only through Seneca's writings.
Gasparino Barzizza was an Italian grammarian and teacher noted for introducing a new style of epistolary Latin inspired by the works of Cicero.
Ars dictaminis is the art of letter-writing, which often intersects with the art of rhetoric.
Ciceronianus is a treatise written by Desiderius Erasmus and published in 1528. It attacks Ciceronianism, a style of scholarly Latin that closely imitated Cicero's style and voice. Many Ciceronians even refused to use specific words, even specific verb forms, if Cicero's writings did not include them verbatim. The Ciceronians validated this dogmatic approach by insisting that Cicero's style was the best style of Latin. In the 16th century, this style was popular among Renaissance humanists who wanted to recover Classical Latin. Erasmus also sought to defend medieval Latinists whose allegedly barbarous style the Ciceronians had ridiculed.
Giovanni Sulpizio da Veroli or Johannes Sulpitius Verulanus or Verolensis was an Italian Renaissance humanist and rhetorician. Known to Erasmus, he was the author of a work on epistolary art, the proper composition and ornamentation of letters, De componendis et ornandis epistoli.
Carolus Maneken or Carolus Virulus (1419?-1493) was a professor at the Leuven University and the author of the Formulae Epistularum.
The Educationof a Christian Woman was an early sixteenth-century book by Juan Luis Vives, written for the education of the future Mary I of England, precocious daughter of Henry VIII. Written in 1523, the book was originally published in Latin with the title of De Institutione Feminae Christianae and was dedicated to Catherine of Aragon. The work was translated into English by Richard Hyrde around 1529 becoming then known by the title Instruction of a Christian Woman.
Simon Verepaeus or Verrept was a Dutch priest and educator in the 16th-century Habsburg Netherlands, whose works on prayer, Latin grammar, and Latin composition continued to be reprinted until the early 19th century.
Alonso de Idiáquez y Yurramendi was a Spanish nobleman and politician.
A letter collection consists of a publication, usually a book, containing a compilation of letters written by a real person. Unlike an epistolary novel, a letter collection belongs to non-fiction literature. As a publication, a letter collection is distinct from an archive, which is a repository of original documents.