MDMD(1)--Letters

[dennis grace]

Richard R supposes:

>Surely, the appearance of M&D's letters in Ch 2  confirms or invites the 
>reader to the humbleness of both gentlemen...

My vote goes to invites.  Someone--either TRP or the Rev--wants us to feel
their humility.  Not only does the epistolary opening just reek with
earnestness, it also undermines the frame story at the outset.  Picture
yourself in Wick's position:  you're telling a story to a partly juvenile
audience.  Do you begin (after a thoroughly existential preamble and talk of
rats and guns aboard the _Seahorse_) "Long ago . . ."  or "There once was .
. . "?  Nah, you begin:

"To Mr. Mason, Assistant to the Astronomer Royal,
At Greenwich
Esteem'd Sir,--"


And the metanarrative begins.  

dgg
_____________________________
Dennis Grace
University of Texas at Austin
English Department
Recovering Medievalist

But to return to madness.  --from Jonathan Swift's _A Tale of a Tub_