Scholarly record

EPISTOLARY ROMANTICISM: FANNY BURNEYВ’S DIARIES AND LETTERS IN TERMS OF CONTEMPORARY BLOGGING

O. Anossova

Abstract

Fanny Burney at 15 wrote in her diary addressing her thoughts to В‘NobodyВ’, to her silent self and interlocutor. Nobody learnt about this fact until her diaries were published. She became famous with her first epistolary novel about a young lady entering the world, though in the Preface to the novel the author pretended to be an editor of the letters. Her writing could be compared to contemporary blogs. Novelty and variety of subjects, personally coloured irony and wit, acute eyesight, ability to entertain a reader with an unusual insight of the ordinary event or situation (f.ex., В‘Directions for Coughing, Sneezing, or Moving Before the King and QueenВ’), a dramatist talent to create dialogues and remember speakerВ’s intonation and other speech parameters, a lot of short fragments imprinting emotions and restoring the epoch in diaries and letters, - everything features her style and specifies her as a Romaticism writer. Some of the subjects could be accepted as obsolete though regarding different situations, circumstances and the performance the given descriptions of the royal household politely discussed by the Keeper of the Robe to Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, and a close acquaintance of Garrick and Reynolds some of the episodes described in diaries could be praised for their authorВ’s dramatic playwright talent. Blogging in its well-written form, the one possessing style and distinguishing good literature characteristics, could be compared to diaries reflecting every instant of modern life and becoming immediately public. Freedom of female voice in Romantic era and freedom of mass writer and reader on the verge of Millennium are manifested in both epochs.

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