Deceptive narratives: On truth and the epistolary voice

Abstract

This article argues that epistolary fiction has from its beginning approached the question of mimetic truthfulness from an ironic point of view. Rather than awarding the epistolary voice a special status, authors like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in his Werther, have actively questioned the reliability of epistolary information. In doing so, he followed a similarly critical tradition in the English restoration novel, for instance in prose narratives by Aphra Behn, William Congreve, and George Farquhar.