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Creating the Writer of the Cleric's Words
Author(s) -
LUPTON CHRISTINA
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal for eighteenth‐century studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.129
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1754-0208
pISSN - 1754-0194
DOI - 10.1111/j.1754-0208.2011.00374.x
Subject(s) - handwriting , creativity , literature , dimension (graph theory) , history , linguistics , art , psychology , philosophy , social psychology , mathematics , pure mathematics
This essay argues that, although Anglican sermons were recognised as derivative compositions, it was important to their readers that they were handwritten documents. The discussion traces the effect of handwriting as a virtual dimension of printed writings by and about the clergy, focusing on Tristram Shandy , Mansfield Park and the faux manuscript sermons of John Trusler as texts drawing attention to religious writing at the surface of the page. The article supplements the account given by literary historians of original authorship and creativity as the immaterial categories used to counteract the proliferation of writing in the age of print.