Course Description
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This course introduces students to issues, research methods, and
sources in the study of early modern period. It particularly
emphasizes the opportunities and resources afforded by study at a rare
book library such as the Folger. Topics include the
composition
and design of early modern books, modes of publication and reading,
finding and reading manuscripts and images, and both early modern and
contemporary discursive fields. Readings provide both
practical
guides for doing this research, and examples of how scholars
have
constructed arguments based on it. Students will practice
this
research through a series of exercises based on one book that they will
work with through the semester. We will also work
collaboratively, including construction a shared
working bibliography for the
course, which I hope will
continue to be of use past the end of the course.This course has a split-day schedule to allow for library work between discussions; most days will include work to be done in the library, either with rare materials or with the Folger’s large collection of modern scholarship on our period. You will need to be in the library all day on Fridays; lunch will have to be brief so you can have two hours of library time before the traditional Folger tea at 3pm.
Assignments
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The work for the course will include several assignments
focused on a particular book, a historical exercise treating the
subject of
that book, and a short synthetic essay considering the range of
evidence
available for the study of your topic and the possibilities for future
research.
Assignments
will include:
- Annotated bibliography on
your category of books
(assigned Feb 11, due Feb. 25) - Communications
circuit for your book
(assigned Feb 18, due March 11) - Editions of your book
(assigned Feb. 25, due March 18) - Bibliopgraphic essay
charting major bibliographic resources and historiographic traditions
relating to the subject of your book
(assigned March 11, due April 1) - Choice of a) brief
transcription of a manuscript relevant to your book or b)
discussion of images and/ or paratextual elements of your book
(assigned March 25, due April 15) - Short paper discussing the
range of evidence available
for work on your topic and possibilities for future research (6-8 pp.)
(assigned April 1, due April 22)
Schedule
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Feb. 4: Introduction:
Readings- http://www.zotero.org/support/ Read the guide from the beginning to the end of the section "Syncing, Collaboration and Backup"
Before our first session:
- Download Zotero (if you have problems, please let me know before we meet; I'm glad to help, but we will not spend class time on IT matters)
- Set up your private Zotero library and join our group library
- Do the reading for Feb. 4
- Introductions
- Dr. Steven Galbraith on handling rare materials
- Selection of your book
- Lunch meeting with Dr. Georgianna Ziegler
- Folger Georgraphy: major bibliopgraphic references, locations and strategies
Feb. 11: History, Historiography and Books; Or, What's in a Rare Book Library?
- Grafton, Johns, and Eisenstein, "AHR Forum: How Revolutionary Was the Print Revolution"?, American Historical Review 107 (2002): 84-128
- Leah Marcus, Unediting The Renaissance: Shakespeare Marlowe and Milton (Routledge, 1996), 1-37
- Stallybrass, Chartier, and Wolfe, "Hamlet's Tables and the Technologies of Writing in Renaissance England," Shakespeare Quarterly 55 (2004): 379-419.
- Discuss Feb 11 readings
- Discuss sizing up the field
- Identify major bibliographic resources and major works for your subject
Afternoon:
- Discuss library work
Feb. 18: Historical Bibliography: Writers, Readers, Publishers, Patrons
Readings- Required
- Robert Darton, "What is the History of Books?," Daedalus 111.3 (Summer 1982): 65-83.
- Arthur Marotti, Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric (Cornell, 1995), Chapter 5
- Recommended
- Richard Altick, The
English Common Reader; a Social History of the Mass Reading Public,
1800-1900 (University of
Chicago Press, 1967), Chapter 1
- Nigel Wheale, Writing
and Society: Literacy, Print, and Politics in Britain, 1590-1660
(Routledge, 1999), Chapter 4.
- Kirk Melnikoff. "Jones's Pen and Marlowe's Socks: Richard Jones, Print Culture, and the Beginnings of English Dramatic Literature." Studies in Philology 102 (2005): 184-209.
Events
Morning
- Discussion of Feb. 18 readings
Library
- Begin the communications circuit for your book; research the publisher of your book and its audeince of likely readers or potential patrons
Afternoon
- Results of library activities
- More discussion of Feb. 18 readings
Feb. 25: Descriptive Bibliography of Early Modern Books
Readings- Required
- Williams and Abbott, An Introduction to Bibliographical and Textual Studies, 3rd ed.. (Modern Language Association of America, 1999): pp. 15-53.
- David Scott Kastan, “Size Matters,” Shakespeare Studies 28 (2000): 149-53
- Stephen K. Gailbraith, "English Literary Folios, 1593-1623: Studying Shifts in Format," Tudor Books and Readers, ed. John N. King (Cambridge, 2010), 46-67
- Recommended
- Dand and Gillespie, "The Myth of the Cheap Quarto," Tudor Books and Readers (above), 25-45
Morning
- How books are made; paper folding; book formats
- Collation Formulae
- Identify the format and the basic structure of your book; copy collation formula from Hamnet and check for any irregularities; look at 3-4 other examples of your category of book (on EEBO): how does your book fit into the broader material conventions of this category of book?
- Results of library activities
- Discussion of Feb. 25 readings
March 4: Break
March 11: Textual Criticism and Reference Bibliography
Readings- Joseph Loewenstein,
"Authentic Reproductions: The Material
Origins of the New Bibliography," Textual
Formations and Reformations,
ed. Maguire et al. (Delaware,
1998), 23-44.
- Alan Farmer, "Shakespeare
and the New Textualism," Shakespearean
International Yearbook 2, ed.
Elton and Mucciolo (Ashgate,
2002), 158-79
- Patricia Parker, "Murder in Guyana," Shakespeare Studies 28 (2000): 169-74
Morning
- Discuss March 11 readings
- Discuss critical and historiographic traditions related to your book
- Work on charting and comparing editions of your book
- Discuss results of library time
March 18: Finding and Reading Manuscripts
ReadingNational Archives Online Paleography Course - http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography
(Entire tutorial -- do exercises)
Events
Morning
- Dr. Owen Williams on early modern hands and finding aids for manuscript material
- Is there any manuscript in your book? Can you read it? If not, locate another book in your area of inquiry that has readers’ marks. Prepare a brief note describing your findings.
- Practice manuscript transcription as a group
March 25: Cultures of Handwriting
Readings- Required
- Harold Love and Arthur F. Marotti, "Manuscript Transmission and Circulation," The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature (Cambridge, 2002), Chapter 2
- James Daybell, Women's Letter Writers in Tudor England (Oxford, 2006), Chapter 6
- Recommended
- Juliet Fleming, "Graffiti, Grammatology, and the Age of Shakespeare," Renaissance Culture and the Everyday, ed. Fumerton and Hunt (Pennsylvania , 1999), pp. 315-51.
- Jonathan Goldberg, Writing Matter: From the Hands of the English Renaissance (Stanford, 1990), Chapter 2.
- Heather Wolfe, "Women's Handwriting," The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women's Writing (Cambridge, 2009, 21-39)
Morning
- Discussion of March 25 readings
- Locate and examine a manuscript relevant to your area of inquiry; prepare a brief note.
- More manuscript transcription practice with Dr. Owen Williams
April 1: Images: Resources and Analysis
Readings- Required
- Hulse and Erickson, Introduction, Early Modern Visual Culture: Representation, Race and Empire in Renaissance England (Penn, 2000), 1-14.
- Stephen Orgel,"Textual Icons: Reading Early Modern Illustrations," The Renaissance Computer: Knowledge Technology in the First Age of Print, edited by Neil Rhodes and Jonathan Sawday (Routledge, 2000), 59-94.
- Recommended
- Kim F. Hall, "Object into Object: Some thoughts on the Presence of Black Women in Early Modern Culture, Early Modern Visual Culture (above), 346-79
- James A. Knapp, Illustrating the Past in Early Modern England: The Representation of History in Printed Books (Ashgate, 2003), Chapter 3.
- Joseph Monteyne, "Enveloping Objects: Allegory And Commodity Fetish In Wenceslaus Hollar’s Personifications Of The Seasons And Fashion Still Lifes," Art History 29 (2006): 414-43.
Morning
- Dr. Erin Blake on the technologies and motives of book illustration
- Resources for finding book illustrations and images
- Find an image relevant to your research topic
- Discussion of library work and of April 1 readings
April 8: Break
April 15: Margins, Types and Paratexts
Readings- Required
- William Sherman, "What did Renaissance Readers Write in Their Books"?, Books and Readers in Early Modern England: Material Studies, ed. Andersen and Sauer (Pennyslvania, 2002), 119-37
- Eric Nebeker, "Broadside Ballads, Miscellanies, and the Lyric in Print," ELH 76 (2009): 989-1013
- Recommended
- Heidi Brayman Hackel, Reading Material in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2005), 149-69
- Steven K. Galbraith, "English' Black-Letter Type and Spenser's Shepheardes Calender," Spenser Studies 23 (2008): 13-40
- Lisa Maruca, "Bodies of Type: The Work of Textual Production in English Printers' Manuals," Eighteenth-Century Studies 36 (2003): 321-43
Morning
- Dr. Steven Galbraith on title pages and typefaces
- Resources for types and paratexts
- Examine paratextual aspects of your book; consider examples from a few other books in your category
- Discussion of library work and of April 15 readings
April 22: Presenting...Your Book
PresentationsConcluding thoughts
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