Visible English : graphic culture, scribal practice, and identity, c. 700-c. 1550 /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Scase, Wendy, author.
Imprint:	Turnhout, Belgium : Brepols, [2022] ©2022
Description:	xix, 408 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), facsimiles ; 24 cm.
Language:	English
Series:	Utrecht studies in medieval literacy, 2034-9416 ; 54 Utrecht studies in medieval literacy ; 54.
Subject:	English language -- Old English, ca. 450-1100 -- Writing. English language -- Middle English, 1100-1500 -- Writing. Scribes -- England. Literacy -- England -- History -- To 1500. Books and reading -- England -- History -- To 1500. Latin language -- Influence on English. Manuscripts, English (Old) Manuscripts, English (Middle) Pattern books -- England -- History. English language -- Middle English. English language -- Old English.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/12980670

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9782503598420 2503598420 9782503598437 2503598439
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 359-394) and indexes.
Summary:	"Visible English recovers for the first time the experience of reading and writing the English language in the medieval period through the perspectives of littera pedagogy, the basis of medieval learning and teaching of literate skills in Latin. Littera is at the heart of the set of theories and practices that constitute the 'graphic culture' of the book's title. The book shows for the first time that littera pedagogy was an 'us and them' discourse that functioned as a vehicle for identity formation. Using littera pedagogy as a framework for understanding the medieval English-language corpus from the point of view of the readers and writers who produced it, Visible English offers new insights on experiences of writing and reading English in communities ranging from those first in contact with Latin literacy to those where print was an alternative to manuscript. Discussing a broad range of materials from so-called 'pen-trials' and graffiti to key literary manuscripts, Visible English provides new perspectives on the ways that the alphabet was understood, on genres such as alphabet poems, riddles, and scribal signatures, and on the different ways in which scribes copied Old and Middle English texts. It argues that the graphic culture underpinned and transmitted by littera pedagogy provided frameworks for the development and understanding of English-language literacy practices and new ways of experiencing social belonging and difference. To be literate in English, it proposes, was to inhabit identities marked by Anglophone literate practices."--

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgements
Notes on the Text
Abbreviations
List of Figures
Introduction: Visible English: Littera, Identity, and Communities of Practice
The Pedagogy of Littera
Identity and Communities of Practice
Visible English: Argument, Scope, and Organisation
1. Graphs, Alphabets, and Scripts
Grammar, Alphabets, and the Primer
The Anglice littere Tradition
Roman and Runic Scripts
Conclusion
2. Graphic Models
Imitation, Pedagogy, and Identity
Copy-Texts beyond the Classroom
Pattern Books
Conclusion
3. Graphic Play
Pedagogy and Graphic Puzzles
Alphabet Games, Acrostics, and Riddles
Signature Playfulness
Conclusion
4. Graphic Display
The Medieval Parish Church
Domestic and Civic Spaces
The Pre-Conquest Epigraphic Landscape
Conclusion
5. Reprographics
Littera and the Copying of Verse
Littera and the Copying of Prose
Littera and the Copying of Indexes
Conclusion
Conclusion: Medieval English Literacy
Bibliography
Primary Sources: Printed and Electronic
Secondary Sources: Printed and Electronic
Indexes
Index of Medieval Manuscripts
General Index

Visible English : graphic culture, scribal practice, and identity, c. 700-c. 1550 /

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