Impossível é não viver (José Luís Peixoto) : o que nos mostram as cartas

Abstract

In conceptual terms, there are two main parts in this text. The first one contextualizes the practice of writing letters. As Roger Chartier says, between the XVI and the XVIII centuries, the western societies developed a rather unique practice in which the written word emerges. Before that, it was more or less in the realm of the elites. However, from the XIX century on, all kinds of written registers, apart from any specific classification or tipology, become common among social groups that, by definition, were not at all connected with the practice of writing letters. The second part is made up of various examples of letters written by very different people in very diverse spaces and centuries. Do these letters have anything in common? Are they very different from each other, considering feelings regardless its contextualization? What do their authors expect? And, in the end, what is the quality that impresses us most? Surely the pure and simple understatement everyone clearly leaves us: we are all human beings. That is the guideline printed in all the 23 letters chosen.