The Edifying Margins of Renaissance English Books

Abstract

When Horatio tells Hamlet, “I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done” (V.ii. 156-57), we find ourselves amused and bemused trying to imagine what conceiveable edification could be gleaned from a marginal gloss on the courtly gabble of Osric's invitation to the duel. Yet while Horatio was having his little joke about edifying margents, Renaissance commentators, scholarly annotators, translators, editors, printers, and authors of all kinds were busily constructing elaborate scaffolds of printed marginalia around texts both ancient and modern, ranging from Holy Writ to handbooks for New World entrepreneurs and manuals on the courtly art of self-defense. The ostensible and frequently advertised purpose of this marginal material was to make texts more accessible to the “general reader,” to provide the non-specialist working on a difficult text a place to stand that was grounded on more familiar books, ideas, and experience.

Edified by the Margent: Early Modern Readings of Biblical Marginalia

“…69 Saenger and Heinlen,256;Hackel,[90][91] Saenger and Heinlen, 254. 71 Slights, 1989, 692. 72 Slights, 1992.…”

“…27 Camille; Genette. For work on printed marginalia, see Lipking; Slights, 1989;Tribble;Rhodes and Sawday;Slights, 2001;Andersen and Sauer;Hackel;Sherman, 2008;Hauptman;Smith and Wilson;Fulton, 2021;Shuger. For work on manuscript marginalia, see McPherson;Stoddard;Jardine and Grafton;Evans;Grafton;Sharpe, 2000;Baron, Walsh, and Scola;Roberts;Gingerich;Hackel;Beal and Edwards;Cormack and Mazzio;Fleming;Fulton, 2010;Scott-Warren;Richards and Schurink;Orgel;Acheson;Spedding and Tankard. 28 One excellent recent exception is Jeremy Specland's work on psalters: see Specland.…”

Cutting Edges: Professional Hierarchy vs. Creative Identity in Nicolas de Launay’s Fine Art Prints

“…Recent research on book publishing has drawn attention to the importance of the various stages of a book's production, particularly the technical decisions on artistic matters that influenced and altered the essence of the final product. The cases discussed by (Ann Blair 2016), Peter Stallybrass (2011) and William Slights (1989) among others, testify to an active, even creative process in the addition of para-texts, as Gerard Genette describes in his canonical study of the subject (Genette 1997, pp. 1-2).…”