Experiencing the Book: Tangible Textuality
Accepted for Spring 2008
Aleksondra Hultquist and Tara Lyons
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
September 28, 2007
Course Proposal for 106: Literature and Experience
I. Experiencing the Book: Tangible Textuality
II. Proposed Reading list:
Course Reader: excerpts from The Spectator papers, Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock
Macbeth, William Shakespeare (Bedford Cultural edition)
The Chicago Poems, Carl Sandburg (Dover Press)
A Pair of Silk Stockings and Other Stories, Kate Chopin (Dover Press)
III. Course Description (for student audience)
The University of Illinois has some of the best literary research resources in the country and you as students have access to them. The purpose of this course is for you to discover the various ways in which books are produced—from original editions to anthologized and digital versions—and to analyze how those version influence the text’s meaning. Classes, many of which will take place in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, will allow you to consider how textual production shapes interpretations of literature. We will be reading, seeing, touching, and analyzing documents as diverse as 300-year-old texts, 19th century editions of Vogue, and MP3 recordings of famous poets. Authors include William Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, Kate Chopin, and Carl Sandburg. Assignments consist of three 3-4 page papers, and a project.
IV. Tentative Course Plan
A. Academic Rationale
B. Syllabus
C. Possible Paper Topics
D. Sample discussion questions
_________________________
A. Academic Rationale
“Experiencing the Book: Tangible Textuality”
Aleksondra Hultquist and Tara Lyons
Reading is usually conceived of as a mental process, not a physical one. We read texts and construct meaning but often disregard the medium through which we experience those words. Our library has one of the best rare book collections in the country and has access to several of the most important (and expensive) databases available for primary text research, including Early English Books Online (EEBO) and Eighteenth Century Collection Online (ECCO). Yet, it is rare that an undergraduate knows about these resources, much less makes use of them. Often undergraduates introduced to these resources state: “I didn’t even know this was here.”
The purpose of “Experiencing the Book” is to introduce undergraduates to these resources and to explore the ways in which primary resource research can affect the experience of reading literature. By analyzing texts in the diversity of mediums in which they were published from the seventeenth century to the present, students will consider what it means to do more than read words: the course invites students to see books, feel books, hear books, and even smell them. Covering seventeenth century witchcraft pamphlets to a Harry Potter novel in E-book and audio format, this class challenges students to examine their relationship to literature as they analyze the material that mediates that experience. We envision this as a course that makes full use of the special resources available at UIUC: computer classrooms, the Rare Book and Manuscript Library (RBML), and the traditional classroom setting.
The course will begin with information on the history of the book, so that students begin to see the book not only as a carrier of information, but as a document of literary production itself. Through biweekly trips to the Rare Book and Manuscript Library (RBML), students will read Macbeth in a modern edition, in Shakespeare’s folio (1623), and in an eighteenth-century musical adaptation. Students will put Shakespeare’s play in context by reading sections from early modern witchcraft pamphlets, Reginald Scot’s The Discovery of Witchcraft (1584), and James VI’s Demonology (1597). Viewing several 18th, 19th, and 20th century incarnations of The Spectator papers will offer students an opportunity to historicize the genre of advice literature from conduct books to 18th century periodicals to modern self-help genres such as “Dear Abbey.” An exploration of Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock will ask students to consider how the poem’s format affects “book genre” and produces parody. By analyzing Kate Chopin’s short story “Desiree’s Baby” in the January 1893 issue of Vogue and contextualizing Carl Sandburg’s Chicago Poems with entries from his personal notebooks, students will experience the textures of textuality in a completely tangible way.
The benefits of team teaching are especially apropos for this course. The RBML has limited space in its seminar room, demanding that the class often be divided into two sections for ease of viewing books and documents; team teaching would allow one instructor to work in the seminar room (trips we hope to make on a weekly or bi-weekly basis) while the other leads class in the traditional workspace. The computer classrooms will be necessary for teaching students to navigate sometimes thorny databases and other online resources. Teaching this course in spring 2008 also nicely coordinates with the Book History Lecture Series sponsored by IPRH, which will offer students the opportunity to meet scholars from around the world who interpret literature by experiencing the book.
_________________________
B. Syllabus for
“Experiencing the Book: Tangible Textuality”
Unit 1: Experiencing the Book as Cultural Document, or What is Book History?
Week 1: Introduction to the Course and Book History; Introduction to the Rare Book and Manuscript Library (RBML); How Books Produce Culture
Week 2: Analytical model of how a book’s meaning is recorded in its production and material textual apparatus
· Trip to RBML to process paperwork and show students practical skills in using rare book rooms
· Lectures to include children’s books and differences in editions/print runs: Where the Wild Things are and Harry Potter, book one English and American versions
· Power Point lectures based on David Finkelstein’s and Alistair McClerry’s An Introduction to Book History
Analytic Paper 1 due
Unit 2: Experiencing Text as Author/Authority—Shakespeare, the Folio, and 18th c Adaptations
Week 3: Macbeth (Discussion of the play)
Week 4: Finish Macbeth discussion
RBML visit(s):
· 1623 Shakespeare’s Folio
· 1710 Macbeth, a tragædy. With all the alterations, amendments, additions, and new songs. As it's now acted at the Dukes theatre.
Week 5: Discuss sections from James I’s Demonaeology (from Bedford Macbeth)
RBML visit(s):
· James I’s Demonaeology (1597)
· Reginald Scot’s The Discovery of Witchcraft (1584)
Analytical Paper 2 due
Unit 3: Experiencing the Public Sphere and the Realm of Advice
Week 6: The Spectator papers: selections
Discussion of essay in The Spectator papers, including “Coffee House
Experience” activity, where students enjoy Turkish coffee and discuss the papers.
Week 7: Discussion includes specific attention to original papers and several of the reproductions, including pocket editions, 20th century editions.
Discussion will historicize the genre; including ideas re: conduct literature (etiquette books), self-help books, columns (“Dear Abby” etc.)
RBML visit:
· The Spectator (several editions)
Week 8: Discussion Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock in the context of the epic
Week 9: Discussions based on how the look of a book changes meaning, how “book genre” effects meaning, creates parody.
RBML visit:
· Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock (several editions)
Analytical Paper 3
Unit 4: Experiencing Reading: Connections between Literature and Journalism
Week 10: Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby” in both modern anthology and Vogue Magazine’s original print run, January 4, 1893
Week 11: Vogue magazine
Discussion will challenge modern assumptions that “Desiree’s Baby” is an anti-racist text (Vogue magazine articles emphasize the importance of racial segregation). We will also asks students to read Vogue in 1890-5 interpret “Desiree’s Baby” according to women’s fashion.
RBML visit:
· Vogue at turn of 19th/20th century
Week 12: Carl Sandburg’s Chicago Poems (He’s from Galesburg Illinois!)
Week 13: Discussion will look at Carl Sandburg as Chicago journalist through examination of his newspaper work.
Considering Carl Sandburg in print and on the web (how does web printing change way we read texts), what about audio recordings? Radio broadcast?
RBML visit:
· Selections from collections of Sandburg papers (Connemara Transfer and Asheville Transfer)
Week 14: Presentations
Week 15: Presentations
_________________________
C. Analytical Paper 2: Analyzing Context—3-4 Pages
Assignment Options:
Option 1: Write a paper that explores what we learn about Shakespeare’s play from sources published on witches during the time period. (Consider James I’s and Scot as sources or find your own on ECCO or EEBO). Analyze the ways that witchcraft is represented in each text. (3-4 pages)
Option 2: Analyze the differences in the first few pages of the eighteenth century edition and the folio edition. What is different about the presentation of the play in the eighteenth century (notice changes in stage direction, the addition of songs, the reduced cast etc.). How many pages long is it? Consider the text of “the Argument” at the beginning of the text. How does such a printing/version change your understanding of Shakespeare’s? Have fun, and please let us know if you have questions.
Strong papers will:
- Be well planned and well organized.
- Have a controlling idea (a clear thesis statement), be coherent (what you write should make sense), and be cohesive (your ideas should “stick” together logically).
- Use the space to analyze the text in terms of the assignment—avoid plot summary or only reporting what others have said. Analyze!
- Use specific examples from the text to support your point and critically analyze those examples.
- Have well-developed paragraphs and sentences.
- Be properly formatted according to MLA standards, including a works cited, (refer to A Pocket Style Manual pages 148-154 for proper formatting). Staple your paper together.
- Be proofread and mechanically correct (no typos, no misspelled words, use correct grammar, punctuate properly etc.)
- Be enjoyable to read. This is best accomplished by exploring an idea that interests you.
_________________________
D. Macbeth Discussion Questions
GENRE
1. If Macbeth is a story about the history of an ambitious Scottish noble and the Scottish line of kings, why is the play grouped with other Tragedies in Shakespeare’s Folio (as opposed to the histories)? What defines tragedy in this play?
STAGE DIRECTIONS
2. Why are stage directions like “thunder and lightning”(1.1.) important in setting the tone for the first scene of Macbeth? Why are stage directions especially important in any dramatic text? How do they change from edition to edition? What does that tells us?
3. Note how many scenes begin with a character carrying a torch. What might the torch signify in this text? What might it have signified for audiences watching the play and what might it tell readers?
4. Why does each scene begin by listing the characters in that scene? What purpose do these lists serve when reading the play?
SPEECH PREFIXES
5. Look closely at the speech prefixes in the 1623 Folio. Why don’t the witches have names in 1.1 and 1.3? What does it mean that the witches are only indicated by number?
Why only three witches? Why are they referred to as the “weird sisters” later in the text?
Look up “weird” in the OED? What else did “weird” mean in early modern England? How does this other meaning affect our reading of the text?
6. Also, consider other characters who are referred to in prefixes by title (not by name)? Consider Duncan is signaled in prefixes by the word “King.” What effect does this prefix have on our interpretation of Macbeth’s claim to the crown? Is Macbeth ever referred to as King in prefixes?
7. Lady Macbeth is referred to in speech prefixes and in stage directions as “Lady.” When is Lady Macbeth’s title at odds with her speech or actions in the text? Consider Act 1. Scene 5.