“Vos, señor, la escribiste a la luna” Epistolary Initiation, Discourse and Practices in Early Modern Spain

Abstract

This article sketches an approach to the study of epistolary practices in sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury Spain. On the one hand it considers the possibilities in that period of learning to write letters and the role played by certain intermediaries who undertook writing for others in cases of illiteracy or insufficient familiarity with the codes of writing letters. On the other it reflects on the relation between textual protocols and the materiality of writing in order to enhance the implicit pact of understanding required by letter-writing. Thus the article revisits certain aspects of the theory of epistolarity encoded in early modern instruction books, and reflects on their relations with the realities enshrined in the letters themselves.