History Of The Letter And Epistolary

History of the letter and epistolary

Introduction

The present work aims to draw the history of the letter from its birth to the present day, yes, in a summary way. It also intends to understand how and why the emergence of the epistolary novel to subsequently expose a set of characteristics of the epistolary novels and put them in relation to the brief letters of Cadalso.

In the first part, it will be offered, in addition to the path of the letter as a communicative medium, a brief summary of the work in question, since this is the initial point of the current work.

In the second part, the step will be exposed from the letter used as a literary medium to the letter as a literary subgenre that has its result in the epistolary novel.

Finally, it is intended to detail the characteristics of the epistolary novel to be able to better understand some of the letters that are presented in the work of Cadalso.

Brief History of the Letter

Posted in 1789. Through 199. Once in the Peninsula, he decides.

Sometimes amazed, sometimes worried and sometimes bewildered, write a series of letters that are received by their sender in Morocco: Ben-Kley. This was the protector of the young Gazel, who also has another protector in Spain: Nuño.

The figure of Nuño is responsible for guiding Gazel among the ins and outs of Spanish culture, it is the one that explains, guides and instructs the Moroccan. Scholarly figure, widely aware of the history of Spain, is the character that serves Gazel – and the author – to explain everything that he, immigrant, after all, does not know.

Therefore, in certain letters we find transcripts of works by Nuño that Gazel adds to the letters he sends to Ben-Kley. In addition, Ben-Bley and Nuño also maintain a correspondence relationship, thus forming the epistolary triangle that serves as a conductive thread for the development of history.

This story goes further than what Gazel can observe and understand. He is the character that observes and compares not only the traditions of both countries, but also the behavior of its inhabitants, education, history – quasi -common history, since it is made often reference to the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and toThe subsequent Catholic reconquest–.

As for issues, several can be observed, such as: the longing for the past, the decline of Spain, a criticism of the education of young people, the stagnation of science or, for example, the cultural clash – which perhaps feltCadalso itself on one of its numerous trips–.

We must start considering how much letters are used as a means of communication;According to Kurt Spang:

“Epistolary anthologies are preserved by Latin authors such as Cicero, Ovid or Horacio (ad atticum, epistula ad pisons, former ponto epistula […]). They acquire particular fame the biblical letters of San Pedro, San Juan and especially from the Apostle Saint Paul. Its purpose is naturally informative, but above all didactic, apostolic in the etymological sense of the word."

This places us around the 1st century.C. Since Horacio was born in 65 and. C. and died in 8 to. C.  Only with this can an idea of the antiquity of correspondence be done. Although it could not be denied that its beginnings were many more previous.

For example, Castillo places the origins of the letter along with the origin of writing. Specifically tells us:

“Go ahead that the origin of the letter is as old as that of the writing itself, because it was enough for a will to communicate between people. As Armando Petrucci recalled, during the last 5.000 years in organized societies of the Mediterranean world and Western Europe there has always been a greater or lesser need for written correspondence. It does not miss that in the documentation recovered in the Assyrian neighborhood of Kaneh (Kültepe, Central Anatolia), from the houses of some merchants and dated at the beginning of the II millennium (C. 1920-1840 a. n. and.), There will be numerous letters, therefore to the formalization that Greeks and Byzantines made of the genre with that of Demetrio’s Elocutione and the Pseudo-Demetrio and Pseudo-Libanium forms."

The tradition of the love letter had already been treated by Ovid in its Arts Amanator. Since the beginning of the XII they were treated to dictate letters that followed the principles of ancient rhetoric (salutatio, that is, greeting, with the names of issuer and receiver; exordium, that is, transition to move the mood of the receiver; narratio, narratio,Exhibition of facts or the feelings of the epistological; petitio, that is, request for something; and conclusion or closing of the dictation) (ibid.).

Entering land of the Middle Ages, we can see how according to Castillo:

“It is evident that in the final centuries of the Middle Ages there was an important leap in its dissemination as a practice of social communication. Then both the epistolary exchanges of a diplomatic nature and those that occurred between people of different condition, especially among the members of the urban aristocracies and the most ambitious merchants, were more common and intense, according to them, for these, the wide collectionof the Tuscan merchant Francesco Datini, in whose file they are guarded. As regards the Hispanic sphere, of the same period is, for example, an appreciable set of women’s letters from the Barcelona patriciate written in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries;Or, at the beginning of this last century, the epistolary of Fernando I of Antequera with Queen Leonor and the infants of Aragon."

Regarding the epistolary speech, Ana Rueda tells us:

“The speech is one of the most enduring and complex forms of communication, which comes to the surface or is immersed according to the discursive climate of the time and its scriptural practices. In prose or verse, the letter has been half satirical, political and pedagogical. […] The flexibility of the genre has allowed it to adapt to love correspondence, the journalistic relationship, the travel registration, to the essay, to the utopian literature."

It also names some of the previous aspects of the epistolary genre such as: “The tradition of the love letter;the mask of an autobiographical self;the interspersed letters;the satirical vein of the letter;the traveling letter and the didactic letter ”(ibid.) Subsequently, some of these issues will be broken down into their corresponding section

As for the epistolary as a literary genre, says Spang himself that "written communication between a sender and a spacely and temporarily distanced recipient is the basic form of the genre".

He continues to say: "In the Renaissance a new modality arises, letters in the form of fictional dialogues with real characters already deceased or mythological figures". It is also said that one of the top representatives can be found in the figure of Petrarca;We can also find examples between the letters that Luther and Erasmus exchanged. Garcilaso to Boscán is a clear example of this:

Mr. Boscán, who has so much pleasure

to realize the thoughts,

Even the things that have no name,

You cannot miss with you matter,

Nor will it be necessary to look for style

Presto, different d’Ornamento pure

as is the epistle cultivated.

Between very great goods that I get

Perfeta friendship grants us

It is so careless and pure carelessness,

far from the curious sorrow;

And so, d’Atesta Libertad enjoying,

I say that I came, as for the first,

as healthy as the one that in twelve days

What you will only see has walked

When the end of the letter I will show you.

Lengthened and loose at your pleasure the rein,

Much more than the horse, thought,

and take me sometimes on the way

so sweet and pleasant that makes me

forget the work of the past;

others takes me for such hard steps

that with the force of the present desire

I also forget the past;

Sometimes I follow a pleasant medium

honest and rest, in what speech

of taste and ingenuity is exercised.

I was thinking and running one day

How many goods extended the hand

The one that showed the road,

And then voice, of the Friendship Example,

You offer me in these thoughts,

And with you at least it happens to me

A big thing, apparently strange,

And because you know it in a few verses,

is that, considering the benefits,

The honors and tastes that come to me

Highlight your friendship, which I have,

Nothing at greater price I estimate

I don’t even like the sweet state

as much as the love of my part.

This Comigo has so much force

that, knowing very well the other parts

of friendship and narrowness of us

With just here the soul gets tender;

And I know that it is used to take advantage of me

The delight, which is usually postponed

to the useful things and the serious.

Take me to scrutinize the cause of this

See so hard on me the effect,

And I find that benefit, the ornament,

The taste and pleasure that follows me

of the link d’A Amor, that our genius

tangled over our hearts,

They are things that do not go outside,

And in me the benefit only becomes.

But love, where by ventura

All things are born, if any,

that at your use and taste look,

It is great reason that in greater esteem

it is from me that all the rest,

The more generous and high part

It is the good that the Recembille;

So loving me, and I find it

that this delight mine is not madness.

Oh how run I am and repentant

of having praised the treatment

From the path of France and the inns!

Run that already for a liar

rightly tend to me;regretful

having wasting time in Alabaros

such a dignified thing about vituperio,

where you will find only lies,

Wireless wines, ugly waitresses,

greedy varlets, bad posts,

Great pay, little argan, long road;

get to the end of Naples, not having

left there buried some treasure,

except if you do not say that’s buried

what is never found or has.

To my Mr. Durall closely

hug from me, if I could.

Twelve of the month d’etre, from the earth

do was born the clear fire of Petrarca

And where the ashes are of fire.

In the previous case, we see that the epistle is versified, however, Spang tells us that this does not distort it (ibid.)

We also find an example in the poem of Quevedo letter from Escarramán to La Méndez:

Is already saved in the trena

Your dear Escarramán,

That some living pins

They set me without thinking.

I walked on bargain,

And crickets came to hunt,

That in me sing like in the haza

The nights of San Juan.

For water whipper

They say they will take me,

And to be so sardine

Shaw and Batan.

If you have honor, La Méndez,

If you have me,

Forced occasion is this

What can you show it in.

Contribute me with something,

Well, it’s my need

Such that I take from the executioner

The jubones that it gives me;

What time will come, La Méndez,

How happy you will praise yourself

That to scourge for your cause

They agreed to swallow.

To the Cercado Pava,

To the Chirinos, Guzmán,

To the Zolla and La Rocha,

To the Luisa and the Cerdán,

To mama, and Taita el Viejo,

That in your guard are they,

And all the gurulda

My parcels you will give.

Date in Seville, to the hundred

Of this month that runs already,

The youngest of your ruffians

And the greatest of here

Regarding this, he tells us. Castle: “From the 16th century, its communicative function intensified due to the concurrence, at least, of the following factors: social extension of literacy, increasing importance of writing in all areas of life, propitiatory situations of exchangesEpistolares (wars, emigration to America and prisons, especially) and mail development."That is, the XVI was the century that was the rise of correspondence that, as Castillo says, logically found in the literacy of Spanish society an ascending path.

Now, if the epistles want to literate, to become a subgenre of the novel, it must take elements present in the novel;That is what Spang tells us:

“The epistolary novel should inevitably have the invariants of the novel and to make it a narrative subgenre, supplementary and formal order variants that particularize it that particularize it must be added. The epistolary novel belongs to a group of border subgenres with characteristics in identical or very similar that can be subsumed under the concept of "autobiographical writing", that is, they are those narratives in which the narrator is both the figure participating in the story in the story, therefore, subject and object of the narration;This is the case, for example, in autobiography, in memoirs, the newspaper, etc. "

In fact, according to Rueda, "the first prose novel, composed entirely of letters is the process of love cards (1548) by Juan de Segura". This, he says, should have been inspired by the work of Giovanni Tagliente Opera Amorosa (1538). It also takes as a reference, always according to Rueda, Diego de San Pedro and his work prison of 1492. All this refers to those that Rueda calls the tradition of the love letter, a section mentioned above in this same work.

Also in the XVI there is the emergence of the letters in pastoral novels such as in the Diana de Montemayor, the Galatea of Cervantes or the Arcadia de Lope de Vega. Trend that followed in the XVII in work such as the Guarduña of Seville, of Solórzano or in Don Diego de Night of Salas Barbadillo. This is what it refers to when the interleaved cards are mentioned.

He also mentions the exchange of letters that takes place in chapter L of the second part of Quijote Entres Sancho, Teresa and the Duchess. Next, an example of this exchange, where the Duchess tells Sancho’s wife the fate of her husband:

Friend Teresa: The good parts of the goodness and ingenu. I have news that governs as a girifalte, of what I am very happy, and the Duke my lord, for the consequent;For what I give very much to the sky of not having fooled into having chosen him for such a government;Because I want Mrs. Teresa to know that a good governor in the world is difficult, and he makes me God as Sancho governs.

«There I send him, my dear, a string of corals with gold extremes: I will get out of oriental pearls;But who gives you the bone, would not want to see you dead: time will come when we know each other and communicate, and God knows what it will be. Pray to Sanchica your daughter, and say my part that looks up, that I have to marry highly when you think about it.

«Tell me that there are fat acorns: send me to two dozen;that I will estimate them very much, for being from your hand, and write me long, letting me know your health and your well -being;And if there is any thing, you have nothing to do;that her mouth will be measured, and God keeps it to me. Wear Place.

«Her friend, who wants her well

The Duchess."

Quevedo owes his first success to a satirical epistolary novel: Epistles of the Knight of the Tenaza (1627). This novel also served as inspiration for the writers of the 18th. However, this technique had already been used by authors such as the aforementioned Horacio. Rueda calls this the satirical vein of the letter (Ibid.).

This rise of the correspondence that is reflected in the incursion of the letters in the prose works was due to the "educational revolution" that took place in Europe in this century "caused by an increase in the demand for formal education, for reasons for reasonssocial and economic, and of the offer, for religious-proselitist reasons linked to the Protestant reform and the Catholic Counter-Reformation ”. However, this reform was not carried out in all areas, but in those most open and with greater intensity of commerce and the production and circulation of written culture.

We support the aforementioned thesis of the relationship between literacy and epistle in Castillo’s following statement:

“The development of the official and private correspondence from the five hundred was supported, therefore, in the paused but sustained ascent of literacy, favored in turn by the expansion and diversification of schools as well as by the greatest appreciation of instruction asform of social promotion. Because of this and, even more, to the dimensions achieved by the alphabetical mentality in the society of the early Modern Age, an increasing number of people felt the call of the letter as a communication instrument when situations of physical absence attended such asWar, emigration, jail or monastic life. Thus, a remarkable fact is the social extension of the authors of letters, even despite the fact that common people were not really contemplated in the social imaginary of the golden epistolary treaties, especially aimed at the professionals of the pen and theCutting Society."

De Tapia (1988) offers us a highly exemplifying table of the level of literacy of the Christian population in the eighteenth century Ávila

The following table also serves as an example in which the literacy rate is differentiated depending on occupations and trades:

You can notice how, obviously, manual trades have a lower literacy level than the rest of occupations. While the craftsmanship has an illiteration rate of 49%, the service section has 20% illiterate;thing, on the other hand, expected.

A remarkable case, and not because of the positivity of the matter, is that of women. Despite the shortage of subjects analyzed regarding the female gender, it can be seen that they follow the aforementioned trend;Also, we see that the percentage of literacy in much lower than in the case of men: in the handicraft section, we see that there are 95% illiterates, while on the side of the services, 57% did not know how to write.

Nor are great surprises when observing the most literate services: that of bureaucracy, ecclesiastical and sanitary;With rates that exceed 80%. (Ibid.)

Therefore, we can deduce that the use and writing of letters remained scarce among artisans, but increasingly frequent in professions that required an intellectual instruction to carry out.

Speaking of letters we cannot stop talking about the mail, Castillo tells us:

If literacy and the rise of graphic reason were necessary conditions for the flourish. A first milestone was the concession of the monopoly of mail between Spain, France, Germany and the Netherlands to Francisco de Tassis, appointed Major Mail of Castile in 1505, by royal card signed by Felipe el Hermoso in Brussels on January 18. Then came the regulation of the shipment of correspondence to American domains in 1509 as well as the creation of mail -mail positions in 1514, perpetually awarded Lorenzo Galíndez de Carvajal and their successors until 1778, and MAJA MAJOR DE NEW SPAINIn 1580, so at the end of the 16th century the postal system of the Hispanic monarchy already covered a considerable part of the empire. These Correos fundamentally attended the official requirements but were also used by individuals, as confirmed, for example, in the correspondence of the merchant Simón Ruiz. Regarding the progress in the Posta Net

As for the 18.323), Madrid (1.007), Ciudad Real (566) and Murcia (1.657), that is 4.884 signatures. The global result, in corrected rates is as follows:

• Level at 15.07% (signing well) or 34.2% literacy
• Level B 19.15% (signature)
• Level C (Bad signature) 9.79% semianalfabetos
• Level D (does not know how to sign) 55.97% of complete illiterates

If we take into account the previous picture, a slight decrease between the literate of the 18th century is perceived with respect to those of the XVI. Soubeyroux tells us that this may be due to the techniques used for the study of literacy, since these are not completely reliable. Personally, I think it may be due to an increase in population, especially in rural areas.

However, according to waiter (1996) from the government of Carlos IIII. His pedagogical orientation of his policy included:

•  Teaching classrooms (where proposals for educational reform of Gregorio Mayáns, Pablo de Olavide, Jovellanos, etc.)
•  The development of journalism (more than 70 different periodic publications came to be given during the reign of Carlos III).
•  The transformation of gatherings into academies of study and research and in societies dedicated to the promotion of the economy and, in particular, to the professional training of farmers. Also, real academies and economic societies of friends were formed.
•  The new sense that the theater charges as a cultural instrument of transformation of customs.

As far as mail is concerned, Castillo tells us:

“The majorities that occurred in the eighteenth century to the Socaire of the Bourbon Project of Administrative Reform and Centralization were still greater in the 18th century. Thus, in November 1706, in the middle of the war of succession, the monopoly of the Tassis family and the mail became a real income, ceded in usufruct to Diego de Murga and Juan de Goyeneche, who shortly after, in 1716, in 1716, in 1716, in 1716He was appointed first General Superintendent of Correos and Estafetas de España, while creating the ink seal with real shield for the official correspondence and a decree of postal rates was approved. In the following decades, the regulation of said service was completed through the regulation of 1720, the ordinances of 1743 and, ending the century, the General Ordinance of Correos, Postas and other bouquets added to the General Superintendence (1794). It was promulgated by Carlos IV, using "everything convenient" in the previous provisions, especially in the text of 1743, and "prescribing new rules in everything necessary and convenient to avoid the damages that the experience had discovered."

[] The role of literature is also mentioned as a transformer of society, then, says waiter: “Literature is understood as a means of expression, the writers of the time will not intend to innovate the literary genres, but to use them to transformthe society". Among the outstanding authors, we have Diego de Torres Villarroel with works such as Aquetera or Life boat, Leonardo Moratín with his neoclassical comedy formula and José Cadalso with his brown letters, published in El Correo de Madrid or the blind. We also have authors such as Feijóo or Jovellanos.

In the words of Feijóo himself:

“Writing with success is a very essential part of urbanity, and matter capable of innumerable precepts;But everyone can be supplied with the copy of good copies. Thus, the one who would like to be well instructed in her, read and re -re -reflected the letters of several Spanish discreets, which has not given birth public the wise and laborious Valencian Don Gregorio Mayans and Siscar, librarian of His Majesty and Professor of the Justinian Code,In the kingdom of Valencia. This for letters in our language. For Latinas, those who want a perfect teaching will find it in those of the doctors of Alicante D. Manuel Martí, who has just published in two volumes of eighth the aforementioned D. Gregorio Mayans;And in those of Mayans, published in a quarter volume in 1732. And true, I consider very important the use of the three books expressed, because the state in which Latinity is in Spain, especially in order to the family and epistolary style ”is hurt 

The 18th century also “is perhaps the maximum flowering period of the epistolacurrent newspaper precursors ". 

From the letter to the epistolary novel

Now, what can this be due? The answer is given to us Domínguez (1989, P. 47), who tells us: “After the establishment in Spain of a French dynasty in the person of Felipe V, grandson of Louis XIV, the severe Spanish court wanted to be a reflection of the ways and ways of the Gallic country. The writers did not get rid of this influence and prepared to pay printedness to the French model ”. Therefore, according to Domínguez, it is only a Francophilia that causes the emergence of the epistolary novel in Spain.

Regarding this, Rueda tells us: "The weather in Spain, as in the rest of Europe was especially favorable, for associating in a pleasant way and without boasting to didactic or critical literature, two raw materials of the Enlightenment"

In addition, as Domínguez continues, it is common. Not in vain he had already written his defense of the Spanish nation against the LXXVIII of Montesquieu Charter. But this is not entirely true, because the intention of Cadalso would be to adapt to the literary currents of his time, which were declined in favor of the works with critical content with society (Ibid.)

As for the relationship between Montesquieu and Cadalso, we must recognize that Monstequieu’s work precedes in almost 70 years to that of Cadalso. Other authors such as José Tamayo have made public the differences and similarities between the work of Montesquieu and Cadalso.

Regarding this, Domínguez concludes: “They agree or not that there are debt or that the Persians serve as a model for the briefs, it seems beyond any doubt the existence of a common theme, of a series of contacts […]”(Ibid.)

It was also French Du Fresny who in his Amusems Sérieux et comiques d’Eamois began this trend;However, it was Montesquieu who took her to a high point. (Ibid.)

Continuing with the 18th century, this was the century in which the genre of epistolary novel itself was born, with a high proliferation of works published in just three years:

“In addition, in this century the genre of the epistolary novel is born. It develops in relation to the cultivation of the letter and the narrative inspired by the eagerness of self-analysis and certain "confidentialism" and "confessionalism" so representative of European pre -romanticism. Between 1785 and 1788 more than one hundred epistolary novels are written according to C. Guillén. Samuel Richardson stands out with three psychological and sentimental novels in the form of letters: Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740), Clarissa (1747/48), Sir Charles Grandison (1753) in England and J.J. Rousseau with his Nouvelle Héloise (1759), in France. Choderlos de lacios happens with Les Liaisons Dangeruses (1782) and Sénancour with Oberman (1804). You cannot remain without mentioning one of the samples of the genre that caused an unusual impact, the tribulations of the young Werther of J.W. Goethe, published in 1774." 

Next, a brief example of a letter included in the penalties of the young Werther, from Goethe:

"October 26th

Yes, my friend, every day I am more convinced that the life of a creature is worth little. Yesterday a friend of his was to see Carlota. I entered an immediate piece and took a book to distract myself;But I didn’t have a quite clear head to look at reading. I took the pen to write. I heard that they talked in a low voice. They chatted from indifferent things, of the novelties that occurred in the town, that such a person had been married and such were sick, very sick […].

October 27th

It is a matter of telating your chest and opening your head when you consider how little we are worth each other. Oh my! No one will give me love, joy, the enjoyment of congratulations that I don’t feel within me. And even if I had the soul full of the sweetest sensations, I would not know how happy to whom in yours it would lack everything."

We see that the author respects the almost oral language of discourse;as Spang would say: “The deferred character, on the one hand;And the affinity to oral dialog. Likewise, the inclusion of a sender in the vocative gives veracity and likelihood to the work. We also see how, as in brown letters, the character writes his letters almost independently of each other;However, you can see a logical connection that between the letters that are written in successive days than those that are more distanced over time.

In the same way, you can see a relationship between what the issuer lives and what the issuer writes, common feature in the letters. Rueda supports this theory, because it says: "The letter is a genre deeply permeated by the circumstance in which it is written, the occasion that induces it, the person or people who are addressed" 

Rueda offers us more examples of authors who joined the epistolary novels: Rousseau, Diderot, the previously mentioned Montesquieu, Goldsmith, Sade, etc. They cannot stop mentioning writers such as Sophia Lee, Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni, Adèle Marie Souza, George Sand among others 

Among the Spanish epistolary novels written between 1789 and 1849 we can find at least nineteen: bruecas letters (1793), of Cadalso;Letters from Eugenio, Gerardo and Leandro (1797), Anonymous;The Gospel of Triunfo (1797-1798), by Pablo de Olavide;La Leandra (1797-1807) by Antonio Valladares de Sotomayor;La Serafina (1789), by José Mor de Fuentes;Cornelia Bororquia or the victim of the Inquisition (1799), by Luis Gutiérrez;Effects of self-love (C. 1810) by Miguel Álvarez de Sotomayor and Abarca;The amalia or letter from a friend resident in Aranjuez … resident in Toledo (1811-1812), by Ramón Tamayo and Calvillo;Letters from Queen Witina à Her sister Fernandina (1822), Anonymous;I go or the exaltation of the passions (1827), by Estanislao Cosca Vayo;The secret revealed in confidential letters (1827), of D.R.S.B.;Seduction and virtue or Rodrigo and Paulina (1829), Anonymous;Irene and Clara or the Imperious Mother (1830), by Vicente Slavá and Pérez;The Spanish shipwreck (1831), from Second Martínez de Robles;Adelaida or the Mystery (1832), of D. C. M.;Teresa or the victims of greed (1835), from Ibo de la Curtina and Roperto;Manolín El Asesino, that is, an intercepted mail (1835), anonymous;The Megican Senator or Lermín to Tlaucolde (1836), by María de las Nieves Robledo;Love in the cloister or Eduardo and Adelaid.

Characteristics of the epistolary novel and comparison with the bruecas letters

In the XVIII, another of the slopes mentioned by Rueda is also taken as a reference: the mask of an autobiographical self. This aspect has its beginning in works such as Lazarillo because it is “a fiction that is masked after a self that is presented as true and, therefore, offers fiction as history, sows attitudes and reading expectations that are usedIn the epistolary literature of the 18th.”Fruit of this inspiration, we have works such as the Gospel in Triunfo, of Olavide;La Leandra and Teodora, Aragon heroine

Apart from these autobiographical elements, we find others such as one or more narrators who are at the same time participating figures;We can also observe that, logically, communication is given through letters, that is, other voices may appear. 

Regarding communication, says Spang (Ibid):

“What is, then, the particular form of communication and its realization in the epistolary novel? All written communication, therefore, also literary and with even more foundation the epistola. The issuer/author writes in a place and time other than those in which the reception/reading will be made. However, in the epistolary novel the deferred character is manifested in a double level, that is, on the one hand in the normal of all literary communication, and on the other, at the level originated by the fictional space-time distancing between the sender andThe recipient of the letters within the framework of the epistolary novel. In this regard, it should. […] There is no need for an ‘double epistolary pact» so that fictitious epistolary communication works, let’s not forget that the epistolary novel requires the same collaboration and completion as any other novel."

He adds that although not all epistolary novels are based on the sender-destinatary dichotomy, this is the basic structure of this type of communication, since it is similar to oral dialogue, although answers are missing (Ibid). This gives rise to the possibility of a differentiation of epistolary novels according to the number of people included in them: Spanish calls the dialogue in which two or more receptors intervene, it also adds that it is normal to give an exchange between them. He adds: "The polyelogical type is a very deep -rooted version of the subgenre and perhaps the most" natural "form of the epistolary novel, because in any communication and more justifiably in the polyelogical and epistolary it is intended to raise a reaction in the interlocutor that is usually likeminimum of one response in the form of another letter." 

It also shows us another guy: monological communication, that is, in which we are only shown the letters of a single sender, which “remain unbuilding without explicit response. However, it is often possible to deduce between the lines the answer and the reaction of the recipient or by allusion in the following letter of the same sender ” 

Another differentiation according to the type of communication is that of mixed epistolary communication where “in addition to the editors of the letters, another voice and another record that can be that of a narrator or that of a textual author can be introduced, so to speak,as extraepistolary voice. In the vast majority of cases it is an organizational narrative instance that justifies the publication of the letters, explains the circumstances of its elaboration, its author and its purpose;You can even add comments about its content.

Rueda also makes this differentiation according to the number of interlocutors in epistolary novels, a difference between letters between two friends, such as: the Seraph;Effects of self-love;or Irene and Clara, or the imperative mother. Also, he also adds the cards between two friends: La Leandra, original novel that includes many;or the Spanish shipwrecks or correspondence between two friends. 

It also differentiates between letters among several, among which includes: Adelaida or the mystery;Teresa or the victims of greed;or brown letters – central work of this work—

Finally, it also differentiates the interspersed letters, that is, works in which the cards with different types of camouflages are introduced, that is, which may appear highlighted in the text, with date, heading and signature;or incorporated into the narrative, marking the epistolary text at the beginning of each region and sometimes unmarked. 

As for the time, Spang says that epistolary novels are characterized by discontinuity as a result of the "temporary lapses among the diverse letters". That is, we can find a considerable time interval between the various letters. The same Spang says: “The good epistolary novelist inserts the holes or silences, which to some extent are eloquent, so that the Lagunas.”Likewise, the author can play with narrative time through the use of alepsis, prostepsis and condensation. 

Regarding this also Spang tells us (Ibid.):

"One of the most palpable temporal aspects of epistolary communication – although it does not occur regularly – is the concretion of the passage of time through the indication of specific dates heading each letter. In this way, not only can the duration of the history evoked through the letters be measured, but also to contemplate the frequency of the letters and the extension of the silences."

A distinction between primary and secondary time could also be given: that is, the time narrated in the letters and the secondary that would include this first "plus the holes produced between letter and letter" 

As for space, it is also a little fragmented space “due to the brevity of the missives and the temporal and spatial jumps due to the spaced writing and also irregular shipping of the letters. The predominant brevity of the letters contributes to the evocation of time and space being allusive and blurred ”. 

Keep saying:

“The expression of space in the epistolary novel does not have the same importance as that of time, since in the vast majority of cases the subgenre reflects internal conflicts, passions, mood states, the true space of the epistolary novel is the human soul is the human soul, sensitivity and emotions;Material and palpable realities occupy a secondary range although they are essential for the expression of the conflict." 

Two types of spaces must be differentiated mainly the space where the letter and space where it is received is written. Likewise, reference is made to a third space: the space that is counted in the letters, it is usually mentioned at the beginning of each letter, but it can also occur within the same narrative. 

Comparison

Brown letters from José Cadalso began to be published, as has been said before, in the Mail of Madrid, seven years after the author’s death, that is, in 1789. In 1793 he was presented to the public in the form of a book. 

Now, now we will try to compare Cadalso’s work with the characteristics of the epistolary novel that we have been seeing. Therefore, we will divide it into two points: according to the type of communication and according to the time and space units.

Depending on the type of communication, we can say that it is a polyelogical communication, because up to three receptors can be observed: Gazel, Nuno and Ben-Kley. Next, three exemplifying cards of the exchange that occurs in brown letters, here, you can exchange letters between the three;That is, an epistolary triangle is formed, where Nuño is categorized with Ben-Bley, Ben Beley with Gazel and Gazel with Nuño:

Letter XVII

From Ben-Kley to Gazel

Of all your letters received so far, I infer that it would happen to me in the bustling and lucid of Europe the same as I experiment in the retirement of Africa, arid and unsociable, as you call it since you get used to the delights of Europe.

We are annoying the treatment of a woman who loved first sight;She tires a game that we learned eagerly;We are bothering music that at first snatched us;He empalas a dish that delighted us the first time;The court that we loved the first day, then disgusted us;Loneliness, which seemed delicious to the first week, causes us later melancholy;The virtue alone is the thing that is friendlier we know it and cultivate.

I wish you a lot of bottom of it to praise being supreme with righteousness;tolerate the evils of life;Do not fade with the goods;do everyone well, none;live happy;Spread joy among your friends, participate their nightmares, to relieve their weight;and go wise and except to your family’s bosom, who greets you very heart with lively desires to hug you.

Letter XVII

Gazel to Ben-Beley

Today I have a strange observation to communicate. Since the first time I landed in Europe, I have not observed something that I was surprised as I am going to participate in this letter. All political events in this part of the world, however extraordinary, seem easier to explain than the frequency of lawsuits between close relatives, and even between children and parents. Neither the discovery of the Eastern and Western Indies, nor the incorporation of the crowns of Castile and Aragon, nor the formation of the Dutch Republic, nor the mixed constitution of Great Britain, nor the misfortune of the Stuart house, nor the establishment ofthat of Braganza, nor the culture of Russia, or any event of this quality, surprises me as much as seeing parents with children with children. What can a child be founded to sue justice against his father? Or what a father can be founded to deny food to his son? It’s something that I don’t understand. The sages of this country have been determined to explain it, and my understanding in resisting the explanation, since all the ideas I have of paternal love and filial love are invested. […]

Letter XX

Ben-Kley to Nuño

I see with great pleasure the use with which Gazel travels through your country and the progress made by his natural talent with the help of your advice. His understanding would only be so far from being useful without your direction, that he would most serve to hallucinate him. Not to have put the fortune on the path of this young man, Gazel would have spoiled his time. What could expect from your trips? My Gazel would have learned, and badly, an infinity of things;He would fill the head of loose species, and he would have returned to his ignorant and presumed homeland. But even so, tell me, Nuño, are many of the news that sends me about the customs and uses of your countrymen? Suspending the trial until you see your answer. Some things write me incompatible with each other. I’m afraid of your youth I cheat on some occasions and I represent things not as they are, but which were represented. Make you teach you how many letters it remites me, so you can see if you write to me on time. Do you know where my confusion is born and my effective? Born, Cristiano Amigo, is born that his letters, which I copy exactly and I usually read, represent your nation different from all in not having their own character, which is the worst character that it can have.

Regarding time, this is not appreciated in the work of Cadalso. In fact, you can’t even see dating in any of the ninety cards. Already in the introduction of the novel, Cadalso tells us: "There is no one in the original, and I thought it was work that would delay the publication of this work to coordinate them".

As for space, this is clearer. First, from the beginning we know that Gazel writes from Spain, from where he is moving to different points learning and understanding the culture and differences between the regions. We also have a second space, that of Ben-Kley, that is, Africa.

Finally, we will analyze the typical critical tendency of the epistolary novels in the brown letters: in letter VII, for example, criticizes the lack of education of young people, with respect to which he says: “Arrival at the time to march, I rode on horseback, telling myself in a low voice: This is how a youth is raised that it could be so useful if it were education equal to talent! And a serious man, who apparently was in a bad mood with that kind of life, hearing me, told me with tears in my eyes: -Yes, sir.".

In the XLIX the decline of the Spanish language is criticized, of which it says:

“Who would believe that the language universally had by the most beautiful of all the living two centuries has been today one of the least appreciable? Such is the priesa that the Spaniards have been spoiled. The abuse of its flexibility, let’s say it, the little economy in figures and phrases of many authors of the last century, and the slavery of the translators of present to their originals, have stripped this language of their natural beauties, which were laconism, abundance andEnergy."

In the LV the desire to manufacture fortune is criticized:

“-What does man want to make fortune? -Nuño said to one who does not think about anything else-. I understand that the poor needy year to have what to eat and that he who is in medium constitution aspires to seek some more conveniences;But both conato and sleeplessness to acquire dignities and jobs, I don’t see what they lead to. In the state of mediation in which I find myself, I live calmly and without care, without my operations being the object of the criticism of others, or reason for regrets of my own heart. Placed in the height that you fancy, I will not eat anymore, nor will I sleep better, nor will I have more friends, nor have I to free myself from the diseases common to all men;Therefore, I would not have more pleasant life that I have now."

While it is true that it also finds reasons for flattering the different Spanish rulers, as in the LXXIII letter:

“Every day I admire more and more the number of large men that are read in genealogies of the kings of the house currently occupied by the throne of Spain. The present began forgiving the debts that had contracted entire provinces for the unhappy years, and paying those who had their predecessors towards their vassals […]

His brother and predecessor, Fernando, in his Pacific reign confirmed his people in the idea that Fernando’s name was always good agüero for Spain.

His other brother, Luis, lasted little, but enough for his death to cry a lot."

Regarding the autobiographical self, you can relate the figure of the Gazel traveler with the young Cadalso, because this, according to Solís (1970), studied in countries such as France, England, Germany and Holland. Also, in his military life he was destined in locations throughout the Peninsula. Therefore, it would not be rare to imagine the multitude of notes taken by Cadalso that served as inspiration in their bruecas letters.

conclusion

In conclusion, throughout the work has been briefly, although briefly, a very small line about the history of the letter. History that, according to the sources consulted, go hand in hand with the birth of writing. We have also seen the close relationship between correspondence and literature, a relationship that can be traced to classic writers such as Horacio. We continue with the importance of correspondence in the Middle Ages and, above all, in the Renaissance, with two examples of the correspondence introduced and