The Rhetoric of Letter Writing: The Amadís de Gaula in Translation

Abstract

This chapter examines the letters included in Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo's Amadís de Gaula in their translations into French and English in order to study the development of the rhetoric of epistle-writing throughout the sixteenth century. They are thus taken as a means to reflect on the evolution of the epistolary genre by specifically considering the way in which they were treated and translated in their renderings into French and English. Their translation offers an insight into how the rhetoric of epistle-writing evolved in the sixteenth century, and how, in this process, the publication of manuals of letter-writing in accordance with Renaissance principles altered the beginning-of-the-century conventions displayed in the text of the Amadís in Spanish.