Mediating historical texts through print
I found Foy’s discussion of the mediating and remediating effect of print. Two quotes in prticular struck me. First: “The brief historical and critical survey of the effect of print on Anglo-Saxon writing presented above extends Mitchell’s question and ponders how well the medium of print as a whole suits the early medieval form, function and cultural meaning of Anglo-Sacon discourse.” pg 20. This resonates with me after hearing a talk on the use of “traditional” (dare i say western) historical methods to include the Haitia Revolution into discourse on other 18th century revolutions. I was frustrated in that talk that we were not asking the right questions, and Foy’s text shows in a really engaging way that being aware of the mediating effects of print allows us to ask new and important questions of the medieval texts we study.
The second qute is quite lengthy, the first full paragraph on that same page. I found it very interesting to consider in concrete terms the ways in which print mediates (re)production, reading and interpretation of medieval texts…concrete ways like omissions, deletions, font style and even reconstructing endings eg the tapestry.
March 15th, 2012
Having a hard time editing my post, just wanted to add that if these were postcolonial texts we would definitely be talking about mediating and remediating in terms of power…how may that be applicable to medieval study?