From the desks of More and Castiglione

As I picked up The Book of the Courtier this weekend, I was interested to find a letter prefacing Book 1, titled "To the Reverend and Illustrious Signor Don Michel de Silva, Bishop of Viseau."

Clearly More, including a letter with his Utopia, was not the only author to see the benefits of using letters and verses to introduce a work. A quick search of google scholar will tell you that many authors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and beyond included similar letters in volumes of their work. But why?

Originally I believed that Sir Thomas More simply included his "Letter to Peter Giles" in an attempt to corroborate his story, to give it that appearance of actually having happened. While the letter to Peter Giles does serve a clever literary technique, playing in the reader's mind and hinting that Raphael may have existed, there are additional reasons for the inclusion of letters in volumes.

Consider this: A New York Times best seller of the 21st century will be featured in newspapers and magazines, will have summaries presented on sites such as "amazon.com", and will be the topic of talk shows featuring the author. Through the many medium we have available to us today, we have no trouble accessing summaries, reviews, and commentaries on popular works. In fact, many authors go on promotional tours and speak to fans, publishers, and television producers about their works and the intent of the pieces.

The people of More and Castiglione's time, however, did not have ready access to this type of information. Short of being close to the royal family, the common man of the Renaissance era would never have the chance to even set eyes on admired authors. The only way to see inside the mind of an author and to understand his or her intent, was to read a commentary that they wrote.

Yet, as Peter Allan points out in his article "Utopia and European Humanism: the Function of Prefatory Letters and Verses", these letters are more than commentaries and summaries. "This complicated machinery, I would suggest, is much more than an equivalent of the modern dust-jacket blurb, for it is deliberately designed to control the reader's interpretation of the text." [1]

By addressing letters to respected confidants rather than to the reader, an author can convey greater authority through the words. The reader feels as though he or she is listening in on a private conversation about the intent of the work, rather than an overstated summary intended to make the author and the work appear larger than life.

The letters included in volumes may also serve the purpose of recognizing important individuals and dedicating works, much as a page of thanks and dedication is included in modern novels. Castiglione, for example, creates a list of respected persons in his letter to the Bishop of Viseau, naming them and citing their examples as the inspiration for his book.

[1] Article by Peter Allan featured through JSTOR. Note: You must be logged on through the university to access the article.