« Latin and Classical Chinese Epistolographic Communication in Comparative Perspective »,
Résumé
This is a comparative paper on the evolution of State (and general) epistolography§writing-letter in the Latin West from late Antiquity to Renaissance on the one hand, and in imperial China from the end of antiquity until the Song/Yuan/MIng on the other hand. We try to show how things are not unilinear, and how, interestingly, similar tensions existed in the fwo cultural spaces between the reference to "classical epistolography" and ornate, non-classical styles that were considered mandatory for State or ornate communication in certain periods. We try also to emphasize differences, for what concerns practice, theory and historiography.