Carta Blanca: Representations of Self in Sixteenth-Century Epistolary Fictions

Abstract

Carta Blanca explores the role that the epistolary form played in the development of

an early modern subjectivity. This study investigates how authors navigated epistolary conventions and the expectations of a changing readership in order to express their own personal voice and affect their public identity. Each of the three chapters approaches this topic from a different perspective: chapter one focuses on the history of the epistle, chapter two considers the social impact of the publication of familiar letters, and chapter three explores the materiality of the written form. The first chapter traces the literary

development of Garcilaso's "Epístola a Boscán" as a hybrid that combines the letter's

tendency toward self-exposure with the lyric's use of poetic artifice to express a complex

subjectivity. By considering the formal traits that Garcilaso's verse epistle shares with the

epistolary and the lyric traditions, I reveal how even a so-called "familiar" address to a

friend is always simultaneously an exercise in fictional writing. Taking Antonio de

Guevara's Epístolas familiares as a focal point, my second chapter considers the effects

of printing one's own collection of personal letters. In his text, Guevara performs a public

identity that exists only insofar as it is represented outwardly. Guevara is a public

intellectual only because he plays the part of the "hombre cuerdo" in front of an audience.

In turn, his public persona can only succeed if his readers trust that a printed letter

exposes a truthful familiar exchange. The third chapter considers Teresa of Ávila's letters

as physical objects and explores how they acquired the status of relics soon after her

death. I argue that these letters manage to represent the individuality of Teresa through

the use of her own identifiable language, the presence of her hand, and the emphasis on

her suffering. In the faithful's eyes, these textual relics embody the humanity of the saint.

All three of these very different authors help us understand the growing desire for self-expression that unfolded as early modern subjects sought independence from the

community and developed new forms to represent their individuality.