The Visible Text: Textual Production and Reproduction from Beowulf to Maus (Oxford Textual Perspectives)

__Oxford Textual Perspectives i__s a new series of informative and provocative studies focused upon literary texts (conceived of in the broadest sense of that term) and the technologies, cultures and communities that produce, inform, and receive them. It provides fresh interpretations of fundamental works and of the vital and challenging issues emerging in English literary studies. By engaging with the materiality of the literary text, its production, and reception history, and frequently testing and exploring the boundaries of the notion of text itself, the volumes in the series question familiar frameworks and provide innovative interpretations of both canonical and less well-known works.Covering materials ranging from Anglo-Saxon manuscripts and inscribed objects to contemporary comics, __The Visible Text__ rewrites the history of textual media and technologies. Arguing that media are not defined by technologies alone, but by a combination of technologies and the ideas that people hold about those technologies, Bredehoft identifies four distinct periods or domains in the history of English literature that correspond to four ways in which media ideologies interacted with the two basic defining technologies of manuscripts and printed books. Examining two complementary ways of defining texts (as subject to a reproductive medium, on the one hand, and as surrounded and defined by paratexts, on the other), __The Visible Text__ points out how Anglo-Saxon manuscripts and contemporary comics share a remarkable similarity in being structured as productions rather than reproductions. Contrastingly, the late-medieval and print-era periods share a cultural investment in textual reproduction, but they differ both in their characteristic technologies and in how they conceptualize the object of reproduction itself. A final epilogue, briefly considering the nature of electronically-mediated textuality, highlights the importance of understanding the history addressed here, as electonic text both parallels and departs from typographic print in ways that earlier reproductive domains clarify and complicate. Filled with concrete examples of both books and texts, __The Visible Text__ will be of interest to readers in the fields of literature, book history, literary theory, media studies, and visual culture. Oxford Textual Perspectives i s a new series of informative and provocative studies focused upon literary texts (conceived of in the broadest sense of that term) and the technologies, cultures and communities that produce, inform, and receive them. It provides fresh interpretations of fundamental works and of the vital and challenging issues emerging in English literary studies. By engaging with the materiality of the literary text, its production, and reception history, and frequently testing and exploring the boundaries of the notion of text itself, the volumes in the series question familiar frameworks and provide innovative interpretations of both canonical and less well-known works. Covering materials ranging from Anglo-Saxon manuscripts and inscribed objects to contemporary comics, The Visible Text rewrites the history of textual media and technologies. Arguing that media are not defined by technologies alone, but by a combination of technologies and the ideas that people hold about those technologies, Bredehoft identifies four distinct periods or domains in the history of English literature that correspond to four ways in which media ideologies interacted with the two basic defining technologies of manuscripts and printed books. Examining two complementary ways of defining texts (as subject to a reproductive medium, on the one hand, and as surrounded and defined by paratexts, on the other), The Visible Text points out how Anglo-Saxon manuscripts and contemporary comics share a remarkable similarity in being structured as productions rather than reproductions. Contrastingly, the late-medieval and print-era periods share a cultural investment in textual reproduction, but they differ both in their characteristic technologies and in how they conceptualize the object of reproduction itself. A final epilogue, briefly considering the nature of electronically-mediated textuality, highlights the importance of understanding the history addressed here, as electonic text both parallels and departs from typographic print in ways that earlier reproductive domains clarify and complicate. Filled with concrete examples of both books and texts, The Visible Text will be of interest to readers in the fields of literature, book history, literary theory, media studies, and visual culture. Cover 1 The Visible Text: Textual Production and Reproduction from Beowulf to Maus 4 Copyright 5 SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 8 CONTENTS 10 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 11 Introduction 12 Textual media and the logic of the copy 15 Text and paratext 17 A first effort 19 Going forward 28 1: Anglo-Saxon Textual Production 34 Anglo-Saxon thinking about textual reproduction: Bede and Boniface 41 Alfred and after 49 The rood poems in the tenth century 53 Ælfric and the reproduction of homilies 60 Conclusions 64 Interlude 1: Anglo-Saxon to Gothic 69 2: Gothic Textual Reproduction 72 Twelfth-century developments 76 Productions and Gothic reproductions 85 Producing The Canterbury Tales 90 Gothic mechanical reproduction 93 Chaucer’s House of Fame 99 Interlude 2: Gothic to Print 106 3: Typographic Print Reproduction 108 The books that readers don’t see 109 Editions 113 The facsimile 127 Conclusions 134 Interlude 3: Print to Comics 137 4: Comics Textual Production 141 Defining comics 142 Comics works are not facsimiles 147 Comics works are not editions 149 Typography and paratext in Ware and Spiegelman 153 The hands of the authors 160 Conclusions 166 Epilogue 168 BIBLIOGRAPHY 180 Manuscript references 180 Primary sources: editions and facsimiles 180 Secondary sources 183 INDEX 188 Thomas A. Bredehoft. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 169-175) And Index.