Ann Hughes
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199251926
- eISBN:
- 9780191719042
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199251926.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter explores the ways in which historians have used Gangraena as a source, and explains how new approaches to the history of print culture, the history of the book, and of reading will be ...
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This chapter explores the ways in which historians have used Gangraena as a source, and explains how new approaches to the history of print culture, the history of the book, and of reading will be used to explore Gangraena as a text. The discussion of Edwards’s training at Cambridge and his experience within the Laudian church in London and Hertford are followed by an account of divisions amongst English Puritans over church government in the early 1640s. The publication of Edwards’s Antapologia in 1644 marked a crucial stage in the emergence of profound religious divisions amongst Parliamentarians.Less
This chapter explores the ways in which historians have used Gangraena as a source, and explains how new approaches to the history of print culture, the history of the book, and of reading will be used to explore Gangraena as a text. The discussion of Edwards’s training at Cambridge and his experience within the Laudian church in London and Hertford are followed by an account of divisions amongst English Puritans over church government in the early 1640s. The publication of Edwards’s Antapologia in 1644 marked a crucial stage in the emergence of profound religious divisions amongst Parliamentarians.
Clive Griffin
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199280735
- eISBN:
- 9780191712920
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199280735.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
Although the history of the book is a booming area of research, the journeymen who printed 16th-century books have remained shadowy figures because they were not thought to have left any significant ...
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Although the history of the book is a booming area of research, the journeymen who printed 16th-century books have remained shadowy figures because they were not thought to have left any significant traces in the archives. However, Griffin’s research on unpublished trial-records and a mass of associated inquisitional correspondence reveals a clandestine network of Protestant-minded immigrant journeymen — printers who were arrested by the Holy Office in Spain and Portugal in the 1560s and 1570s at a time of international crisis. A startlingly clear portrait of these humble men (and occasionally women) emerges allowing the reconstruction of what Namier deemed one of history’s greatest challenges: ‘the biographies of ordinary men’. We learn of their geographical and social origins, educational and professional training, travels, careers, standard of living, violent behaviour, and even their attitudes, beliefs, and ambitions. In the course of this study, other subjects are addressed: popular culture and religion; heresy; the history of skilled labour; the history of the book and of reading; the Inquisition; foreign and itinerant workers and the xenophobia they encountered; popular patterns of sociability; and the ‘double lives’ of lower-class Protestants living within a uniquely vigilant Catholic society. This study is relevant not only to the Iberian Peninsula or to the printing industry. It fills a gap in our knowledge of artisan history in the 16th-century throughout Europe. This study of the lives of immigrant workers in a society intolerant of foreigners and of religious diversity has much to say to readers in the early 21st century.Less
Although the history of the book is a booming area of research, the journeymen who printed 16th-century books have remained shadowy figures because they were not thought to have left any significant traces in the archives. However, Griffin’s research on unpublished trial-records and a mass of associated inquisitional correspondence reveals a clandestine network of Protestant-minded immigrant journeymen — printers who were arrested by the Holy Office in Spain and Portugal in the 1560s and 1570s at a time of international crisis. A startlingly clear portrait of these humble men (and occasionally women) emerges allowing the reconstruction of what Namier deemed one of history’s greatest challenges: ‘the biographies of ordinary men’. We learn of their geographical and social origins, educational and professional training, travels, careers, standard of living, violent behaviour, and even their attitudes, beliefs, and ambitions. In the course of this study, other subjects are addressed: popular culture and religion; heresy; the history of skilled labour; the history of the book and of reading; the Inquisition; foreign and itinerant workers and the xenophobia they encountered; popular patterns of sociability; and the ‘double lives’ of lower-class Protestants living within a uniquely vigilant Catholic society. This study is relevant not only to the Iberian Peninsula or to the printing industry. It fills a gap in our knowledge of artisan history in the 16th-century throughout Europe. This study of the lives of immigrant workers in a society intolerant of foreigners and of religious diversity has much to say to readers in the early 21st century.
Filippo de Vivo
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199227068
- eISBN:
- 9780191711114
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199227068.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
Today, in an age of spin-doctoring and media power, we take it for granted that information and politics affect each other. This book investigates the political uses of communication in 16th- and ...
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Today, in an age of spin-doctoring and media power, we take it for granted that information and politics affect each other. This book investigates the political uses of communication in 16th- and 17th-century Venice. Unlike traditional book history, it defines communication broadly, encompassing orality and literacy, manuscript and print: from council debates to written reports, newsletters, rumours, graffiti, and pamphlets. The book combines political and cultural history, urban history, and the history of the book. Chapters 1-3 discuss communication at different levels: the government; the political arena of factions and professional informers; the city of ordinary people without personal connection with the authorities. Chapters 4-6 analyse the interaction between these spheres both in peace and in conflict (e.g., during the Venetian Interdict of 1606-7, in which Paolo Sarpi played a prominent role as information strategist). The book rethinks the boundaries of early modern politics. Traditional political historians view events from the upper windows of government buildings, while social historians have taught us to look at history from below. Neither perspective is sufficient in isolation. Even secretive oligarchs ensconced inside the Ducal Palace were constantly preoccupied by their vociferous subjects in the squares below. Politics involved not just patricians but ordinary people. They were denied any institutional political role and, in Venice's proverbially pacific history, mostly abstained from extra-institutional collective activities like rioting. Barred from political action, however, they participated in political communication, a form of political action which could influence the conduct of high politics.Less
Today, in an age of spin-doctoring and media power, we take it for granted that information and politics affect each other. This book investigates the political uses of communication in 16th- and 17th-century Venice. Unlike traditional book history, it defines communication broadly, encompassing orality and literacy, manuscript and print: from council debates to written reports, newsletters, rumours, graffiti, and pamphlets. The book combines political and cultural history, urban history, and the history of the book. Chapters 1-3 discuss communication at different levels: the government; the political arena of factions and professional informers; the city of ordinary people without personal connection with the authorities. Chapters 4-6 analyse the interaction between these spheres both in peace and in conflict (e.g., during the Venetian Interdict of 1606-7, in which Paolo Sarpi played a prominent role as information strategist). The book rethinks the boundaries of early modern politics. Traditional political historians view events from the upper windows of government buildings, while social historians have taught us to look at history from below. Neither perspective is sufficient in isolation. Even secretive oligarchs ensconced inside the Ducal Palace were constantly preoccupied by their vociferous subjects in the squares below. Politics involved not just patricians but ordinary people. They were denied any institutional political role and, in Venice's proverbially pacific history, mostly abstained from extra-institutional collective activities like rioting. Barred from political action, however, they participated in political communication, a form of political action which could influence the conduct of high politics.
Jane A. Bernstein
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195141085
- eISBN:
- 9780199871421
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195141085.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Venice achieved preeminence as a great publishing center and music printing capital of Renaissance Europe. This book presents a broad overview of the Venetian music press during the mid-16th century. ...
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Venice achieved preeminence as a great publishing center and music printing capital of Renaissance Europe. This book presents a broad overview of the Venetian music press during the mid-16th century. It bridges the gap between music and other disciplines by incorporating music printing into the wider world of the publishing industry, demonstrating that the field of music was no different from any other specialty of the book trade. Within this framework, the singular theme of commercial enterprise runs throughout the study. Stressing the commerce of music and its connection to the printing and publishing industry, the book explores various mercantile activities of the trade from the financing and production to the marketing and distribution of music publications. It also considers the impact print culture had on musicians, delving into the complex relationships that occurred between composers, patrons, and bookmen. Focusing on the two dynastic publishing houses of Scotto and Gardano, the book examines the business practices that these firms followed in the acquisition and selling of music. Their marketing strategies not only minimized competition, but also helped define the musical repertory published in 16th-century Venice.Less
Venice achieved preeminence as a great publishing center and music printing capital of Renaissance Europe. This book presents a broad overview of the Venetian music press during the mid-16th century. It bridges the gap between music and other disciplines by incorporating music printing into the wider world of the publishing industry, demonstrating that the field of music was no different from any other specialty of the book trade. Within this framework, the singular theme of commercial enterprise runs throughout the study. Stressing the commerce of music and its connection to the printing and publishing industry, the book explores various mercantile activities of the trade from the financing and production to the marketing and distribution of music publications. It also considers the impact print culture had on musicians, delving into the complex relationships that occurred between composers, patrons, and bookmen. Focusing on the two dynastic publishing houses of Scotto and Gardano, the book examines the business practices that these firms followed in the acquisition and selling of music. Their marketing strategies not only minimized competition, but also helped define the musical repertory published in 16th-century Venice.
Deirdre de la Cruz
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226314884
- eISBN:
- 9780226315072
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226315072.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Religion
Chapter One examines several texts produced or published by Spanish friars that narrate the origins of some of the most significant apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the colonial Philippines. Often ...
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Chapter One examines several texts produced or published by Spanish friars that narrate the origins of some of the most significant apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the colonial Philippines. Often serving as the preface to novenas (a nine day cycle of prayers), these apparition tales reach a zenith of mass production in chapbook form in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. They make history out of popular lore and render complete accounts with only incomplete archival records. These apparition tales are also, at times, violent narratives of exclusion of those communities that posed the greatest threat to Spanish authority. But insofar as these tales are usually written in the local vernaculars and attuned to the specificities of place, they invite one to read against the grain of their colonial authors’ agendas. These texts represent the worldview whereby the sacred was highly localized, particular, and believed immanent to material forms.Less
Chapter One examines several texts produced or published by Spanish friars that narrate the origins of some of the most significant apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the colonial Philippines. Often serving as the preface to novenas (a nine day cycle of prayers), these apparition tales reach a zenith of mass production in chapbook form in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. They make history out of popular lore and render complete accounts with only incomplete archival records. These apparition tales are also, at times, violent narratives of exclusion of those communities that posed the greatest threat to Spanish authority. But insofar as these tales are usually written in the local vernaculars and attuned to the specificities of place, they invite one to read against the grain of their colonial authors’ agendas. These texts represent the worldview whereby the sacred was highly localized, particular, and believed immanent to material forms.
Timothy Chesters
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199599806
- eISBN:
- 9780191723537
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199599806.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, European Literature
The first section examines the complex terminology of ghosts in sixteenth-century France, reviewing a range of French terms variously poetic (‘ombre’, ‘idole’), classical (‘larves’, ‘lares’, ...
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The first section examines the complex terminology of ghosts in sixteenth-century France, reviewing a range of French terms variously poetic (‘ombre’, ‘idole’), classical (‘larves’, ‘lares’, ‘manes’), everyday (‘esprit qui revient’, ‘fantôme’) or specialist (‘spectre’). This need among early modern authors to define and control the topic lexically, though not always successful, derived in part from the increasing intellectual prestige of the vernacular. The next section discusses the methodology adopted, promising a role for the history of the book—the material history of demonology—far larger than is customary in existing studies of witchcraft and magic. Following this is a justification of the chosen corpus—one which deliberately excludes verse and dramatic representations of ghosts. Finally, the Introduction offers a summary of the subsequent chapters.Less
The first section examines the complex terminology of ghosts in sixteenth-century France, reviewing a range of French terms variously poetic (‘ombre’, ‘idole’), classical (‘larves’, ‘lares’, ‘manes’), everyday (‘esprit qui revient’, ‘fantôme’) or specialist (‘spectre’). This need among early modern authors to define and control the topic lexically, though not always successful, derived in part from the increasing intellectual prestige of the vernacular. The next section discusses the methodology adopted, promising a role for the history of the book—the material history of demonology—far larger than is customary in existing studies of witchcraft and magic. Following this is a justification of the chosen corpus—one which deliberately excludes verse and dramatic representations of ghosts. Finally, the Introduction offers a summary of the subsequent chapters.
Katrin Ettenhuber
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199609109
- eISBN:
- 9780191729553
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199609109.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter presents the first sustained study of Donne's reading and his scholarly methods, through paying detailed attention to his use of Saint Augustine's works. The chapter situates Donne's ...
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This chapter presents the first sustained study of Donne's reading and his scholarly methods, through paying detailed attention to his use of Saint Augustine's works. The chapter situates Donne's approach to Augustine in the context of Renaissance patristic scholarship and demonstrates the breadth and range of Donne's Augustinian reading. The chapter focuses on Donne's patristic sources: how many (and which) of Augustine's works he cited; whether Donne consulted the original Augustinian texts or intermediary sources, and how he dealt with these different types of patristic recourse. A survey is provided of the patristic editions that were available to divines in the early modern period, concentrating on the three sixteenth-century editions of Augustine's Works. The chapter then turns to Donne's philosophy of quotation, explaining his scholarly protocols, and the moral and theological thought which underpins them.Less
This chapter presents the first sustained study of Donne's reading and his scholarly methods, through paying detailed attention to his use of Saint Augustine's works. The chapter situates Donne's approach to Augustine in the context of Renaissance patristic scholarship and demonstrates the breadth and range of Donne's Augustinian reading. The chapter focuses on Donne's patristic sources: how many (and which) of Augustine's works he cited; whether Donne consulted the original Augustinian texts or intermediary sources, and how he dealt with these different types of patristic recourse. A survey is provided of the patristic editions that were available to divines in the early modern period, concentrating on the three sixteenth-century editions of Augustine's Works. The chapter then turns to Donne's philosophy of quotation, explaining his scholarly protocols, and the moral and theological thought which underpins them.
Katrin Ettenhuber
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199609109
- eISBN:
- 9780191729553
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199609109.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter outlines some of the most characteristic ways in which Donne absorbs, digests, and reworks Augustine's texts by presenting a series of case studies. It falls into two halves. The first ...
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This chapter outlines some of the most characteristic ways in which Donne absorbs, digests, and reworks Augustine's texts by presenting a series of case studies. It falls into two halves. The first part focuses on citations probably gleaned directly from Augustine's works: the chapter summarizes the evidence for Donne's first-hand knowledge of Augustine's texts and presents examples designed to showcase his Augustinian expertise in different ways. The second part devotes itself to the medieval and early modern mediators of Augustine that were available to Donne. It is organized according to textual genre and category, and surveys patristic handbooks, Scripture commentaries, and various types of excerpt collections, among others, to track the sources and mediating channels of Donne's Augustinian citations. The chapter reconstructs Donne's reading in detail, demonstrates his recourse to sixty different Augustinian texts, and excavates a whole spectrum of sources that have been completely neglected in literary scholarship of the early modern period.Less
This chapter outlines some of the most characteristic ways in which Donne absorbs, digests, and reworks Augustine's texts by presenting a series of case studies. It falls into two halves. The first part focuses on citations probably gleaned directly from Augustine's works: the chapter summarizes the evidence for Donne's first-hand knowledge of Augustine's texts and presents examples designed to showcase his Augustinian expertise in different ways. The second part devotes itself to the medieval and early modern mediators of Augustine that were available to Donne. It is organized according to textual genre and category, and surveys patristic handbooks, Scripture commentaries, and various types of excerpt collections, among others, to track the sources and mediating channels of Donne's Augustinian citations. The chapter reconstructs Donne's reading in detail, demonstrates his recourse to sixty different Augustinian texts, and excavates a whole spectrum of sources that have been completely neglected in literary scholarship of the early modern period.
Alan Liu
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226451817
- eISBN:
- 9780226452005
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226452005.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Linearists, as they might be called, have staked deep claims of cultural and other value on the linear exposition of history, narrative, argument, and other forms of thought. Theorists of networks, ...
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Linearists, as they might be called, have staked deep claims of cultural and other value on the linear exposition of history, narrative, argument, and other forms of thought. Theorists of networks, hypertext, and other domains of today's digital era stake equally significant claims on the nonlinear, often represented in network-style or other postlinear graphical visualizations. Indeed, they often elevate the importance of graphical knowledge in general. Informed by media history extending from oral culture and the history of the book to digital new media, this chapter asks the simplifying question: what if there never was any linearity to defend or to contest? What if the idea of linearity has always been an ideology deployed through graphical knowledge systems that are realized in graphics as the visualization of any era's idea of authoritative linearity—for example, who gets to go to the front of a line and why—and ultimately of its sense of history? The chapter makes Wallace Stevens's "The Idea of Order at Key West" (with its invocation of "meaningless plungings" yet also visualization of seas "portioned" into fixed "emblazoned zones") a recurrent touchstone of its argument—in part by using digital humanities text analysis methods to render the poem as visualizations.Less
Linearists, as they might be called, have staked deep claims of cultural and other value on the linear exposition of history, narrative, argument, and other forms of thought. Theorists of networks, hypertext, and other domains of today's digital era stake equally significant claims on the nonlinear, often represented in network-style or other postlinear graphical visualizations. Indeed, they often elevate the importance of graphical knowledge in general. Informed by media history extending from oral culture and the history of the book to digital new media, this chapter asks the simplifying question: what if there never was any linearity to defend or to contest? What if the idea of linearity has always been an ideology deployed through graphical knowledge systems that are realized in graphics as the visualization of any era's idea of authoritative linearity—for example, who gets to go to the front of a line and why—and ultimately of its sense of history? The chapter makes Wallace Stevens's "The Idea of Order at Key West" (with its invocation of "meaningless plungings" yet also visualization of seas "portioned" into fixed "emblazoned zones") a recurrent touchstone of its argument—in part by using digital humanities text analysis methods to render the poem as visualizations.
Robert K. Batchelor
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226080659
- eISBN:
- 9780226080796
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226080796.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This book describes the emergence of London as a global city between 1549 and 1689, as an important population, economic and cultural center that was particularly transformed by its contact with Asia ...
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This book describes the emergence of London as a global city between 1549 and 1689, as an important population, economic and cultural center that was particularly transformed by its contact with Asia in this period. This process is usually described as one that occurred in a national or Atlantic World context and extended outward in a proto-imperial fashion. But in this period, maritime Asia and the empires and trading cities associated with it played a driving role in defining globally-oriented institutions and historical changes in London. These partial shifts influenced by and partially translated from the world of Asian trade included the emergence of the joint-stock corporation, developing understandings of national autonomy, the increasing importance of history and law, the image of absolutist authority by the monarch, and the revolutions in science and politics in the late seventeenth century, which are often seen to mark the birth of modernity. The methodology employed in the book uses translation of both Asian and European sources from this encounter as well as the history of cartography, the history of science, and the history of the book and manuscripts in order to better understand historical processes of linguistic exchange. New archival sources discovered in the course of research by the author include the Selden Map of China.Less
This book describes the emergence of London as a global city between 1549 and 1689, as an important population, economic and cultural center that was particularly transformed by its contact with Asia in this period. This process is usually described as one that occurred in a national or Atlantic World context and extended outward in a proto-imperial fashion. But in this period, maritime Asia and the empires and trading cities associated with it played a driving role in defining globally-oriented institutions and historical changes in London. These partial shifts influenced by and partially translated from the world of Asian trade included the emergence of the joint-stock corporation, developing understandings of national autonomy, the increasing importance of history and law, the image of absolutist authority by the monarch, and the revolutions in science and politics in the late seventeenth century, which are often seen to mark the birth of modernity. The methodology employed in the book uses translation of both Asian and European sources from this encounter as well as the history of cartography, the history of science, and the history of the book and manuscripts in order to better understand historical processes of linguistic exchange. New archival sources discovered in the course of research by the author include the Selden Map of China.
Alan Liu
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226451817
- eISBN:
- 9780226452005
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226452005.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter studies the change from prior senses of history to today's “real time” sense of history—or instant sense of community—of social networks. How was the equivalent of a sense of history ...
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This chapter studies the change from prior senses of history to today's “real time” sense of history—or instant sense of community—of social networks. How was the equivalent of a sense of history experienced, and mediated, in prehistorical oral cultures? How did print culture at the height of the history of the book, which coincided with narrative historicism in the mode of Leopold von Ranke (Historismus), alter the sense of history? And how do "Web 2.0" and social networking today yet again change the sense of history? Can today's society "friend" past ones to imagine, and absorb, prior senses of history as a layered, enrichening texture of the present? What continuities—for example, of internet transmissions following the routes once forced by imperial roads across conquered lands—lock the digital present to its historical past? But, also, what discontinuities allow past historicism and today's information empire to challenge each other's assumptions, thus enabling a more humane texture of the present mindful of the past?Less
This chapter studies the change from prior senses of history to today's “real time” sense of history—or instant sense of community—of social networks. How was the equivalent of a sense of history experienced, and mediated, in prehistorical oral cultures? How did print culture at the height of the history of the book, which coincided with narrative historicism in the mode of Leopold von Ranke (Historismus), alter the sense of history? And how do "Web 2.0" and social networking today yet again change the sense of history? Can today's society "friend" past ones to imagine, and absorb, prior senses of history as a layered, enrichening texture of the present? What continuities—for example, of internet transmissions following the routes once forced by imperial roads across conquered lands—lock the digital present to its historical past? But, also, what discontinuities allow past historicism and today's information empire to challenge each other's assumptions, thus enabling a more humane texture of the present mindful of the past?
James E. Montgomery
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748683321
- eISBN:
- 9780748695072
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748683321.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
Al-Jāḥiẓ wrote The Book of Living in response to these apocalyptic expectations and social concerns. The enterprise began as an attempt to fulfil a moral imperative — the need to thank God for His ...
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Al-Jāḥiẓ wrote The Book of Living in response to these apocalyptic expectations and social concerns. The enterprise began as an attempt to fulfil a moral imperative — the need to thank God for His creation by producing a comprehensive inventory of it. The production of such an inventory involved the proper application of the special gift which God had given to man: the reasoning intellect. Al-Jāḥiẓ sought to codify his inventory in the form of a totalising book. Yet the process was paradoxical: in order to write it, al-Jā?i? had somehow to become the ideal writer. Al-Jā?i? was also required to fashion an audience of ideal readers able to read and respond to such a book. He produced possibly the longest, and probably the most complex, book written in Arabic at the time.Less
Al-Jāḥiẓ wrote The Book of Living in response to these apocalyptic expectations and social concerns. The enterprise began as an attempt to fulfil a moral imperative — the need to thank God for His creation by producing a comprehensive inventory of it. The production of such an inventory involved the proper application of the special gift which God had given to man: the reasoning intellect. Al-Jāḥiẓ sought to codify his inventory in the form of a totalising book. Yet the process was paradoxical: in order to write it, al-Jā?i? had somehow to become the ideal writer. Al-Jā?i? was also required to fashion an audience of ideal readers able to read and respond to such a book. He produced possibly the longest, and probably the most complex, book written in Arabic at the time.
Brooke Sylvia Palmieri
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780197266250
- eISBN:
- 9780191869181
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266250.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
Using the records and publications of the Quakers, this chapter considers the religious and political context behind the creation of the Quaker archive and the relationship between scribal material ...
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Using the records and publications of the Quakers, this chapter considers the religious and political context behind the creation of the Quaker archive and the relationship between scribal material and print culture in making meaning. The story of Mary Fisher’s (c.1623–1698) trip to Constantinople to convert the Sultan of the Ottoman Turks provides a valuable case study in how a letter became an archival document before circulating widely in print. Initially a product of the zealous, evangelical epistolary culture that characterised Quaker writings of the 1650s, it was transferred into the public archive created during the extreme persecution of the 1660s to situate the Quakers within a longer history of suffering. Later it was used to advance the political argument for toleration by offering an instance of Muslim hospitality in counterbalance to Christian cruelty. The chapter highlights how changing historical contexts transform the nature of the truth of archives.Less
Using the records and publications of the Quakers, this chapter considers the religious and political context behind the creation of the Quaker archive and the relationship between scribal material and print culture in making meaning. The story of Mary Fisher’s (c.1623–1698) trip to Constantinople to convert the Sultan of the Ottoman Turks provides a valuable case study in how a letter became an archival document before circulating widely in print. Initially a product of the zealous, evangelical epistolary culture that characterised Quaker writings of the 1650s, it was transferred into the public archive created during the extreme persecution of the 1660s to situate the Quakers within a longer history of suffering. Later it was used to advance the political argument for toleration by offering an instance of Muslim hospitality in counterbalance to Christian cruelty. The chapter highlights how changing historical contexts transform the nature of the truth of archives.
Konrad Hirschler
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474408776
- eISBN:
- 9781474418812
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474408776.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
The written text was a pervasive feature of cultural practices in the medieval Middle East. At the heart of book circulation stood libraries that experienced a rapid expansion from the twelfth ...
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The written text was a pervasive feature of cultural practices in the medieval Middle East. At the heart of book circulation stood libraries that experienced a rapid expansion from the twelfth century onwards. While the existence of these libraries is well known our knowledge of their content and structure has been very limited as hardly any medieval Arabic catalogues have been preserved. This book discusses the largest and earliest medieval library of the Middle East for which we have documentation – the Ashrafiya library in the very centre of Damascus – and edits its catalogue. This catalogue shows that even book collections attached to Sunni religious institutions could hold rather unexpected titles, such as stories from the 1001 Nights, manuals for traders, medical handbooks, Shiite prayers, love poetry and texts extolling wine consumption. At the same time this library catalogue decisively expands our knowledge of how the books were spatially organised on the bookshelves of such a large medieval library. With over 2,000 entries this catalogue is essential reading for anybody interested in the cultural and intellectual history of Arabic societies. Setting the Ashrafiya catalogue into a comparative perspective with contemporaneous libraries on the British Isles this book opens new perspectives for the study of medieval libraries.Less
The written text was a pervasive feature of cultural practices in the medieval Middle East. At the heart of book circulation stood libraries that experienced a rapid expansion from the twelfth century onwards. While the existence of these libraries is well known our knowledge of their content and structure has been very limited as hardly any medieval Arabic catalogues have been preserved. This book discusses the largest and earliest medieval library of the Middle East for which we have documentation – the Ashrafiya library in the very centre of Damascus – and edits its catalogue. This catalogue shows that even book collections attached to Sunni religious institutions could hold rather unexpected titles, such as stories from the 1001 Nights, manuals for traders, medical handbooks, Shiite prayers, love poetry and texts extolling wine consumption. At the same time this library catalogue decisively expands our knowledge of how the books were spatially organised on the bookshelves of such a large medieval library. With over 2,000 entries this catalogue is essential reading for anybody interested in the cultural and intellectual history of Arabic societies. Setting the Ashrafiya catalogue into a comparative perspective with contemporaneous libraries on the British Isles this book opens new perspectives for the study of medieval libraries.
Warren Boutcher
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198739661
- eISBN:
- 9780191831126
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198739661.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
The ‘Epilogue’ (2.7) picks up the discussion from the ‘Prologue’ (1.1) and extends it across a broader canvas in the history of the book and of reading. It asks how the case studies in previous ...
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The ‘Epilogue’ (2.7) picks up the discussion from the ‘Prologue’ (1.1) and extends it across a broader canvas in the history of the book and of reading. It asks how the case studies in previous chapters (including Pierre de L’Estoile), and new ones in this chapter of Bishop Camus, Pierre Charron, and Pierre Bayle, might revise the sketch of the Essais offered in Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis. I argue that the fundamental issue at stake in the early modern making and transmission of the Essais is the issue that is explicitly raised by Marie de Gournay in her preface of 1595, and, in a different style and context, by Charron’s use of Montaigne in De la sagesse (1601, 1604): how best to preserve and regulate the well-born individual’s natural liberté of judgement, their franchise or frankness, through reading and writing, in an age of moral corruption and confessional conflict.Less
The ‘Epilogue’ (2.7) picks up the discussion from the ‘Prologue’ (1.1) and extends it across a broader canvas in the history of the book and of reading. It asks how the case studies in previous chapters (including Pierre de L’Estoile), and new ones in this chapter of Bishop Camus, Pierre Charron, and Pierre Bayle, might revise the sketch of the Essais offered in Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis. I argue that the fundamental issue at stake in the early modern making and transmission of the Essais is the issue that is explicitly raised by Marie de Gournay in her preface of 1595, and, in a different style and context, by Charron’s use of Montaigne in De la sagesse (1601, 1604): how best to preserve and regulate the well-born individual’s natural liberté of judgement, their franchise or frankness, through reading and writing, in an age of moral corruption and confessional conflict.
Laetitia Nanquette
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781474486378
- eISBN:
- 9781399501736
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474486378.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
Children’s literature has been more successful internationally than Iranian adult fiction and it is also a field that is more professionalised than the one for adults. In this chapter, I analyse ...
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Children’s literature has been more successful internationally than Iranian adult fiction and it is also a field that is more professionalised than the one for adults. In this chapter, I analyse children’s literature to understand phenomena that have been occurring in the larger field. The chapter analyses the history of Iranian children’s literature in the past decades, zooms in on the important institutions supporting it, and theorises both its importance to the Islamic republic and its reception nationally and globally, explaining its relative success. This chapter concludes the first part of the book, where I have discussed the production and circulation of Iranian literature within Iran. In the second part, I move to these topics outside of the Iranian borders and analyse the literary relations between the Iranian diaspora and Iran as well as the circulation of Iranian literature in languages other than Persian for non-Iranian readers.Less
Children’s literature has been more successful internationally than Iranian adult fiction and it is also a field that is more professionalised than the one for adults. In this chapter, I analyse children’s literature to understand phenomena that have been occurring in the larger field. The chapter analyses the history of Iranian children’s literature in the past decades, zooms in on the important institutions supporting it, and theorises both its importance to the Islamic republic and its reception nationally and globally, explaining its relative success. This chapter concludes the first part of the book, where I have discussed the production and circulation of Iranian literature within Iran. In the second part, I move to these topics outside of the Iranian borders and analyse the literary relations between the Iranian diaspora and Iran as well as the circulation of Iranian literature in languages other than Persian for non-Iranian readers.
Kate van Orden
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199360642
- eISBN:
- 9780199360666
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199360642.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter begins with a series of bibliographic basics that define the particular forms in which music was printed, with special attention to partbooks, choirbooks, oblong formats, ...
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This chapter begins with a series of bibliographic basics that define the particular forms in which music was printed, with special attention to partbooks, choirbooks, oblong formats, single-impression typography, and serial publication. Tract volumes (also known as binder’s volumes) are defined and discussed, as well as the challenges these forms present to cataloguers. An introduction to the field of music bibliography and studies of music printing is paired with specific cases from the chanson repertoire, illustrating the rationale for study of the material forms in which music circulated in the sixteenth century. The chapter introduces the book’s methodology, drawn from studies of print culture, book history, and performance-oriented histories of reading.Less
This chapter begins with a series of bibliographic basics that define the particular forms in which music was printed, with special attention to partbooks, choirbooks, oblong formats, single-impression typography, and serial publication. Tract volumes (also known as binder’s volumes) are defined and discussed, as well as the challenges these forms present to cataloguers. An introduction to the field of music bibliography and studies of music printing is paired with specific cases from the chanson repertoire, illustrating the rationale for study of the material forms in which music circulated in the sixteenth century. The chapter introduces the book’s methodology, drawn from studies of print culture, book history, and performance-oriented histories of reading.
Ben Owen
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781496802217
- eISBN:
- 9781496802262
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496802217.003.0013
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
Reading Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza as an entry in the tradition of book-length comics, a tradition about which comics artists, including Sacco, often express some ambivalence, Ben Owen argues that ...
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Reading Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza as an entry in the tradition of book-length comics, a tradition about which comics artists, including Sacco, often express some ambivalence, Ben Owen argues that Sacco’s representation of the 1956 Rafah Massacre produces an alternative sense of historical time in both its content and its form.Less
Reading Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza as an entry in the tradition of book-length comics, a tradition about which comics artists, including Sacco, often express some ambivalence, Ben Owen argues that Sacco’s representation of the 1956 Rafah Massacre produces an alternative sense of historical time in both its content and its form.
John Willinsky
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226487922
- eISBN:
- 9780226488080
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226488080.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
The book traces the origins of the intellectual property concept across a millennium-plus history of the learned book in the West. It seeks to inform current debates over scholarly publishing by ...
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The book traces the origins of the intellectual property concept across a millennium-plus history of the learned book in the West. It seeks to inform current debates over scholarly publishing by asking what it is about the cultures and institutions of learning that gave rise to this sense of a text constituting an intellectual property, even as these works often acquired in these learned settings a distinctive legal and economic standing compared to other sorts of property. The book begins with Saint Jerome and what was, in effect, his monastic publishing house in the fifth century, before going on to trace other relevant reading, writing, and editing practices in monasteries, schools, universities, and among independent scholars through the medieval period and into the early modern era. It delves into the influx of Islamic learning and the rediscovery of classical texts, the origins of the universities, the dissolution of the monasteries, and the founding of the Bodleian Library, and the struggle of the university presses, before finally arriving at John Locke, whose theory of property proved a touchstone of intellectual property jurisprudence, while his influential lobbying contributed to learning’s privileged place in the first copyright law, the Statute of Anne of 1710. The path followed by this book is intended to put the tensions felt within universities today, between the pursuit of marketable intellectual property and the ideals of open science, into this larger historical context, making apparent the dangers that commercial interests can pose to the intellectual properties of learning.Less
The book traces the origins of the intellectual property concept across a millennium-plus history of the learned book in the West. It seeks to inform current debates over scholarly publishing by asking what it is about the cultures and institutions of learning that gave rise to this sense of a text constituting an intellectual property, even as these works often acquired in these learned settings a distinctive legal and economic standing compared to other sorts of property. The book begins with Saint Jerome and what was, in effect, his monastic publishing house in the fifth century, before going on to trace other relevant reading, writing, and editing practices in monasteries, schools, universities, and among independent scholars through the medieval period and into the early modern era. It delves into the influx of Islamic learning and the rediscovery of classical texts, the origins of the universities, the dissolution of the monasteries, and the founding of the Bodleian Library, and the struggle of the university presses, before finally arriving at John Locke, whose theory of property proved a touchstone of intellectual property jurisprudence, while his influential lobbying contributed to learning’s privileged place in the first copyright law, the Statute of Anne of 1710. The path followed by this book is intended to put the tensions felt within universities today, between the pursuit of marketable intellectual property and the ideals of open science, into this larger historical context, making apparent the dangers that commercial interests can pose to the intellectual properties of learning.
Femke Molekamp
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199665402
- eISBN:
- 9780191752193
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199665402.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter discusses the particular influence that the immensely popular Geneva Bible had on Bible-reading practices in the sixteenth century. It gives an account of the publication history of the ...
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This chapter discusses the particular influence that the immensely popular Geneva Bible had on Bible-reading practices in the sixteenth century. It gives an account of the publication history of the Geneva Bible, and of the material features which made it so popular. This chapter shows that as this Bible greatly extended the possibility for the application of private reading practices to the scriptures and promoted domestic Bible-reading, it gained an important place in the reading life of women. The chapter illustrates ways in which women engaged with the material features of their Bibles, through annotations and embroidering bindings, for example. It argues that these material practices are important components of the reading act.Less
This chapter discusses the particular influence that the immensely popular Geneva Bible had on Bible-reading practices in the sixteenth century. It gives an account of the publication history of the Geneva Bible, and of the material features which made it so popular. This chapter shows that as this Bible greatly extended the possibility for the application of private reading practices to the scriptures and promoted domestic Bible-reading, it gained an important place in the reading life of women. The chapter illustrates ways in which women engaged with the material features of their Bibles, through annotations and embroidering bindings, for example. It argues that these material practices are important components of the reading act.