عنوان

The matter of the page :

(Number (ISBN

0299248232 (e-book)

(Number (ISBN

0299248240 (pbk. : alk. paper)

(Number (ISBN

9780299248239 (e-book)

(Number (ISBN

9780299248246 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Number

b411471

Title Proper

The matter of the page :

General Material Designation

[Book]

Other Title Information

essays in search of ancient and medieval authors /

First Statement of Responsibility

Shane Butler

Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.

Madison :

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

University of Wisconsin Press,

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

c2011

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

x, 158 p. ;

Dimensions

23 cm

Series Title

Wisconsin studies in classics

Text of Note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Text of Note

"A learned, moving essay in humane literary and cultural criticism. Brilliantly written, The Matter of the Page takes our own sense of reading and writing and relates it to the work of past writers and readers, showing in fascinatingly different ways how authors as diverse as Thucydides, Vergil, and Dhuoda transcended both their own mortality and the limits of material culture."--James Tatum, Dartmouth College

Text of Note

"Innovative both stylistically and methodologically, Butler's outstanding book has the feel of a dual elegy--for the author, whom it seeks to resuscitate as more than an abstract theoretical concept, and for the vanishing (or at least de-materializing) page in an ever accelerating digital universe. The Matter of the Page should appeal broadly, from anyone interested in the history of the book to classicists, medievalists, and literary comparatists."--James I. Porter, University of California, Irvine --Book Jacket

Text of Note

Ancient and Medieval Literary Texts Often Call Attention to Their Existence as Physical Objects. Shane Butler Helps us to Understand Why. Arguing that Writing has Always been as Much a Material SStruggle as an Intellectual One, The Matter of the Page Offers Timely Lessons for the Digital Age About How Creativity works and Why Literature Moves us

Text of Note

Butler begins with some considerations about the materiality of the literary text, both as a process (the draft) and a product (the book), and he traces the curious history of "the page" from scroll to manuscript codex to printed book and beyond. He then offers a series of unforgettable portraits of authors at work: Thucydides struggling to describe his own diseased body; Vergil ready to burn an epic poem he could not finish; Lucretius wrestling with words even as he fights the madness that will drive him to suicide; Cicero mesmerized by the thought of erasing his entire career; Seneca plumbing the depths of the soul in the wax of his tablets; and Dhuoda, who sees the book she writes as a door, a tunnel, a womb. Butler reveals how the work of writing transformed each of these authors into his or her own first reader, and he explains what this metamorphosis teaches us about how we too should read. All Greek and Latin quotations are translated into English and technical matters are carefully explained for general readers, with scholarly details in the notes

Authorship

Classical literature-- Criticism, Textual

Literature, Medieval-- Criticism, Textual

Class number

Book number

Butler, Shane,1970-

Electronic name

[Book]

Y