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Let's Get Physical: Bibliography, Codicology, and Seventeenth‐Century Women's Manuscripts
Author(s) -
Burke Victoria E.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
literature compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.158
H-Index - 4
ISSN - 1741-4113
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00492.x
Subject(s) - collation , palaeography , presentation (obstetrics) , literature , bibliography , transcription (linguistics) , history , attribution , classics , psychology , art , library science , linguistics , computer science , philosophy , medicine , social psychology , radiology
The last twenty years have seen a growing interest in manuscript studies of the early modern period. The recovery of a large amount of women's writing from libraries and archives has expanded our picture of how seventeenth‐century women participated in manuscript culture. This paper argues that attention to the material characteristics of that writing is essential in order to fully understand the varied ways in which manuscripts functioned: how they were produced, circulated, and read. The study of aspects of codicology (watermarks, collation, binding), paleography, transcription practices (such as layout), attribution, provenance, transmission, and the mutual interplay of manuscript and print, among other topics in bibliography, needs to be foregrounded. With reference to a number of works of women's writing this paper argues that the content of a text must not be severed from its physical presentation.