The development of reading practices: as represented in the textual afterlife of Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ

Mackay, Francesca L. (2012) The development of reading practices: as represented in the textual afterlife of Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ. MPhil(R) thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Using Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, a text circulated widely in manuscript and print in the late medieval and early modern periods, this thesis will
examine philological and bibliographic criteria in order to examine the history of reading and the development of reading practices during this period. It argues that the shift from public oration to silent, private reading – and the co-ordinating shifts from passive, unengaged reading to active, engaged reading, and from unskilled to skilled reading – was not a straight-forward linear development during the period under examination, but instead was a fluctuating process of co-existence, influence, and adaptation between the pre-existing and emerging reading practices.

This thesis presents punctuation practices and paratextual materials as accurate indicators of the reading practices used by contemporary readers of Love’s Mirror, thereby suggesting a methodology which can be employed by future scholars of book/reading history.

• Item Type: Thesis (MPhil(R))
• Qualification Level: Masters
• Keywords: Textual Afterlives Book History Reading Practices Nicholas Love Punctuation Practices
• Subjects: P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics; P Language and Literature > PE English
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Language and Linguistics
• Supervisor's Name: Smith, Prof. Jeremy J.
• Date of Award: 2012
• Depositing User: Miss Francesca L. Mackay
• Unique ID: glathesis:2012-3903
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 08 Feb 2013 09:52
• Last Modified: 21 Aug 2018 10:53
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/3903