Author Description
Voices And Books In The English Renaissance Offers A New History Of Reading That Focuses On The Oral Reader And The Voice- Or Performance-aware Silent Reader, Rather Than The Historical Reader, Who Is Invariably Male, Silent, And Alone. It Recovers The Vocality Of Education For Boys And Girls In Renaissance England, And The Importance Of Training In Pronuntiatio (delivery) For Oral-aural Literary Culture. It Offers The First Attempt To Recover The Voice-and Tones Of Voice Especially-from Textual Sources. It Explores What Happens When We Bring Voice To Text, How Vocal Tone Realizes Or Changes Textual Meaning, And How The Literary Writers Of The Past Tried To Represent Their Own And Others' Voices, As Well As Manage And Exploit Their Readers' Voices. The Volume Offers Fresh Readings Of Key Tudor Authors Who Anticipated Oral Readers Including Anne Askew, William Baldwin, And Thomas Nashe. It Rethinks What A Printed Book Can Be By Searching The Printed Page For Vocal Cues And Exploring The Neglected Role Of The Voice In The Printing Process. Renaissance Printed Books Have Often Been Misheard And A Preoccupation With Their Materiality Has Led To A Focus On Them As Objects. However, Renaissance Printed Books Are Alive With Possible Voices, But We Will Not Understand This While We Focus On The Silent Reader. Jennifer Richards. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This book investigates the neglected role of the human voice in the reading practices of Renaissance England, challenging the traditional scholarly focus on silent, solitary reading. Jennifer Richards, a professor of early modern literature, utilizes historical pedagogical texts, printed books, and rhetorical manuals to argue that Renaissance literacy was fundamentally oral-aural. She posits that by recovering the importance of 'pronuntiatio'—the art of delivery—we can better understand how early modern readers engaged with and interpreted textual meaning.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Analysis of the role of oral-aural training in Tudor education for both boys and girls.
- Examination of vocal cues embedded within printed pages of the period.
- Re-evaluations of works by authors such as Anne Askew, William Baldwin, and Thomas Nashe.
- Exploration of the intersection between the printing process and vocal performance.
Scope Limits
- The study focuses specifically on the English Renaissance and does not extend to continental European reading practices.
- It prioritizes the recovery of vocal tone over the analysis of the book as a purely material object.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars recognize this work as a significant intervention in the history of reading, shifting the focus from silent consumption to vocal performance. Experts frequently note that the text provides a necessary corrective to the materialist turn in book history by reintroducing the auditory dimension of early modern literature.
Page Count:
0
Publication Date:
1900-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press,
ISBN-10:
0191884154
ISBN-13:
9780191884153
History
Oral reading
Education - History
Literary Criticism
Cultural History