The Prehistory of the Book

Abstract

Tout, dans l'inscription littéraire médiévale, paraît échapper à la conception moderne du texte, à la pensée textuaire.—Bernard Cerquiglini, Éloge de la variante (42)Everything about medieval literary inscription seems to elude the modern conception of the text, of textual thought.The history of the book is everywhere. Intersecting with the thoroughgoing historicism that has dominated scholarly conversation in the last several decades, the study of material texts has flourished in all fields of literary study. An already vast bibliography is growing exponentially as graduate courses in the history of the book proliferate, universities establish centers for those who study material texts, presses publish series dedicated to book history, and more and more scholars recognize the fascination of studying anything “… and the book.” This field of inquiry has been newly codified, not only within numerous institutional structures but also in the most etymological sense, for codify ultimately derives, through code, from codex. Scholars of book history are eager to excavate the codes that are embedded within the codex—that is, more generally, the systems of thought that are both revealed and created by the physical structures through which ideas are expressed. Their true subject is neither the disembodied poem floating free of its material support nor the nuts and bolts of quiring and print runs but “the sociology of texts,” in D. F. McKenzie's memorable phrase (Bibliography). The history of the book thus offers scholars their own kind of system, for it draws methodologies together with theories in a particularly compelling way.

A Medieval French Book in an Early Modern English World: Christine de Pisan’s Livre de la Cité des Dames and Women Readers in the Age of Print

“…While, as Sandra Hindman, Joseph Dane and Jessica Brantley note, 16 we should be hesitant to draw too many direct lines between the printing press and social changes, print did coincide with and in some cases impelled significant cultural changes, such as the expansion of education 17…”

“…12 12 On a larger scale, the move from script to print still tends to mark for historians one of the major breaks between the medieval and the early modern periods, although the importance of the printing press itself to contemporary cultural changes has been a matter of some debate. Jessica Brantley observes that “Gutenberg’s innovation more than anything else (such as linguistic or religious difference) might be adduced to explain the perceived gulf between the medieval and the modern” (633–4). Some scholars consider print the main instigator of important cultural changes that began during the fifteenth century.…”

“…16 16 Sandra Hindman cautions that “to emphasize a sharp distinction between scribal culture and print culture implies that there was from one to the other a break with the past, which leads to a positivistic reading of the history of the fifteenth century as an evolutionary narrative” (3). Similarly, Brantley points out that “manuscript and print continued to circulate in tandem – sometimes even in the same artifact – for centuries after moveable type ‘revolutionized’ the literate world” (635). See Dane’s introductory essay for a thorough response to theories such as Elizabeth Eisenstein’s regarding print’s impact on culture. …”

New Formalism and the Forms of Middle English Literary Texts

“…The workshop was convened to consider how the literary form and manuscript history of medieval English texts intersect – how ‘forms effect meaning’ (McKenzie 13). This essay explores the intellectual background that led us to this question while also offering new directions for research espoused by participants of the conference, such as Martha Rust, Jessica Brantley, D. Vance Smith, and Simon Horobin, among others.…”