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This module introduces students to ancient epistolography and its fascinating mixture of mundane everyday communication and high-brow literature. We will read a range of texts that deal with a wide variety of epistolary subjects: these will include Cicero’s and Pliny’s letters to friends and political allies, the philosophical letters of Plato, Epicurus and Seneca the Younger, the playful verse letters of the poets Horace and Ovid, the hectoring letters of the Christians Augustine and Jerome and the less literary letters written by soldiers in Vindolanda in Northern England. The module will offer a chronological as well as thematic approach to ancient letters. We will discuss ancient epistolary theory and its limits, the authenticity of the material and the strategies of pseudepigraphical literature, parody and paratext, self-representation and biographical elements in letter-writing as well as the role of privacy and friendship. The module will pay particular attention to the organisation of ancient letters in collections and analyse the role that narrative, distance and chronology play in letter collections.
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