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The Work and the Reader in Literary Studies : Scholarly Editing and Book History
multi chapter work
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'By the late 1980s the concept of the work had slipped out of sight, consigned to its last refuge in the library catalogue as concepts of discourse and text took its place. Scholarly editors, who depended on it, found no grounding in literary theory for their practice. But fundamental ideas do not go away, and the work is proving to be one of them. New interest in the activity of the reader in the work has broadened the concept, extending it historically and sweeping away its once-supposed aesthetic objecthood. Concurrently, the advent of digital scholarly editions is recasting the editorial endeavour. The Work and The Reader in Literary Studies tests its argument against a range of book-historically inflected case-studies from Hamlet editions to Romantic poetry archives to the writing practices of Joseph Conrad and D. H. Lawrence. It newly justifies the practice of close reading in the digital age.' (Publication summary)
Notes
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Epigraph: ‘Let us now be told no more of the dull duty of an editor.’ Samuel Johnson, ‘Preface to Shakespeare’, in Johnson on Shakespeare, ed. Sherbo, vii.95
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Table of Contents
List of Figures
Preface
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Introduction: The Book, the Work and the Scholarly Edition
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Reviving the Work-Concept: Music, Literature and Historic Buildings
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The Digital Native Encounters the Printed Scholarly Edition Called Hamlet
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The Reader-Oriented Scholarly Edition
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Digital Editions: The Archival Impulse and the Editorial Impulse
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The Work, the Version and the Charles Harpur Critical Archive
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Book History and Literary Study: The Late Nineteenth Century and Rolf Boldrewood
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Book History and Literary Study: Joseph Conrad and D. H. Lawrence
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Adaptation, Folklore and the Work: The Ned Kelly Story
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Conclusion: What Editors Edit, and the Role of the Reader
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Notes
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Bibliography
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Index
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Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Paul Eggert, The Work and the Reader in Literary Studies : Scholarly Editing and Book History
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Script and Print , January vol. 44 no. 1 2020; (p. 43-46)
— Review of The Work and the Reader in Literary Studies : Scholarly Editing and Book History 2019 multi chapter work criticism 'Paul Eggert’s The Work and the Reader in Literary Studies builds on his accomplished record as an editor and editorial theorist, most recently in Securing the Past (2009) and Biography of a Book (2013), to, quite fittingly, revise his idea of the literary work and its conceptual and practical connections to editing. As the second half of the title suggests, Eggert foregrounds the role of the reader here in ways that have been more implicit, though hardly obscured, in his previous contributions to the discipline, with the ultimate aim of (re)connecting readerly, book historical, and editorial approaches to “ those vehicles of material textuality that, for simplicity, we call books” (8). Accordingly, the focus of this inquiry is on the editorial presentation of books (that is, of the documents underlying an edition, especially in electronic form) more so than on the artistic and architectural examples that have drawn Eggert’s previous attention, especially in Securing the Past. (Though The Work and the Reader does occasionally reference non-literary examples, such as Venice’s Teatro la Fenice, and draws from philosophical arguments about the ontology of musical works.)' (Introduction)
-
Paul Eggert, The Work and the Reader in Literary Studies : Scholarly Editing and Book History
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Script and Print , January vol. 44 no. 1 2020; (p. 43-46)
— Review of The Work and the Reader in Literary Studies : Scholarly Editing and Book History 2019 multi chapter work criticism 'Paul Eggert’s The Work and the Reader in Literary Studies builds on his accomplished record as an editor and editorial theorist, most recently in Securing the Past (2009) and Biography of a Book (2013), to, quite fittingly, revise his idea of the literary work and its conceptual and practical connections to editing. As the second half of the title suggests, Eggert foregrounds the role of the reader here in ways that have been more implicit, though hardly obscured, in his previous contributions to the discipline, with the ultimate aim of (re)connecting readerly, book historical, and editorial approaches to “ those vehicles of material textuality that, for simplicity, we call books” (8). Accordingly, the focus of this inquiry is on the editorial presentation of books (that is, of the documents underlying an edition, especially in electronic form) more so than on the artistic and architectural examples that have drawn Eggert’s previous attention, especially in Securing the Past. (Though The Work and the Reader does occasionally reference non-literary examples, such as Venice’s Teatro la Fenice, and draws from philosophical arguments about the ontology of musical works.)' (Introduction)
