When the Letter Speaks Up: Living and Lifeless Letters
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Yasmine Amory
Abstract
This chapter uncovers the oral elements of the ancient epistolary experience by considering the role of late antique letter-carriers, who would animate written letters by reading them aloud and conveying personal messages from sender to recipient. This emphasis on epistolary performances and the personification of the letter-writer by the messenger underscores that written text was not necessarily perceived as the most authoritative medium in ancient record-keeping. Simultaneously, this evidence demonstrates the utility of Ferraris’s notion that social acts can be inscribed as immaterial documents in memory, to be passed on subsequently via the messenger’s oral utterances. Late Antiquity’s “living letters” reflect our still-evolving understanding of the Graeco- Roman epistolary habit.
Abstract
This chapter uncovers the oral elements of the ancient epistolary experience by considering the role of late antique letter-carriers, who would animate written letters by reading them aloud and conveying personal messages from sender to recipient. This emphasis on epistolary performances and the personification of the letter-writer by the messenger underscores that written text was not necessarily perceived as the most authoritative medium in ancient record-keeping. Simultaneously, this evidence demonstrates the utility of Ferraris’s notion that social acts can be inscribed as immaterial documents in memory, to be passed on subsequently via the messenger’s oral utterances. Late Antiquity’s “living letters” reflect our still-evolving understanding of the Graeco- Roman epistolary habit.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Abbreviations IX
- List of Figures XI
- Introduction 1
-
Part I: Approaches to Ancient Documentality
- Documenting Identity in the Early Roman Empire 35
- Copying the Canon: Imperial School Texts as Documentary Traces 57
- Documenting Wonderland: Lucian’s True Stories and the Documentary imaginaire 79
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Part II: Documentary Communities and Landscapes
- Cities Full of Words: Illiteracy and Epigraphy in Lucian of Samosata 107
- Documenting the oikoumenê: What “Documents” Supported the Description of the Inhabited World in the Hellenistic and Early Imperial Periods? 133
- A Community Set in Stone? Monumental Decrees as Instruments of Greek Interactions 153
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Part III: Between Documents and Literature
- Dead Letters, Documentality, and the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius 181
- The Relationship between Documents and Literature in Late Antiquity: The Case of the Petition, between Document, Adaptation and Literary Creation 209
- When the Letter Speaks Up: Living and Lifeless Letters 233
-
Epilogue
- The Ancient Historian and His Documents: Reader, Interpreter, and/or Author? 253
- List of Contributors 279
- Index Locorum 281
- Index Rerum 285
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Abbreviations IX
- List of Figures XI
- Introduction 1
-
Part I: Approaches to Ancient Documentality
- Documenting Identity in the Early Roman Empire 35
- Copying the Canon: Imperial School Texts as Documentary Traces 57
- Documenting Wonderland: Lucian’s True Stories and the Documentary imaginaire 79
-
Part II: Documentary Communities and Landscapes
- Cities Full of Words: Illiteracy and Epigraphy in Lucian of Samosata 107
- Documenting the oikoumenê: What “Documents” Supported the Description of the Inhabited World in the Hellenistic and Early Imperial Periods? 133
- A Community Set in Stone? Monumental Decrees as Instruments of Greek Interactions 153
-
Part III: Between Documents and Literature
- Dead Letters, Documentality, and the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius 181
- The Relationship between Documents and Literature in Late Antiquity: The Case of the Petition, between Document, Adaptation and Literary Creation 209
- When the Letter Speaks Up: Living and Lifeless Letters 233
-
Epilogue
- The Ancient Historian and His Documents: Reader, Interpreter, and/or Author? 253
- List of Contributors 279
- Index Locorum 281
- Index Rerum 285
