Reading, Society and Politics in Early Modern England

Description

This book ranges over private and public reading, and over a variety of religious, social, and scientific communities to locate acts of reading in specific historical moments from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. It also charts the changes in reading habits that reflect broader social and political shifts during the period. A team of expert contributors cover topics including the processes of book production and distribution, audiences and markets, the material text, the relation of print to performance, and the politics of acts of reception. In addition, the volume emphasises the independence of early modern readers and their role in making meaning in an age in which increased literacy equaled social enfranchisement and interpretation was power. Meaning was not simply an authorial act but the work of many hands and processes, from editing, printing, and proofing, to reproducing, distributing, and finally reading.

Kevin Sharpe is fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the English Association. He has authored and edited 11 books, including Remapping Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2000) and Criticism and Compliment (1999). Steven Zwicker is Elkin Professor of Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis. He has written widely on seventeenth-century literature and politics, and together with Kevin Sharpe has edited Refiguring Revolutions: Aesthetics and Politics from the English Revolution to the Romantic Revolution (1998) and Politics of Discourse: The Literature and History of Seventeenth-Century England (1987). His own monographs include Politics and Language in Dryden's Poetry: The Arts of Disguise (1984) and Lines of Authority: Politics and English Literary Culture, 1649-1689 (1993).

Review of the hardback: 'The essays that make up the collection are uniformly of a high standard. This is a stimulating and authoritative contribution to our understanding of the many ways readers have sought authority through, and over, their texts.' SHARP News Review of the hardback: 'Modern readers can expect to receive pleasure rather than pain from this handsome, engaging and wide-ranging [] volume ... for early modernist scholars who are serious about attending to early modern readers, this volume will serve as an indispensable guide.' History Review of the hardback: 'This book is provocative and informative.' Sixteenth Century Journal