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- Title
“Eine reine Geldangelegenheit”? Nineteenth-Century Writers' Correspondence with the Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände.
- Authors
Peters, Anja
- Abstract
This article examines how mid-nineteenth-century writers represent themselves as authors in business letters to Hermann Hauff, editor of the Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände, in a period of German literary history when professional authorship was just emerging. Based on the close analysis of content, style and register in letters by male and female authors such as Helmina von Chézy, Levin Schücking, Amely Bölte and Heinrich Pröhle, this article explores to what extent constructions of personal and professional identity are strategically geared towards specific rhetorical aims such as publication, adequate payment, editorial control and participation in the literary field. The analysis will focus in particular on how authors merge private and business letter genres in an attempt to adapt their publication strategies to changing perceptions of the writer's social, economic and cultural roles in society. It will be argued that in their letters authors adopt a double-identity of “true” and professional writer, with the aim of maximising their visibility, reputation and income as authors. The analysis will show that authors' success depended to a large degree on the extent to which they understood and were able to make use of the changing rules of a commercialised literary market.
- Subjects
19TH century German literature; COMMERCIAL correspondence; GERMAN letter writing; PROFESSIONAL identity; RHETORIC
- Publication
Forum for Modern Language Studies, 2010, Vol 46, Issue 3, p321
- ISSN
0015-8518
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/fmls/cqq011