Module Identifier ENM0120  
Module Title UNDERSTANDING BIBLIOGRAPHY AND TEXTUAL CRITICISM  
Academic Year 2001/2002  
Co-ordinator To Be Arranged  
Semester Semester 1  
Other staff Dr Damian Walford Davies, Dr David Shuttleton, Dr Elizabeth Oakley-Brown, Professor Lyn Pykett, Mr Michael Smith, Dr Paulina Kewes  
Course delivery Seminar   5 Hours 5 x 2 hour seminars, 1 seminar every other week  
Assessment Essay   1 x 5,000 word essay    

Brief description


This module will combine scholarly method and research with theoretical discussion and training. Students will be taught the history of the text from manuscript to print and electronic capture and encouraged to think about the significance of the material production of the materials with which they work. They will be given basic training in questions of book production, bibliography, and textual editing. They will also be taught basic information about the use of archives and the significance of global computer networks.


SESSION 1


Materiality Matters: Manuscript to Print Culture


Tutors: Andrew Hadfield/Diane Watt


This workshop examines the material production of manuscripts and early printed books and assesses its impact on meaning, interpretation, and concepts of authorship and literature. The first part of the workshop focuses on manuscript culture in the later Middle Ages, using Chauser's "Canterbury Tales" as an example. The second part considers the extent to which the advent of printing transformed reading practices, taking examples from the poetry of Thomas Wyatt and John Donne.


Primary Reading


Elizabeth L Eisenstein, "The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe" (Cambridge: Canto, 1993)


SESSION 2


Good Text, Bad Text? Editing Issues in Early Modern Drama


Tutors: Paulina Kewes/Mike Smith


A workshop considering problems of "authenticating" early modern dramatic texts and the assumptions underlying editorial choices. Where does "authority" reside, in the playwright or in the performance? Or is this a false dichotomy? The main texts considered will be "Hamlet" and "King Lear".


Primary Reading
Shakespeare, King Lear: A Parallel-Text Edition, ed. Rene Weiss (1993)


Shakespeare, The Three Text Hamlet, ed. Paul Bertram and Bernice W Kliman (1991)


Secondary Reading


Janete Dillon "Is there a performance in this text?", Shakespeare Quarterly 45 (1994), 74-86


Paul Werstine, "Narratives about printed Shakespeare texts", Shakespeare Quarterly 41 (1990), 65-68


Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, "General Introduction", William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion (1987)


SESSION 3


The Elusive Authorial Text


Tutors: Damian Walford Davies/David Shuttleton


Wordsworth's "The Prelude" is a text of many versions. This workshop will examine the issues generated by the existence of multiple "authorial" texts. Issues discussed will include problems of editing; authorial revision; selection of text; the problems encountered in considering published and unpublished versions of the poem.


Primary Reading


Selections from "The Prelude": The Four Texts (1798, 1799, 1805, 1850), ed. Jonathan Wordsworth (Penguin, 1995)


Secondary Reading


Jonathan Wordsworth "Revision as Making: The Prelude and its Peers", in "Romantic Revisions", ed. Robert Brinkley and Keith Hanley (Cambridge, 1992)


Keith Hanley, "Crossings Out: The Problem of Textual Passage in The Prelude", in ibid.


Selections from the Introductions to the Cornell Wordsworth series.


SESSION 4


To be continued: Periodicals and Lending Libraries


Tutors: Peter Barry/Lyn Pykett


Workshop addressing the relationship between literary texts and their modes of publication and distribution and their intended audience. This class will focus on Victorian fiction, looking at examples from the work of Charles Dickens, George Moore and Thomas Hardy.


Secondary Reading


Guinevere L Griest "Mudies's Circulating Library and the Victorian Novel" (David and Charles, 1970)


John O Jordan and Robert L Patten (eds), "Literature in the Marketplace: Nineteenth-Century British Publishing and the Circulation of Books" (Cambridge, 1997)


George Moore, "Literature at Nurse or Circulating Morals: A Polemic on Victorian Censorship", ed & intro. Pierre Coustillas (Brighton, 1976)


SESSION 5


Is there a Hypertext in this Class?


Tutors: Tim Woods/David Shuttleton


This workship wil focus on the ways in which typermedia and hypertext have altered our conceptions of the written text. It will look at some specific examples of the application of hypertext to poetry and the whole concept of the electronic text itself as a challenge to orthodox modes of reading, writing, and configuring texts.


Primary Reading


Delany, Paul, and George P Landow, "Hypertext, Hypermedia and Literary Studies: The State of the Art", in Paul Delaney and Geoge P Landow, eds., "Hypermedia and Literary Studies" (Cambridge, MA, 1991)


Slatin, John, "Text and Hypertext: Reflections on the role of the Computer in Teaching Modern American poetry", in David Miall, ed., "Humanities and the Computer: New Directions" (Oxford, 1990)


Secondary Reading


Richard Latham, "The Electronic Word: Literary Study and the Digital Revolution" "New Literary History 20" (1989), 265-90


Edward Barrett, ed., "Text, ConText and Hypertext: Writing with and for Computer" (Cambridge, MA, 1988)