Feigning authenticity : letter writing in 17th and 18th-century France
Keywords: French & Italian.

This project examines the evolution of letter-writing practices in seventeenth and eighteenth-century France, and charts the emergence of what I call "feigning authenticity" -- the pretense of presenting oneself in a sincere manner, in situations where the letter writer is clearly seeking to achieve a specific goal. I argue that this mode of self-presentation developed out of the highly codified practices of courtly letter writing, and persisted throughout the eighteenth century. Already in the seventeenth century, epistolary manuals insisted on the importance of giving the impression of expressing oneself with sincerity. What's more, individuals realized they could build a social identity through correspondence, since letters often circulated beyond the addressee. I reveal that individuals continued to use those very norms and techniques for self-presentation in letters for their own strategic aims. While the eighteenth century certainly marks a departure from the rigid style of courtly letters, favoring a new style of sincere sentimentality, it did not favor -- as scholars have suggested -- authentic self-expression. I argue that, above all, the letter in seventeenth and eighteenth-century France offered a multitude of opportunities for self-presentation, promoting the intentional construction of socially-oriented personas. My work draws on media theory to highlight the crucial distinction between self-expression and self-presentation, or the "impression management" that occurs when expressing oneself through media that have readers or viewers. Through analysis of epistolary manuals, autograph letters, and epistolary novels, I propose that the collision of this new sincere style, with the continued social conventions of circulation and publicity, promoted "feigning authenticity" as a dominant mode of self-presentation in letters. In chapter I, I investigate the letter-writing strategies of the comte de Bussy. Well known as a master of the courtly style of letter writing, Bussy was also a master of the mechanics of image management, which I reveal through analysis of his letters to Louis XIV, and to other correspondents including the Père Rapin and the Père Bouhours. In chapter II, I examine the publication and reception of Madame de Sévigné's letters in the eighteenth century, and demonstrate how editions of her letters, and commentaries by epistolary manuals and treatises alike, established her as the model to follow. And yet, I argue that in order to accommodate the conflicting demands of social practices with this markedly new, sentimental ethos, a mode of feigned authenticity emerges as the epistolary ideal. In chapter III, through an analysis of Rousseau's Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse and his own letters to Malesherbes, I further illustrate the way in which the medium of the letter shapes the conditions for epistolary self-writing, inviting varying degrees of authenticity and promoting intentional self-presentation. Lastly in chapter IV, I show how Voltaire used the letter to control, shape, and curate an "authentic" public self -- from his strategies to circulate letters in society and thereby disseminate his desired persona, to his publication of the "Lettres véritables" in the Commentaire historique