Defining the Indefinable: The Essence of Interpresonal Communication in Katherine Mansfield's Not-Letters

Other conference contribution, 2024

In epistolary discourse, the definition of what constitutes a letter remains both fluid and contested. Katherine Mansfield’s correspondence, marked by repeated assertions that "this is not a letter," serves as a compelling case study for examining the boundaries and essence of letter-writing. This paper proposes to explore Mansfield’s epistolary statements, such as "This is not a letter. It is only my arms round you for a quick minute," and several others that similarly disclaim the status of her communications as letters, while paradoxically engaging in the act of letter-writing. Mansfield’s refusals and subsequent elaborations—"only a message," "a kind of intake of breath," and "a note written on a table piled with paper chains"—highlight the intimate, ephemeral, and multi-sensorial dimensions of her correspondence, which resist conventional categorization.

This study will argue that Mansfield’s deliberate refusal to categorize her messages as letters function as a literary strategy that amplifies the intimacy and immediacy of her communication, situating the recipient in a space of heightened emotional and sensory engagement. This refusal also highlights the limitations of the physical letter in fully capturing the breadth of human emotion and connection, thus challenging the traditional boundaries of the epistolary genre. Mansfield’s epistolary practice, with its blend of the tangible and the intangible, the said and the unsaid, invites a reconsideration of what constitutes a letter. It suggests that the essence of letter-writing transcends the physicality of paper and ink, encompassing instead the act of reaching out and of attempting to bridge the spatial and temporal divides between individuals.