Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope is the “borrower” for this entry, as his public and witty fight with the “dunces” of his age inspired a paper on the importance of print.

I had worked with the Dunciad before but focused on the religious subtext of the poem. This time, in MATX 603, History of Multimedia and Interdisciplinarity, I focused on why print was important to Pope. My argument was that Pope could not meet his aims of a public debate and attack on the dunces if he kept his poem in manuscript form, circulated as an inside joke among Swift, Gay, Arbuthnot, and Parnell. Print mattered to Pope and he well understood its functions and possibilities.

Considerations of the form of a work and how that form effects readers links back to my work in Text and Textuality and History of Media, Art, and Text. In this case, however, my approach was decidedly historical, looking back to form differences between manuscript and print rather than speculating on the future interactions between reader and text. However, if you read all three papers I think you will find that Pope was as conscious and involved with the manipulations of print and its possibilities as any digital writer is today.

[Access to paper removed 4/2010. Contact me if you wish to read the paper.]
(PDF file, 128.37 KB)

A NOTE ON THE SIGNATURE THAT LED YOU HERE:
This signature is found on the fly leaf of one of the books, Homeri Opera quae exstant omnia, Graeca et Latina, Pope kept in his personal library. It found its way into Horace Walpole’s collection and is now held in the Yale University Library collection. Walpole was so delighted to have one of Pope’s books, he adds to the notes Pope wrote on the flyleaf, commenting on Pope’s ownership and added illustrations. Walpole so treasured the book that he kept it in his Glass Closet, the most special area of his wondrous library. It is endlessly fascinating to trace the circles that texts make, be they intertextual connections or physical objects.