Eric White - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Eric White
RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage
it might have been more promising for me if, instead of beginning "O Rare," the title had begun "... more it might have been more promising for me if, instead of beginning "O Rare," the title had begun "Orare," the Latin verb to pray. But then I considered the first words of the conference abstract: Libraries house performance. Although the focus of the library where I work is not theater, film, music, or dance, it occurred to me that some of the most important treasures that we house, midfifteenth-century books from the earliest presses in Mainz, Germany, were most definitely printed for performance-religious performance, public performance, or classroom performance-where "performance" is defined simply as the reading of a text aloud for others who will derive a spiritual, social, or educational benefit from hearing it. Although these earliest of all printed books have been the subjects of intensive research into their significance within the history of typography, their performative aspects have rarely been noticed, much less studied in detail. 1 Given that performance was such an important aspect of later book production, this paper will explore how these early books, harbingers of a worldwide revolution in communications, were designed and prepared so that they could function within their intended interactive, public, or ceremonial context. My evidence in this study will not be fifteenth-century accounts or documents, which are all too rare for the period in question. Instead, I will focus on the physical characteristics of the surviving specimens themselves to argue that they were printed for use during performance, or at least to fulfill interactive functions for groups of users, as opposed to silent readers.
Early Printed Books as Material Objects, 2010
Quaerendo, 2007
... Keywords Delft Bible, Dutch Old Testament, Bridwell Library (Dallas), Universiteitsbibliothee... more ... Keywords Delft Bible, Dutch Old Testament, Bridwell Library (Dallas), Universiteitsbibliotheek (Ghent), Jacobszoon van der Meer, Vergauwen, Yemantszoon van Middelborch ... A Census (Nieuwkoop ) no. ; and Frederick R. Goff, Incunabula in American Libraries. ...
RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage
it might have been more promising for me if, instead of beginning "O Rare," the title had begun "... more it might have been more promising for me if, instead of beginning "O Rare," the title had begun "Orare," the Latin verb to pray. But then I considered the first words of the conference abstract: Libraries house performance. Although the focus of the library where I work is not theater, film, music, or dance, it occurred to me that some of the most important treasures that we house, midfifteenth-century books from the earliest presses in Mainz, Germany, were most definitely printed for performance-religious performance, public performance, or classroom performance-where "performance" is defined simply as the reading of a text aloud for others who will derive a spiritual, social, or educational benefit from hearing it. Although these earliest of all printed books have been the subjects of intensive research into their significance within the history of typography, their performative aspects have rarely been noticed, much less studied in detail. 1 Given that performance was such an important aspect of later book production, this paper will explore how these early books, harbingers of a worldwide revolution in communications, were designed and prepared so that they could function within their intended interactive, public, or ceremonial context. My evidence in this study will not be fifteenth-century accounts or documents, which are all too rare for the period in question. Instead, I will focus on the physical characteristics of the surviving specimens themselves to argue that they were printed for use during performance, or at least to fulfill interactive functions for groups of users, as opposed to silent readers.
Early Printed Books as Material Objects, 2010
Quaerendo, 2007
... Keywords Delft Bible, Dutch Old Testament, Bridwell Library (Dallas), Universiteitsbibliothee... more ... Keywords Delft Bible, Dutch Old Testament, Bridwell Library (Dallas), Universiteitsbibliotheek (Ghent), Jacobszoon van der Meer, Vergauwen, Yemantszoon van Middelborch ... A Census (Nieuwkoop ) no. ; and Frederick R. Goff, Incunabula in American Libraries. ...