Pliny's Epistolary Directions

Abstract

Epistolary authors envision a reader at the very beginning of the act of composition. Epistles are sent to somebody, addressed to an individual or series of individuals that constitute the public addressee (the pubic reader). When epistles are collected, arranged, and circulated, another act of reading is envisaged by the author and thus another reader (the implied reader). As long as the epistolary author exerts control over the act of composition, collection, arrangement, and circulation, then both the public and implied readers are constructed and can be directed by the author to disregard or prioritise information, infer or ignore the letter’s context, and accept the author’s self-fashioning or claims as to why the epistle was written, sent, or arranged for them to read.1 According to Janet Altman (1982.111): “The external reader’s experience is partially governed by the presence of their internal counterpart [the addressee]; we read any given letter from at least three points of view—that of the intended or actual recipient as well as that of the writer and our own.” The implied reader’s (or external reader’s) multiple vantage points, including the assumed perspective of the addressee, renders him or her subject to multiple forms of authorial direction. In addition, the genre’s mimesis of real speech enables a comparison between the dynamics of a conversation and an epistle. Implied readers are akin to bystanders who, as Erving Goffman argues, are placed under pressure to be quiet and not disrupt or eavesdrop on a nearby conversation that does not directly involve