Module Description: 

Modern readers usually encounter medieval texts in standard printed formats, but what about their original audiences? On this course we will think about what medieval texts could look, sound or even feel or smell like before the invention of printing, and about the impact that print and digital technologies have had on the presentation and consumption of such texts. The module includes at least one hands-on session where students can examine manuscript and early printed books from UCL’s Special Collections, and gain first-hand experience of the materiality of books hand-written on animal skins (parchment), inked onto rag-paper, and marked by anything from readers’ notes to flood-water or the munching of bookworms. We will examine how texts are transmitted in other visual media such as graffiti, textiles, wall-paintings, tableware, clothing and jewellery, where they can be viewed and read in unexpected ways. We will explore the roles of performance, oral transmission and memory in shaping ideas about authorship, audience and textuality, especially in works composed in Europe's emerging modern languages. The module also looks towards the future in considering the impact today of digitisation of medieval texts, books and manuscripts, and the new forms of reading and text consumption and circulation developing in the twenty-first century. 

 

Aims and Learning Outcomes: 

On successful completion of the module, students should be able to: 


	demonstrate knowledge and understanding of a range of writing and book-production technologies from the medieval and early modern periods 
	

	demonstrate knowledge and understanding of both critical theory and material practices relating to the study of medieval texts and book forms 
	
	
	demonstrate an ability to engage with and critically analyse historically specific literary productions in their wider contexts of production and transmission, from the middle ages to the present day 
	
	
	discuss aspects of authorship and readership in medieval Europe in the light of current scholarship 
	
	
	Produce written work that develops and defends sound arguments, and displays critical thinking and research skills.  
	
	
	Manage preparation tasks and meet specified deadlines in presenting work both in oral discussion and in written assignments. 
	
 

Suggested Reading: 

 

Each weekly class is accompanied by a selection of medieval source texts (all in modern English translation), provided via the Moodle site. These include materials by Boccaccio, Chaucer, Dante, Marie de France, Petrarch, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and several others. There are also weekly set critical readings, typically two thematic articles per week. 

 

Preliminary readings relevant to the module include: 

The Iconic Page in Manuscript, Print and Digital Culture, ed. George Bornstein and Theresa Tinkle (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1998) 

Roger Chartier, Forms and Meanings: Texts, Performances, and Audiences from Codex to Computer (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995) 

Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 2007) 

Christopher De Hamel, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts (London, Allen Lane, 2016) 

Juliet Fleming, Graffiti and the Writing Arts of Early Modern England (London, Reaktion, 2001) 

Michael Johnston and Michael Van Dussen, The Medieval Manuscript Book: Cultural Approaches (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015) 

Armando Petrucci, Public Lettering: Script, Power and Culture, trans. L. Lappin (Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1993) 

The Future of the Page, ed. Peter Stoicheff and Andrew Taylor (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2004) 