The Practice and Politics of Reading, 650-1500

Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-1-84384-641-3
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, 354 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 848 g

A new look at how reading was practised and represented in England from the seventh century to the beginnings of the print era, finding many kinships between reading cultures across the medieval longue durée.

Even as it transforms human cultures, routines, attention spans, and the wiring of our brains, the media revolution of the last few decades also urges a reconsideration of the long history of reading. The essays in this volume take a new look at how reading was practised and represented in England from the seventh century to the beginnings of the print era, using texts from Aldhelm to Malory and Wynkyn de Worde, arguing that whether unpicking intricate Latin, contemplating image-texts, or participating in semiotically-rich public rituals, reading cultivated and energized the subject's values, perceptions, and attitudes to the world.

Part I, "Practices of Reading", asks how writers, scribes and artists engaged readerly attention through textual layout, poetic form, hermeneutic difficulty, or images, while Part II, "Politics of Reading", explores how different textual communities manipulated the anxieties and opportunities for education, moral improvement or entertainment associated with reading; particular topics addressed include Bible translation and exegesis, page layout, literary form and readerly practice, fiction, hermeneutics, and performance. Although it understands reading as culturally and technologically localized, the book finds many kinships between reading cultures across the medieval longue durée and the literatures and literacies that proliferate today.

Contributors: Amy Appleford, Michelle De Groot, Daniel Donoghue, Andrew James Johnston, Andrew Kraebel, Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe, Catherine Sanok, Samantha Katz Seal, James Simpson, Emily V. Thornbury, Kathleen Tonry, Kathryn Mogk Wagner, Nicholas Watson, Erica Weaver, Anna Wilson.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Donoghue, Daniel G

Simpson, James

Watson, Nicholas

Wilson, Anna

Weitere Mitwirkende

Appleford, Amy

De Groot, Michelle

Donoghue, Daniel G.

Johnston, Andrew James

Kraebel, Andrew B

Mogk-Wagner, Kathryn

O'Brien O'Keeffe, Katherine

Sanok, Catherine

Katz Seal, Samantha

Simpson, James

Thornbury, Emily V.

Tonry, Kathleen

Watson, Nicholas

Weaver, Erica

Wilson, Anna

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Europäische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction - Daniel Donoghue, James Simpson, Nicholas Watson, Anna Wilson
PART I. PRACTICES OF READING
1. Literally, What Did Medieval Readers See? - Daniel Donoghue
2. Reading for the Ornament: Repetition and Structure in the Old English Exodus - Emily Thornbury
3. A Canterbury School of Literary Theory: Aldhelm's De virginitate, the Liber monstrorum, and (Un)Reliable Fictions - Erica Weaver
4. About Face: Addressing the Vernicle in Late Medieval England - Catherine Sanok
5. Ascetic Reading - Amy Appleford
6. Prayer at Plough: Medieval Reading Practices and the Work of the Paternoster - Kathryn Mogk Wagner
PART II. POLITICS OF READING
7. Who Reads Now? The Anxieties of Millennial Reading: The 2019 Morton W. Bloomfield Lecture - Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe
8. The Jewish Reader: A Medieval Antitype - Samantha Katz Seal
9. Biblical Compilation, Regional Reading and Tailored Texts: The Making of Selwyn College MS 108 L. 1 - Andrew Kraebel
10. Reading the Fair Maid of Astolat: Editorial Practice, Performative Emotionality and Communal Forms of Reading - Andrew James Johnston
11. Marx Goes Fishing: The Temporalities of Idleness - Kathleen Tonry
12. Shining Cities: Communal Reading and the New Jerusalem from Maidstone to McCain - Michelle De Groot
Bibliography
A Note on the Bloomfield Conferences
General Index

Über Autor(innen)

Wilson, Anna
Anna Wilson teaches English at Harvard University. Her research interests include Medieval English literature and literary culture, fanfiction and fan communities, and medieval gender, sexuality, and race.

Simpson, James
James Simpson teaches English at Harvard University. He publishes on a wide range of topics in on late medieval and early modern Western European Literature.

Donoghue, Daniel G.
DANIEL DONOGHUE is Professor of English at Harvard University. His research explores Old English, Middle English, the History of English, Medievalism and Cognitive Literary Studies.

Donoghue, Daniel G
DANIEL DONOGHUE is Professor of English at Harvard University. His research explores Old English, Middle English, the History of English, Medievalism and Cognitive Literary Studies.

Watson, Nicholas
NICHOLAS WATSON teaches English at Harvard University. His research focuses on medieval English and North European literature, intellectual history, visionary writing and the role of the written vernacular.

Watson, Nicholas
NICHOLAS WATSON teaches English at Harvard University. His research focuses on medieval English and North European literature, intellectual history, visionary writing and the role of the written vernacular.

Sanok, Catherine
CATHERINE SANOK is Professor of English and Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan.

Simpson, James
James Simpson teaches English at Harvard University. He publishes on a wide range of topics in on late medieval and early modern Western European Literature.

Wilson, Anna
Anna Wilson teaches English at Harvard University. Her research interests include Medieval English literature and literary culture, fanfiction and fan communities, and medieval gender, sexuality, and race.