Formal Matters

Allison K. Deutermann is Assistant Professor of English at Baruch College, City University of New YorkAndrás Kiséry is Assistant Professor of English at The City College of New York, City University of New York

• Introduction: Allison Deutermann and András KiséryI. Forming Literature1. The first English printed commonplace books and the rise of the common reader – Heather James2. Reading Shakespeare miscellaneously: Ben Jonson, Robert Chester, and the Vatum Chorus of Love’s Martyr – Matthew Zarnowiecki3. ‘Divines into dry Vines’: forms of jesting in Renaissance England – Adam Smyth4. Afterworlds: Thomas Middleton, the book, and the genre of continuation – Jeffrey Todd KnightII. Translations5. Greek playbooks and dramatic forms in early modern England – Tanya Pollard6. Book, list, word: forms of translation in the work of Richard Hakluyt – Henry S. TurnerIII. The matters of writing 7. The forms of news from France in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part three – Alan Stewart8. Writings and the problem of satisfaction in Michaelmas Term – Amanda Bailey9. Saving souls or selling (virtual) godliness? The ‘penny godlinesses’ of John Andrewes and the problem of ‘popular puritanism’ in early Stuart England – Peter Lake10. How to construct a poem: Descartes, Sidney – Shankar Raman11. Afterword – David Scott KastanIndex

‘Above all what emerges from this fascinating collection of essays is the importance of material approaches to literary and nonliterary texts in dialogue with other modes of reading. As such, meaning is collaborative, constructed by diverse agents, including but not limited to authors, compilers, scribes, printers, stationers, and readers, and generated by physical and visual as well as textual forms such as script, typeface, page layout, paper, and size — in other words, all the various material extratextual features that communicated significant meaning to early modern writers and readers.’James Daybell, University of Plymouth, Renaissance Quarterly 69.4 (Winter 2016)