The Portrayal of Illness in Correspondence - Writers: Biography, Letters and Memoirs

French Literature Reviews - 2026

The Portrayal of Illness in Correspondence
Writers: Biography, Letters and Memoirs

The Portrayal of Illness in Correspondence. Proceedings of the Brest Symposium (April 2002)

TABLE OF CONTENTS: - Introduction (Marie-France de PALACIO)
- "It is my writing desk that will kill me": The Epistolary Illnesses of Friedrich Melchior Grimm (Alexandre STROEV)
- Illness in Vigny's Correspondence (Sophie MARCHAL)
- Gérard de Nerval and his "Fevers": The Impossible Confession of Madness (Corinne BAYLE)
- Franz Liszt: Illness, Personal Myth, and Artistic Creation (Claude KNEPPER)
- The Discourse of Illness in Baudelaire's Correspondence (André GUYAUX)
- The Agony and Death of Renan: From the Intimate to the Public (Jean BALCOU)
- "Genius is a Neurosis": Zola and Illness (Colette BECKER)
- The Epistolary Pathologies of Jean Lorrain (Jean de PALACIO)
- Illness as an Epistolary Strategy in Remy de Gourmont's "Intimate Letters to the Amazon" (Marie-France de PALACIO)
- Romain Rolland Confronting the "Prime Enemy" and "The Hardest Struggle of All [His] Life": Health (Bernard DUCHATELET)
- The Portrayal of Illness in Marcel Proust's Correspondence (Dominique MABIN)
- Neurosis and Creation: The Presence and Significance of Illness in Rilke's Correspondence with Lou Andreas-Salomé (1897-1926) (Agnès KETTLER)

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Scholarly interest in epistolary writing has long recognized letters as a privileged space for self-representation, where the boundary between public persona and private vulnerability becomes fluid. The contributions collected here examine how various figures articulated bodily suffering, mental distress, and decline within their personal correspondence, drawing together papers presented at the Brest symposium in April 2002. Readers interested in the history of correspondence, autobiography, and the cultural meanings of health and disease in European literature may find these conference proceedings relevant to their research.