Anonymity in Early Modern England: 'What's in a Name?'

ISBN-13: 9781138275454 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 198 str.

Barbara Howard Traister; Janet Wright Starner

Opis

Expanding the scholarly conversation about Renaissance anonymity and attribution studies, this collection explores the phenomenon of anonymous publication in all its variety of methods and genres. The volume opens with essays investigating particular English texts and the inflection each genre gives to the issue of nameless authoring. Later chapters consider more abstract consequences of anonymity, including its function in destabilizing scholarly assumptions about authorship; its ethical ramifications; and its relationship to attribution studies.

Recenzje

'It is true that anonymous works receive less attention than those works that can be attributed to a canonical author, and this collection succeeds in suggesting ways in which carefully selected anonymous works may be usefully approached thematically and historically, and as specific genres.' Renaissance Quarterly 'Anonymity in Early Modern England makes an important contribution to early modern studies, precisely because it addresses what many scholars have traditionally avoided. Anonymity is not an unfortunate condition for a book, pamphlet, or manuscript, nor is it merely a pragmatic device by which the author wishes to avoid arrest. The book argues persuasively that anonymity is an essential, if paradoxical, aspect of self-fashioning. Anonymity is a form of authorship in its own right.' Sixteenth Century Journal

Spis treści

Introduction; Part 1 Anonymous Manuscript Poetry; Chapter 1 Anonymity in Early Modern Manuscript Culture, Marcy L.North; Chapter 2 “Jacke on Both Sides”, Janet WrightStarner; Part 2 Anonymous Printed Plays and Pamphlets; Chapter 3 What Wrote Woodstock, ThomasCartelli; Chapter 4 Dealing with Dramatic Anonymity, Barbara HowardTraister; Chapter 5 Attributing Authorship and Swetnam the Woman-Hater, JamesPurkis; Chapter 6 Was Anonymous a Jokester?, Susan GusheeO’Malley; Part 3 The Consequences of Anonymity and Attribution; Chapter 7 The Anonymous Shakespeare, BruceDanner; Chapter 8 The Ethics of Anonymity, MarkRobson;

O autorze

Janet Wright Starner is associate professor of English at Wilkes University, USA Barbara Howard Traister is professor of English at Lehigh University, USA