Blanks, Print, Space, and Void in English Renaissance Literature: An Archaeology of Absence

Blanks, Print, Space, and Void in English Renaissance Literature explores the empty spaces in Renaissance culture, including print culture, and how the idea of emptiness or absence began to be fashioned. It discusses topics such as space and silence, the exploration of the vacuum, race and racial identity, typography, social spaces, gendered surfaces, hierarchies of information, books of memory, pages constructed as waste or vacant, the genesis of blank forms and early modern bureaucracy, censorship, and texts which lack endings or conclusions.

Format: Hardback
Length: 592 pages
Publication date: 20 July 2023
Publisher: Oxford University Press

Blanks, Print, Space, and Void in English Renaissance Literature delve into the vacant spaces prevalent not only in the pages of printed books during the c.1500-1700 period but also in Renaissance culture as a whole. The book argues that the print culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries played a significant role in fostering the modern concept of the gap, where words, texts, images, and ideas are constructed as missing, lost, withheld, fragmented, or perhaps never devised in the first place. It re-imagines how early modern individuals reacted not only to printed books and documents of various kinds but also how the notion of emptiness or absence began to be shaped in a way that still permeates our lives.

Jonathan Sawday, the author, guides the reader through the intricate landscape of early modern print culture, covering topics such as space and silence, the exploration of the vacuum, the construction of race and racial identity in early modern England through the language and technology of print, the interplay of blackness and whiteness, lightness, darkness, and sightlessness, cartography and emptiness, the impact of typography on reading practices, the social spaces of the page, gendered surfaces, hierarchies of information, books of memory, pages constructed as waste or vacant, the genesis of blank forms and early modern bureaucracy, the political and devotional spaces of printed books, the effects of censorship, and the challenges posed by texts that lack endings or conclusions.

The book concludes by dwelling on blank or empty pages as a symbol of human mortality. Sawday pays close attention to the writings of numerous familiar figures in English Renaissance literary culture, including Sidney, Shakespeare, Donne, Jonson, and Milton, while also introducing readers to a host of lesser-known figures.

This comprehensive exploration of blanks, print, space, and void in English Renaissance literature offers a rich and nuanced understanding of the cultural and intellectual landscape of the period. It sheds light on the ways in which print culture shaped the modern world and continues to influence our understanding of language, identity, and the nature of knowledge.

Dimension: 234 x 153 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780192845641