Toon Van Houdt, Jan Papy, Gilbert Tournoy, and Constant Matheeussen, eds. Self-Presentation and Social Identification: The Rhetoric and Pragmatics of Letter Writing in Early Modern Times.

(Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia, 18.) Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002. vi + 478 pp. index. 60 [euro]. ISBN: 90-5867-212-3

This book is more than a hallmark in the study of the history of letter writing in early modern Europe. It heralds an innovative approach to the examination and analysis of letter collections which traditionally have been studied for their biographical and historical evidence and literary value. For those many specialists in epistolography there is now a new approach to take in exploring the correspondences. The genre of letters, as shown in the twenty pioneering papers that constitute this hefty volume, has been studied through a social and personal analysis of the letter writer and recipient to understand the importance of the exchange or communication in early modern letters between writers, scholars, and scientists.

Although this novel perspective was used to some extent in a few recent studies, the editors of this volume organized the first international colloquium at Leuven and Brussels in 2000 on what would become the title of this book. The selected participants who explored and analyzed literary and scholarly letter collections from ca. 1500-1750 (notwithstanding the inclusion of Petrarch's Familiarium rerum libri XXIV) produced a wide collection of papers (rewritten for this volume) to serve as an original guide for the study of early modern letter writing which asks: what did letter writing mean and entail for its composers of that time? There was difficulty, to be sure, as epistolography meant using oral exchange for those who recognized the supremacy of the written word. The conflict would be dealt with by later epistolographers, notably Justus Lipsius.

This well-structured and organized volume opens appropriately on the topic of the "Rhetoric of Letter Writing" with papers by Judith Rice Henderson on "Humanist Letter Writing: Private Conversation or Public Forum?," Charles Fantazzi on 'Wives versus Erasmus on the Art of Letter Writing," Christine Benevent on "Erasme en sa correspondance: conquete(s) et defaite(s) du langage," Tim Markey on "Style and Tradition in Ben Jonson's Verse Epistles," and Kristine Haugen on "Imaginary Correspondence: Epistolary Rhetoric and the Hermeneutics of Disbelief." A discussion of each paper is prevented by the limit of the review, but the few remarks and recommended bibliography that follow are not intended to detract from these excellent papers, particularly those with summary conclusions. Part 1, on epistolary rhetoric, surveys "private" and "public" letters from Greek and Latin sources to Renaissance humanism and some of its major epistlers especially Erasmus. See A. Cavarzere's "Caro amico ti scrivo 'privato' e 'pubblico' nella letteratura epistolare di Roma," in Alla lettera, A. Chernello, ed., Milan, 1998), 11-31, (and for a certain Demetrius (41) A.J. Malherbe's Ancient Epistolary Theorists (Atlanta, 1988), 2, 30-41. For the waning of the dictaminal tradition, Rhetorica 19 (2001), too recent for inclusion, should be consulted.

The second part, "Friendship and Patronage," contains papers by Warren V. Boutcher on "Literature, Thought or Fact? Past and Present Directions in the Study of the Early Modern Letter," Jacqueline Glomski on "Careerism at Cracow: The Dedicatory Letters of Rudolf Agricola Junior, Valentin Eck, and Leonard Cox (1510-30)," Mark Morford on "Lipsius' Letters of Recommendation," and Elisabet Goransson on "Letters, Learning and Learned Ladies: An Analysis of Otto Sperling, Jr.'s (1634-1715) Correspondence with Scandinavian Women." In examining modes of communication, and reflections on communication, not the traditional approach of "theory" and "practice," dedicatory letters and letters of recommendation are analyzed with particular concern for the vocabulary used in these acts of "useful friendship" (6). W.V. Boutcher includes a splendid tribute to Paul Oskar Kristeller and his pioneering research and achievement in the study of Renaissance letters (139-44 and 156-58) before examining Montaigne. M. Morford opined F. Niger's Ars epistolandi as dreary (185), but the former's textual references to J. Lipsius' Institutio epistolica should be complete as in the latter's criticism of Pliny which should end "et parum virum," that is "and of not enough strength" (186) and Lipsius' definition of the letter which concludes "aut quasi absentes," that is "or as if absent" (198). Although there were educated women who wrote letters, they, including the Dutch polymath Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-78), were on the periphery of the "Republic of Letters" which comprised male writers, scholars, and scientists. Like her female predecessors she used spirited correspondence to gain male intellectual acceptance. E Nies, "Un genre feminin?," Revue d'histoire litteraire de la France 78 (1978): 994-1005 and A. Classen's "Female Epistolary Literature from Antiquity to the Present: An Introduction," Studia Neophilologica 60 (1988): 3-13 may be suggested.

"Exchanging Letters in the Republic of Letters" follows with papers by Henk J.M. Nellen on "In Strict Confidence: Grotius' Correspondence with his Socinian Friends," Corinna L. Vermeulen on "Strategies and Slander in the Protestant Part of the Republic of Letters: Image, Friendship and Patronage in Etienne de Courcelles' Correspondence," and Antonio Iurilli on "La crisi del sapere rinascimentale in un carteggio italiano di primo Settecento." Here seventeenth-century scholarly correspondence is discussed as a means of communication with detailed attention to style, tone, forms of address, contents, and quantity in the letter to suit the character of the addressee (227). The scholarly letter is placed between confidential conversation and official publications (244). A. Iurilli describes a case study in Abbot Giacinto Gimma (1668-1735).

The penultimate part, "Programming, Criticizing and Libelling," presents papers by Erika Rummel on "Argumentis, non contumeliis : The Humanistic Model for Religious Debate and Erasmus' Apologetic Letters," Jane Griffiths on "The Grammarian as 'Poeta' and 'Vates': Self-Presentation in the Antibossicon," and Iordan Avramov on "Letter Writing and the Management of Scientific Controversy: The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg (1661-77)." These papers also indicate the importance of letters for publication to predispose a reader. Letters could yield an intellectual response as well as emotional reaction. Published letters had a large readership. Also, letters were tools, to solve specific communication dilemmas or to present scientific findings and to handle controversies. Much correspondence would gradually appear as articles in scientific journals. The final part, "Literary Fame and Scientific Reputation," has papers by Karl A.E. Enekel on "Die Grundlegung humanistischer Selbstprasentation im Brief-Corpus: Francesco Petrarcas Familiarium return libri XXIV," Lisa Jardine on "Before Clarissa: Erasmus, 'Letters of Obscure Men,' and Epistolary Fictions," Edward V. George on "Conceal or Disclose? The Limits of Self-Representation in the Letters of Juan Luis Vives," Philip J. Ford on "Self-Presentation in the Published Correspondence of George Buchanan," and Adam Mosley on "Tycho Brahe's Epistolae Astronomicae: A Reappraisal." These Correspondences indicate how fame and scientific reputation were achieved by the exchange of letters. There was an equation of letters with fame. The goal was the "Republic of Letters" whose members were classical and patristic authors as well as the present and future generations of authors and intellectuals. Further, A. Mosley differs with Edward Rosen on an interpretation of a phrase in one of Tycho's letters (452). A thorough and accurate index of names befits the outstanding quality of scholarship in this volume.

Without exception, the papers with abundant footnotes indicate extensive research on the many aspects of early modern letters. Each author has given careful study to his subject in light of this new approach to evaluate these letter collections. It is hoped that this work will alert scholars to examine many other letter collections and thus contribute to the growing interest and research in the history of the ars dictaminis and the ars epistolandi which will yield more editions and studies and perhaps even the founding of the proposed LETS, the Letters and Epistolary Theory Society. For J. IJsewijn and all those departed and present, this work is a major contribution to the study of epistolography in the Neo-Latin culture of the Renaissance.

EMIL J. POLAK

Queensborough Community College, City University of New York