Fair Copies: Reproducing the English Lyric from Tottel to Shakespeare

by Matthew Zarnowiecki

Overview

In the latter half of the sixteenth century, English poets and printers experimented widely with a new literary format, the printed collection of lyric poetry. They not only investigated the possibilities of working with a new medium, but also wrote metaphors of human reproduction directly into their works. In Fair Copies, Matthew Zarnowiecki argues that poetic production was re-envisioned during this period, which was rife with models of copying and imitation, to include reproduction as one of its inherent attributes.

Tracing the development of the English lyric during this crucial period, Fair Copies incorporates a diverse range of cultural productions and reproductions – from key poetic texts by Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, Gascoigne, and Tottel to legal breviaries, visual representations of song, midwives’ manuals, and commonplace books. Also included are fifteen facsimile reproductions of poems in early printed books, with explanations and discussions of their importance. Calling upon these diverse sources, and examining lyric poems in their earliest manuscript and printed contexts, Zarnowiecki develops a new, reproductively centred method of reading early modern English lyric poetry.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442667488
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	02/05/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Matthew Zarnowiecki is chair of the Department of Languages and Literature at Touro College's Lander College for Men and Lander College for Women.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: The ‘vnquiet state’ of the Lover: Richard Tottel’s Lyric and Legal Reproductions

Chapter 2: ‘Nedelesse Singularitie’: George Gascoigne’s Strategies for Preserving Lyric Delight

Chapter 3: Solitude, Poetic Community, and Lyric Recording in Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender and Colin Clouts Come Home Againe

Chapter 4: Lyric Surrogacy: Reproducing the “I” in Sidney’s Arcadia

Chapter 5: “All Men Make Faults”: Begetting Error in Shake-speares Sonnets

Coda: The End of Shake-speares Sonnets

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

“Well-researched and convincing, Fair Copies offers a much more refined model of textual reproduction and the status of texts in their different iterations than has hitherto been understood.”

—Susan Anderson, Department of English, Leeds Trinity University College

‘A fresh perspective on the changing relationship between the individuality of the poet and the sociable purpose his verse would serve… Zarnowiecki’s study offers a rich provocation and an incitement to rethink our approach to sixteenth-century poetry.’

—Jason Scott-Warren, Times Literary Supplement 26 September 2014

From the Publisher

Well-researched and convincing, Fair Copies offers a much more refined model of textual reproduction and the status of texts in their different iterations than has hitherto been understood.”

Susan Anderson

‘A fresh perspective on the changing relationship between the individuality of the poet and the sociable purpose his verse would serve… Zarnowiecki’s study offers a rich provocation and an incitement to rethink our approach to sixteenth-century poetry.’

Times Literary Supplement 26 September 2014 - Jason Scott-Warren