Serendipities

I am at the European Social Science History Conference in Lisbon this week. You may wonder what a scholar of English literature/cultural historian is doing at a social science history conference, but there is an extensive culture network within the ESSHC. In that network Willemijn Ruberg of the University of Limerick organised 5 panels on the history of the emotions. The papers and the discussions afterwards are very stimulating, also because panelists keep referring back to the opening theoretical session in which various constructivist, psychological and neurological perspectives came together (and sometimes conflicted).

Another great thing about this conference is that each session has a “discussant.” I had never come across such a thing before — I was one for the first time in my life this morning. It’s a very useful concept: the discussant has read the session’s papers in advance, and after the final paper, she picks out common topics, ideas and arguments in the papers, and asks questions about these issues to provide a starting point for the discussion. After throwing these questions at the panelists, the discussant hands over the management of the discussion to the chair. This works really well, because the discussant is often able to capture the essence of the papers, and to oversee the bigger picture, and this helps to lift the discussion to a higher level.

If you are interested in my paper on masculinity and anger in early modern English revenge drama, there is a PDF version on the conference website. I’ll be presenting it tomorrow morning, at the ungodly hour of 8.30 am.

…is an early modern edition, and it is now up at Mercurius Politicus!

Roy Booth at Early Modern Whale wrote a fascinating post on pamphlets about the demolition of the Eleanor Cross in Cheapside in 1643 (or was it 1642? May 1643 according to this pamphlet). Interestingly, in accordance with the conventions what Roy calls the “minor genre of the speaking statue” (made me think of The Winter’s Tale…) the Cross tells the reader its own story in these pamphlets. Here is a wonderful quotation in which it remembers how all kinds of Protestants used to behave in its presence:

the Brownists spit at me and throw stones at me as they come along the street, the Familists hide their eyes with their fingers, the Annabaptists wish me to be knockt in pieces, the sisters of the Fraternity wil not come near me, but go about by Watling street and come in againe by Soaper-lane to buy their provisions of the Market-folkes… It is the Crosse that stands upon my head which is a moate in their eyes.

Update: Mercurius Politicus was inspired by Roy Booth’s post, and went in search of more images of the cross in EEBO.

I was browsing through Whitney’s Choice of Emblems (1586), and came across this emblem on reading. The motto: Usus libri, non lectio prudentes facit — “it is the use of books, not reading that makes wise men.” I have no wise thoughts on the emblem, but it does give a glimpse into early modern reading practices (see also earlier posts here, here, and here).

The volumes great, who so doth still peruse,
And dailie turnes, and gazeth on the same,
If that the fruicte thereof, he do not use,
He reapes but toile, and never gaineth fame:
Firste reade, then marke, then practise that is good,
For without use, we drinke but LETHE flood.

Of practise longe, experience doth proceede;
And wisedome then, doth evermore ensue:
Then printe in minde, what wee in printe do reade,
Els loose wee time, and bookes in vaine do vewe:
Wee maie not haste, our talent to bestowe,
Nor hide it up, whereby no good shall growe.

The concept of reading is expressed in the emblem’s subscriptio (the text below the image) in terms of memory and forgetting. One who reads passively might just as well drink from the river Lethe, which induces a state of sleepy forgetfulness. If you read actively, however, you remember what you learned because your brain is (paradoxically?) like a book: “Then printe in minde, what wee in printe do reade.” Ready access to the volumes of the brain ensures that a wise person puts his knowledge to virtuous use, so that he practices “that is good.”

I thought that the man on the left, assuming he is left-handed, might be writing things down in a little commonplace book, while the man on the right only reads large volumes to forget what he read. But after enlarging the image, I am not so sure the man on the left is writing. Also, perhaps the forgetful reader would have been depicted sitting, rather than standing — or is that too modern an association? The image may even have been re-used from another book, and perhaps should not be interpreted too literally.