Os conhecidos versos de Emily Dickinson “This is my letter to the World/ That never wrote to Me —“ poderão resumir por hipérbole o essencial do tópico a desenvolver, no qual o adjectivo “incompletas” indica menos uma falha quantitativa ou aritmética presumindo uma totalidade semi-imaginária do que uma falha (imaginária ou não)

no circuito interlocutivo que a ideia de correspondência enquanto “troca de cartas” pressupõe. 

Num dos capítulos-episódios de The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, uma das personagens interroga-se sobre “what these ghosts of mail-coaches carry in their bags”, e recebe como resposta: “The dead letters of course”. The dead letters of course parafraseia o tópico: a partir de um conceito abrangente de extravio, o seminário vai procurar reconstituir os elementos da vida póstuma de algumas cartas mortas; serão discutidos papéis emitidos (nem sempre enviados) por

Horácio, Mariana Alcoforado, Diderot, Rimbaud, Oscar Wilde, Edgar A. Poe, Zola, Hofmannsthal, Virginia Woolf, Kafka, Elizabeth Hardwick e Tilda Swinton.

Emily Dickinson’s famous verses “This is my letter to the World/ That never wrote to Me —” may hyperbolically describe the topic of the seminar, according to which the adjective “dead” points to a failure (imaginary or not) interfering in the kind of interlocutory circuit that the idea of correspondence as an “exchange of letters” presupposes. In one of the chapter-episodes of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, a character wonders “what these ghosts of mail-coaches carry in their bags”, and receives as an answer: “The dead letters of course”. The dead letters of course is the topic: based on a broad concept of undeliverability, the seminar will try to reconstitute the elements which mark the posthumous life of some dead letters; papers issued (not always sent) by Horace, Mariana Alcoforado, Diderot, Rimbaud,

Oscar Wilde, Edgar A. Poe, Zola, Hofmannsthal, Virginia Woolf, Kafka, Elizabeth Hardwick, and Tilda Swinton will be commented on and discussed.