From Parchment to Cyberspace: Medieval Literature in the Digital Age (Medieval Interventions)

Description

From Parchment to Cyberspace argues the case for studying high-resolution digital images of original manuscripts to analyze medieval literature. By presenting a rigorous philosophical argument for the authenticity of such images (a point disputed by digital skeptics) the book illustrates how digitization offers scholars innovative methods for comparing manuscripts of vernacular literature – such as The Romance of the Rose or texts by Christine de Pizan – that reveal aspects of medieval culture crucial to understanding the period. Cover Contents Illustrations Preface Introduction: Why I Wrote This Book, or Medieval Manuscripts Unchained Part One: Technologies of the Medieval Book: The Manuscript Matrix 1: What Is a Manuscript Culture? 2: Materiality and Mimesis: Anatomy of an Illusion 3: No Fool of Time: Paradox of Manuscript Transmission Part Two: Technologies of Manuscript Knowledge: How We Read Now in the Digital Middle Ages 4: The Work of Reading 5: Variance as Dynamic Reading 6: Synoptic Reading: Medieval Manuscripts as Text Networks Part Three: Coda The Anxiety of Irrelevance: Digital Humanities and Contemporary Critical Theory Notes Index