106-415 Material Texts

Usually admission to fouth year honours or the postgraduate diploma in English literary studies.

This subject examines developments in the production, circulation and reception of literary texts as material objects in England from the end of the 16th century until the Copyright Act of 1710. We will look at the coexistence of scribal and print cultures throughout the century and examine the social and political factors which determined whether a text circulated in print or manuscript. We are interested in the material aspects of a text (physical layout of books and manuscripts, handwriting styles and print fonts, etc), in practices of reading for both individuals and communities, and in the social contexts of literacy. We will analyse concepts of authorship, regulations and practices of censorship, the development of copyright or literary property, and debates about the emergence of a public sphere in the late 17th century. Case studies will include Ben Jonson's published Works of 1616; the manuscript poetry of John Donne, Katherine Philips and Rochester; radical pamphlet material from the Civil War period; Samuel Pepys' Restoration Diary; the manuscript circulation of dangerous and scandalous satire in the late Restoration period; and, with reference to the careers of Aphra Behn and Delariviere Manley, the emergence of print fiction at the end of the century.