My current research project looks at the small group of fictional letters that survive from the classical period (Ovid's Heroides, Alciphron's Letters and Aelian's Letters of Farmers). It seeks to dissect matters of generic composition in what is typically seen as a disparate set of texts, particularly between the Greek and Latin traditions. The thesis also considers the role of metafiction in a genre that explicitly constructs itself on the basis of previous literature and on the relationship between the author and the external readers.
