“trobled wth a tedious discours”

This study provides close, pragmatically-orientated readings of epistolary manifestations of sincerity, sarcasm and seriousness as expressed in the letters of Maria Thynne to her mother-in-law and to her husband, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. By examining how each mode of expression arose from, and interacted with, its familial and textual environments, these readings discuss the social functions and linguistic implications of Maria’s stylistic repertoire. The study concludes with the suggestion that the letters provide preliminary evidence for the claim that, along with that of sincerity, the Early Modern period may also have been of some significance for the development of sarcasm in English.