The Invention of Print and Reinvention English Literature

Catalog description

At the end of the Middle Ages in England, writers often lamented that their native tongue was "rustical," "rude," "barbarous" and "vile" compared to the Classical and Romance languages in which the world's literary masterpieces were written. Less than a hundred years later, Shakespeare and other English authors were being extolled as equals to the best Greek, Latin, Italian, French and Spanish authors. What happened? This course invites students to discover potential answers to this question by taking a "book history approach" to the study of literature from this era. It offers an introduction to the rise and regulation of the London book trade; examination of the different physical features of early printed books, such as paper stocks and bindings, font types, ornamental title-page borders and woodcut illustrations; consideration of some recent influential essays on the relation between book history and literary history; and above all, scrutiny of a range of different literary works printed in a range of different forms-from bawdy penny ballads, railing rhymes and "bad quartos" to sonnet sequences, "first folios," and other "printed monuments" that ultimately helped to invest English literature with new meaning and new value. Fulfills English requirement: Texts in Context.