Talking of dissertations, this screenshot from
@gossip_guy's post clarifies nothing.
It was COMMON for his gifts to function outside of the dialogue of 'ordinary letters'.
I haven't a clue what this means. Maybe I'm being dense, but
how did his letters transcend 'ordinary' letter writing and why are his letters still being referred to as 'gifts' rather than, idk, correspondence? I think it's a massive mistake to shoehorn Lewis Carroll's letters (literary subject) into theories of gift-giving (anthropological subject).
In other words, the essay itself still depends on letters being dialogical for the most part.
The point is that Lewis Carroll's letters were mostly 'in dialogue' with others rather than being a private journal? Sooo, his letters were letters and not diaries (because they are diaries)?
But the 'three kinds of letters which are different from dialogical letters' apparently fit into the definition of
non-ordinary letters. And then the notes go on to say that Carroll's letters were mostly dialogical. But the first point says that it was common for them to function outside the dialogue of 'ordinary letters'. Which one is it? And why does it matter?
Expectation that people will reply but this doesn't always happen in practise.
Well, duh. Why is this a dissertation?
I don't mean this to come across as anti-intellectual, and don't want to undermine anyone's area/s of research, but this just sounds like pointless waffling jargon to me.
Feeling like a #thicko right now.
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