Description
In his 1987 work Paratexts, the theorist Gerard Genette established physical form as crucial to the production of meaning. Here, experts in early modern book history, materiality and rhetorical culture present a series of compelling explorations of the architecture of early modern books. The essays challenge and extend Genette's taxonomy, exploring the paratext as both a material and a conceptual category. Renaissance Paratexts takes a fresh look at neglected sites, from imprints to endings, and from running titles to printers' flowers. Contributors' accounts of the making and circulation of books open up questions of the marking of gender, the politics of translation, geographies of the text and the interplay between reading and seeing. As much a history of misreading as of interpretation, the collection provides novel perspectives on the technologies of reading and exposes the complexity of the playful, proliferating and self-aware paratexts of English Renaissance books.
A stimulating collection which explores both the material and the conceptual worlds of the early modern book.
About the Author
Helen Smith is Lecturer in Renaissance and Early Modern Literature at the University of York. She has published widely on early modern textual culture and is currently completing a monograph, Grossly Material Things: Women and Textual Production in Early Modern England. She is Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded project, 'Conversion Narratives in Early Modern Europe'. Louise Wilson is a Research Associate at the University of St Andrews, where she works on the MHRA Tudor and Stuart Translations series. She was previously a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Geneva, working on Lukas Erne's forthcoming Shakespeare and the Book Trade. Louise has published on the paratexts and readerships of romance, and is currently completing a monograph entitled Humanism and Chivalric Romance in Tudor England.
Reviews
'... this is a terrific volume that should be read by anyone interested in any aspect of early modern literature.' SEL Studies in English Literature
Book Information
ISBN 9780521117395
Author Helen Smith
Format Hardback
Page Count 288
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 590g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 160mm * 19mm
A stimulating collection which explores both the material and the conceptual worlds of the early modern book.
About the Author
Helen Smith is Lecturer in Renaissance and Early Modern Literature at the University of York. She has published widely on early modern textual culture and is currently completing a monograph, Grossly Material Things: Women and Textual Production in Early Modern England. She is Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded project, 'Conversion Narratives in Early Modern Europe'. Louise Wilson is a Research Associate at the University of St Andrews, where she works on the MHRA Tudor and Stuart Translations series. She was previously a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Geneva, working on Lukas Erne's forthcoming Shakespeare and the Book Trade. Louise has published on the paratexts and readerships of romance, and is currently completing a monograph entitled Humanism and Chivalric Romance in Tudor England.
Reviews
'... this is a terrific volume that should be read by anyone interested in any aspect of early modern literature.' SEL Studies in English Literature
Book Information
ISBN 9780521117395
Author Helen Smith
Format Hardback
Page Count 288
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 590g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 160mm * 19mm
