| Drawing upon the fields of literary criticism, gender studies, and cultural studies, this dissertation locates the eighteenth-century love letter in it socio-historical and literary contexts. It becomes clear from the analysis of the dialogic nature of the correspondences that new variants and solutions in the discourse of love do not emerge suddenly during the era of Romanticism, but they are being drafted time and again in the love letter. The close readings of the discursive strategies in the partners' dialogues ultimately point to a telling response to the sexual politics of the period.; The chapters are thematically linked, as I pose the same questions in regard to paired sets of correspondences between Luise Mejer and Heinrich Christian Boie (1777–1785), Caroline von Dacheroden and Wilhelm von Humboldt (1788–1791), and Sophie Mereau and Clemens Brentano (1798–1803). In the first chapter, the specific nature of the letter is discussed with reference to how texts have been selected for publication, how editorial decisions affect the reading of texts, and how to view the concept of authenticity in light of the aforementioned problems. The investigation of the correspondence between Mejer and Boie in chapter two reveals that Mejer, following the dominant discourse of her time, placed “friendship” over “love” as the more valuable form of interaction. The challenges of the semantics of sentimental discourse with its complete absence of sexuality unfold in the epistolary dialogue. The letter of Dacheroden and Humboldt discussed in chapter three serve merely as an essential poetic component in the self's process of fashioning an idealized discourse of love. Though Dacheroden has no room of her own in this epistolary dialogue, her presence is essential to set the process of self-realization in motion. Chapter four analyzes the dialogic nature of epistolarity with all is dissonances and differences in the correspondence between Sophie Mereau and Clemens Brentano. In their letters, the correspondents unfold their poetological concepts through self-realization and through constant challenging of the partner. Ultimately, all letter-writers clash within the charged discursive field of eighteenth-century culture. My conclusion reflects on the important of the love letter in the process of identity formation. |
