Participatory reading in late-medieval England (Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture)

Reorienting the narrative of digital media studies to incorporate the medieval, Participatory reading in late-medieval England traces affinities between digital and medieval media to explore how participation defined reading practices and shaped relations between writers and readers in England’s literary culture from the late-fourteenth to early sixteenth centuries. Traditionally, print operates as the comparative touchstone of both medieval and digital media, but Participatory reading argues that the latter share more in common with each other than either does with print. Working on the borders of digital humanities, medieval cultural studies, and the history of the book, Participatory reading draws on well-known and little-studied works ranging from Chaucer to banqueting poems and wall-texts to demonstrate how medieval writers and readers engaged with practices familiar in digital media today, from crowd-sourced editing to nonlinear apprehension to mobility, temporality, and forensic materiality illuminate. Writers turned to these practices in order to both elicit and control readers’ engagement with their works in ways that would benefit the writers’ reputations along with the transmission and interpretation of their texts, while readers pursued their own agendas—which could conflict with or set aside writers’ attempts to frame readers’ work. The interactions that gather around participatory reading practices reflect concerns about authority, literacy, and media formats, before and after the introduction of print. Participatory reading is of interest to students and scholars of medieval literature, book, and reading history, in addition to those interested in the long history of media studies. Front matter Pages: Cover–iv (5 total) Contents Pages: v (1 total) Acknowledgements Pages: vi–viii (3 total) Introduction Reading practices and participation in digital and medieval media Pages: 1–24 (24 total) Part I: Participatory discourse Chapter 1: Corrective reading Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and John Lydgate’s Troy Book Pages: 27–61 (35 total) Chapter 2: Nonlinear reading The Orcherd of Syon, Titus and Vespasian, and Lydgate’s Siege of Thebes Pages: 62–102 (41 total) Part II: Evoking participation Chapter 3: Reading materially John Lydgate’s ‘Soteltes for the coronation banquet of Henry VI’ Pages: 105–127 (23 total) Chapter 4: Reading architecturally The wall texts of a Percy family manuscript and the Poulys Daunce of St Paul’s Cathedral Pages: 128–166 (39 total) Chapter 5: Reading temporally Thomas of Erceldoune’s prophecy, Eleanor Hull’s Commentary on the penitential Psalms, and Thomas Norton’s Ordinal of alchemy Pages: 167–192 (26 total) Conclusion Nonreading in late-medieval England Pages: 193–203 (11 total) Appendices Pages: 204–234 (31 total) Bibliography Pages: 235–255 (21 total) Index Pages: 256–261 (6 total) This book explores how modern media practices can illuminate participatory reading in England from the late-fourteenth to the early-sixteenth centuries. Nonlinear apprehension, immersion and embodiment are practices intimately familiar to readers of Wikipedia, players of video games and users of multi-touch mobile devices. But far from being unique to digital media, they have clear analogues in the pre-modern era. Participatory reading in late-medieval England traces how the affinities between old and new media can reveal fresh insights not only about the digital, but also about the long history of media forms and practices. It thus casts new light on the literary practices of a period pre- and post-print to demonstrate how participatory reading vitally contributed to and shaped these negotiations of fragile authority. This book traces affinities between digital and medieval media, exploring how reading functioned as a nexus for concerns about increasing literacy, audiences'agency, literary culture and media formats from the late fourteenth to the early sixteenth centuries. Drawing on a wide range of texts, from well-known poems of Chaucer and Lydgate to wall texts, banqueting poems and devotional works written by and for women, Participatory reading argues that making readers work offered writers ways to shape their reputations and the futures of their productions. At the same time, the interactive reading practices they promoted enabled audiences to contribute to – and contest – writers'burgeoning authority, making books and reading work for everyone. This book traces affinities between digital and medieval media, exploring how reading functioned as a nexus for concerns about increasing literacy, audiences' agency, literary culture and media formats from the late fourteenth to the early sixteenth centuries. Drawing on a wide range of texts,from well-known poems of Chaucer and Lydgate to wall texts, banqueting poems and devotional works written by and for women, Participatory reading argues that making readers work offered writers ways to shape their reputations and the futures of their productions. At the same time, the interactivereading practices they promoted enabled audiences to contribute to - and contest - writers' burgeoning authority, making books and reading work for everyone. This book traces affinities between digital and medieval media, exploring how reading functioned as a nexus for concerns about increasing literacy, audiences agency, literary culture and media formats from the late fourteenth to the early sixteenth centuries. Drawing on a wide range of texts, from well-known poems of Chaucer and Lydgate to wall texts, banqueting poems and devotional works written by and for women, Participatory reading argues that making readers work offered writers ways to shape their reputations and the futures of their productions. At the same time, the interactive reading practices they promoted enabled audiences to contribute to and contest writers burgeoning authority, making books and reading work for everyone.