Commonplace Reading and Writing in Early Modern England and Beyond

Hao Tianhu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781032629216
• eBook ISBN: 9781003813606
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism for Comparative Literature
• Index: Literature

Approaching from bibliographical, literary, cultural, and intercultural perspectives, this book establishes the importance of Hesperides, or the Muses' Garden, a largely unexplored manuscript commonplace book to early modern English literature and culture in general.

Hesperides, or the Muses' Garden is a seventeenth-century manuscript commonplace book known primarily for its Shakespearean connections, which extracts works by dozens of early modern English authors, including Shakespeare, Bacon, Ben Jonson, and Milton. This book sheds light on the broader significance of Hesperides that refashions our full knowledge of early modern authorship and plagiarism, composition, reading practice, and canon formation. Following two introductory chapters are three topical chapters, which respectively discuss plagiarism and early modern English writing, early modern English reading practice, and early modern English canon formation. The final chapter further expands the field to ancient China, comparing commonplace books with Chinese leishu, exploring Matteo Ricci's cross-cultural commonplace writing, and re-reading Shakespeare's sonnets in light of Ricci's On Friendship.

The solid book will serve as a must read for scholars and students of early modern English literature, manuscript study, commonplace books, history of the book, and intercultural study.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue
• 1 The Static Shape of the Written Page
• 2 Hesperides in the Commonplace Book Tradition
• 3 Commonplace Writing in Early Modern England
• 4 Hesperides and Early Modern Reading Practice
• 5 Hesperides and Early Modern Canon Formation
• 6 Comparative and Cross-Cultural Studies of Commonplacing
• Epilogue
• Works Cited
• Appendix I: Catalog A (Folger MS V.b.93)
• Appendix II: Catalog H (Folger MS V.a.75)
• Appendix III: Pages and Headings of Halliwell
• Appendix IV: Plays, Poems, Prose
• Appendix V: Titles Published or Possibly Published by Humphrey Moseley
• Appendix VI: Classification of the Titles (351 + 5)
• Appendix VII: The Halliwell-Phillipps Cuttings of Hesperides from Stratford-upon-Avon
• Index