Tudor Reading Group « Result #1 on Apr 18, 2005, 5:01am »
This is just a quick message to recruit interested parties for the Tudor Reading Group. The Group, which has been running for some years, is a forum for graduate students to meet and discuss obscure /confusing texts from the Tudor period - it seeks to provide a stimulating introduction to rarely read texts and also to help grads in their research by bringing a number of different fields of expertise to bear on any text that troubles them. The Group meets at 5.15 on Mondays in odd weeks of term (1,3, 5&7) in room 11 in the faculty - if you are interested in coming along, or even in bringing forward a text for us to tear apart, please contact me (edward.wilson@ccc.ox.ac.uk) or Beatrice Groves (beatrice.groves@ell.ox.ac.uk) for details.
Researching Early Modern Literature « Result #3 on Jan 20, 2005, 9:34am »
Early Modern Online Resources: Your Questions Invited
OLIS has many secrets which can aid research into early modern literature but are often hard to unravel. Early English Books Online has revolutionized research in our period, but many users are unaware of all that this resource can offer (eg Thomas Tracts are now online, with facility for searching manuscript material). Conversely there may still be areas in which it could be made still more useful; and the question of which texts are selected for the searchable-text database (inclusion in the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature is the current criterion) is one in which we may wish to express a view. There will be opportunities to explore these resources, and also to offer input on possible future developments, in David Norbrook’s class on ‘Researching Early Modern Literature’ (Fridays weeks 1-4, 10am, Undergraduate Computer Room, St Cross Building). There will be sessions on OLIS (week 2) and EEBO (week 3), with representatives of the English Faculty Library and of EEBO. Please note that there is useful early-modern online documentation available for both OLIS (http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/olis/documentation/searchingforolderprintedmaterial.html) and EEBO/TCP (including a form for submitting proposed searchable texts).
The classes will be collaborative sessions in which we shall try to explore the best ways of answering questions and also of using these resources to generate new questions. Whether or not you are able to attend the classes, you are welcome to submit queries and comments on this messageboard.
Re: Black Letter Typefaces « Result #4 on Nov 19, 2004, 6:05am »
I gather it went out of fashion much later in England than elsewhere Fraktur (a form of gothic, but more distant from roman) was used almost exclusively in Germany up to 1945. (Well, maybe in the 19th century roman & italic made some incursions.) There's even a fraktur cursive, a form a secretary hand (if secretary be considered a gothic cursive) which Germans who attended primary school before the war were taught. My mother even has a German-English dictionary published in the 30s that uses roman for English and fraktur for German -- it was simply considered the German alphabet. (That's how it's used in the Asterix books.) (Though obviously there were also political/ideological reasons for its universality in the 30s and its sudden demise after the war, but I'm not sure how much it was politics and how much simply custom.)
Ah, here's the answer to all my questions, from Wikipedia:
"As opposed to other countries, in Germany, typesetting in Fraktur was entirely common still in the 19th century. Some books from the time used Schwabacher still; however, the predominant typeface was the Normalfraktur (Fig. 1), which came in various slight variations. Fraktur went out of fashion during the early 20th century because of the obvious communication problems with non-native German speakers. However, in an attempt to deliberately differentiate Germany from the rest of the Western world, it was reinforced by Nazi Germany (1933-1945), which pronounced that Antiqua typefaces were not Aryan. During that time, new, more artificial Fraktur typefaces were designed (see Fig. 2 and 3). This policy was officially held up until January 3, 1941, when Martin Bormann issued a circular letter to all public offices which suddenly declared Fraktur to be Judenlettern (Jewish letters) and prohibited further use. It has been speculated that the regime had realized that Fraktur would inhibit communication in the territories occupied during World War II as well. Despite being an old German tradition, the use of Fraktur therefore has a strong Nazi connotation to many. Consequently, Fraktur is today used merely for decorative typesetting; for example, a number of traditional German newspapers still print their name in Fraktur on the first page."
Re: Black Letter Typefaces « Result #5 on Nov 19, 2004, 6:05am »
I believe it was mainly only used for broadsides and popular literature into the seventeenth century in England, so anything else that uses it that late may be meant to have a certain archaic, ecclesiastical air. One interesting example is Marlowe's Dr. Faustus. All the seventeenth century quarto printings (and there were several -- 8-9, between 1604 and 1631, which makes it the 2nd most popular playbook of the period) are in black letter, which is also true for the book it was based on -- The History of the d**nable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus. It was first published in England in 1592 and was translated from the German. It was Marlowe's primary source for the play though he would have had an earlier edition because he would have written the play between 1588 and 1592 and certainly before he died in 1593. See Leah Marcus, Unediting the Renaissance : Shakespeare, Marlowe, Milton (London: Routledge, 1996) 46-47 for a discussion of the use of black letter type in the Dr. Faustus quartos.
Black Letter Typefaces « Result #6 on Nov 19, 2004, 6:04am »
Does anyone know about the significance of black-letter/gothic font in English printing? I gather it went out of fashion much later in England than elsewhere, but I'm interested in what types of text it continued to be used in. Thanks!
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