Epistolarity: From hidden dialogue to an obsession to dialogue

The epistolary genre is considered to be an all-encompassing one insofar as it includes various epistemological approaches, thanks to the hybrid, nomadic, intricate and oxymoronic nature of the letter. This paper seeks to examine the relationship between letters and dialogue, a relationship based on the complicity and reciprocity that characterize dialogism in general. The topos of conversation is undoubtedly one of the most frequent and fruitful in epistolary writing. Letter writing has long been considered a reflection and prolongation or anticipation of face-to-face interaction. This study will try to show how conversation, as an underlying paradigm and a sort of presence-in-absence, represents a form of compensation, a consolation against the suffering stemming from distance in space and time.