Book History Colloquium at Columbia

APRIL 6, 2010 (TUESDAY)
Ivan Lupic', Department of English & Comparative Literature, Columbia
University
“Shakespeare, Milton, and the Battle of the Books”
523 Butler Library, 6PM

Although literally fought only in the precincts of St. James’s Library
some centuries ago, the battle between the ancient and the modern books
continues to matter. For the student of the material book, the paper,
the binding, and the printed page--though they have no real tongue--all
speak with most miraculous organ. Silent yet stubborn, they persistently
participate in our definitions and understandings of the contested field
of literary culture. Lupic will look at what “certain Sheets of Paper,
bound up in Leather” contributed to the forging of the English classic
in the early eighteenth-century, and how the contributions they made are
in some form still with us. In addition to Shakespeare and Milton, the
indubitable heroes of the story, the distinguished company will also
feature the likes of Homer and Virgil, Dryden and Pope, Gay and Swift,
Bentley and--alas!--Theobald.