Abstract
Unlike the book, the letter implies a particular situation of writing and enunciation, as well as circumstances of reading: as soon as the envelope is opened, the recipient is transformed into a reader, the text into an event and its message into a performative act.
Among the recipients anticipated and desired by the letter writer, there is not only the immediate, active reader, but also the rereader, capable of bringing the past back to life, or the deferred reader embodied by posterity. Sometimes, undesirable readers are also superimposed, who assume this role by breaking in or by betrayal: the shift from private to public is a violation of the pact of trust, but it can be foreseen and anticipated by the author.
From these factual and potential readers and their temporal and enunciative shifts, the letter generates multiple configurations of reading and interpretation, which play with each other and vary kaleidoscopically.
