2018/11/26 by Jason Powell, Jason L. Powell · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Medieval Literature and History #Early Modern Spanish Literature #Early Modern Women Writers
paper · doi:10.1093/res/hgy116
This article reconsiders the under-examined technology of dry point (inkless impressions made with a stylus) by way of three Tudor manuscripts: British Library Additional MS 17492 (the Devonshire Manuscript); British Library Additional MS 18752; and Folger V.b.280 (the Dowland Lutebook). Aside from its use for ruling pages, this technology was previously unrecorded in both British Library manuscripts. Discoveries introduced here include a new poem and marks on or beside 54 of the estimated 194 other works in Devonshire. Dry point, I argue, is best understood as a technology of discretion, a means for scribes and their overseers, as well as readers, owners, copyists, compositors and casual annotators in manuscripts and printed books, to write, signal, or comment without marring the appearance of the page. ‘Secret Writing or a Technology of Discretion?’ suggests that historical references to dry point have been widely misunderstood, and it demonstrates the ways in which this technology can provide guidance to modern editors and critics. I argue that the relative invisibility of dry point may have disproportionately affected our understanding of the women who read and collected writing in this era. Obscured by modern lighting in libraries and by a limited awareness of its use, dry-point writing exists in many archives today, undiscovered in plain sight.