Anne Stevenson, Correspondences: a Family History in Letters

Ian Gordon (Anglia Ruskin University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of York), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1974

Places

United Kingdom (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Letter(s)
Poetry (any)

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Stevenson’s

Correspondences: A Family History in Letters

was first published by OUP in 1974, simultaneously with

Travelling Behind Glass: Selected Poems 1963-1973

, the first collection of her poems to be published in the UK.

Correspondences

traces the development of six generations of an imagined American family through thirty-one epistolary poems, prose notes, fragments from journals, and excerpts from a mythical Vermont newspaper,

The Clearfield Enquirer

. The earliest entry in the sequence of records is dated 1829, while the most recent is dated 1972, so that the narrative as a whole covers a period of almost 150 years. The overall structure of Stevenson’s work establishes a new kind of literary artefact, mixing poetry and prose, moving backwards and forwards in time, requiring the…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

3292 words

Citation: Gordon, Ian. "Correspondences: a Family History in Letters". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 February 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=31601, accessed 24 November 2024.]

Anne Stevenson, Correspondences: a Family History in Letters

Dates

Places

Genres and Modes

Resources

Save this article

Leave Feedback