New Beginnings and Marginalia

Something interesting happened as a result of having to work from home until early August: a different type of course revision. Revising a course calendar and syllabus happens most terms, and what ended up happening isn’t even that new or interesting. The thing that was interesting is more that something most teachers known happened unintentionally since I didn’t have full access to all my textbooks, and how much of a difference it might make. Most every pedagogy bit of advice when it comes to general writing of assignments and choosing of readings has something to do with “choose the thing that adds progress towards the goals”, be it skill-based (like writing or reasoning) or content-based (like information).

Here’s what happened: I had to write the majority of my course calendars for a first-year composition course largely without access to the reader which I had left in my office, probably figuring I’d be back in there before I needed to worry about figuring out readings. This turned out to be about half true. On one hand, I was able to get most of the work done without the book, and I was back in my office almost 2 weeks before classes started, which is more than enough time to just add in reading assignments. On the other, while I was working out the actual calendar and assignment descriptions and break-ups into lessons, I had to do much of that work without ideas for readings to use for models and practice.

In the past, there have been times where I really wanted to use a reading but it turned out to not work out well in practice, and sometimes when a reading succeeded beyond what I had expected. The latter is the reason why Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is again part of the argumentative reasoning section of the rhetorical analysis assignment. The former result though seems to have happened a few times per semester pretty consistently. However, this time around, it feels more like I was choosing readings based more on the skills students were expected to be working on because I’d already written out the composition specific elements of the assignments and lessons. Doing things this way, though not intended this past summer, seems to have removed the temptation to work in a reading that was more interesting than necessarily suitable to the skill to be considered. Like I said, this is a standard thing (matching reading and skills to course objectives) in theory, but it’s a lot harder to do than it sounds. We’ll have to wait and see how this semester goes to know for sure.

Prepping for the Fall 2020 semester has been extra ‘interesting’ because two of classes turned out to need what is apparently called “hy-flex” structuring and cohorting. Basically, the classes had to be split into two groups so they could alternate in-person and online. I have half of the class one day while the rest are online, then they switch the second day. “Hy-flex” is a set-up where both in-person and online options for a given class session are available, making it much easier if a student for some reason has to go online exclusively for a while. This situation has meant a lot more consideration of online pedagogy, which is something I’d been working on over the spring and summer, mostly through a webinar series hosted by my university system’s CETL and a few workshops for tools specific to my institution.

Here’s where things get a little more medieval, as opposed to the very modern current state of things and technology. Last spring I’d already decided to use Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as the literary test text for my theory-methods course. It’s old enough to have many applications done as both examples of theory and methods, and it’s complex enough to have a lot of possibilities for a range of interests. When we did general “Bibliography” day, I was genuinely impressed with the variety of what students found, when all they’d been asked to do was find one example of each of 4 standard types of bibliographical work. Although admittedly, that did mean I had less to demonstrate and explain than planned, but that’s one of the better reasons for some last minute lesson re-working.

I realized recently that for my other courses, first year composition and World Literature 1, that I was using an online annotation site a lot more than I have in the past. Part of this was by design as a way to get away from the standard discussion board, which degrades very quickly from actual discussion to posting stuff that address the assignment requirement (maybe), but not really interacting with either the other students or the content of the text under consideration. I got the idea from colleagues who have used such platforms before, and since I had to plan a lot more online work than past semesters, I figured it might be a good time to try. So far results are promising; there does seem to be some more interaction between students than on the standard discussion boards, and a little more detail in their references to the text. That last part makes sense in a practical way since they are literally commentating on a copy of the text, but it’s still nice to see them actually refer to specific textual details. I was a little worried about the difference in a few of the translations posted and those in the textbook, but that doesn’t seem to have been a problem thus far. It might make for interesting study to see which students used more: the book text with the accompanying notes etc., or the digital one.

The other side, which is where the medieval comes in, is that I realized I’m essentially asking students to add their own marginalia to a shared text, almost in the way of a commonplace book or shared manuscript. The particular site I’m using does allow for some modern conveniences like up-voting, but it does preserve the record of who said what, where, and how responded, and how. Even though it’s only been about a week, and only one class has gone through this particular approach, it’s pretty clear that there is a little more interaction all around. There’s also an interesting range of voices evident, and I can’t help occasionally starting to drift into a fantasy analysis of how to interpret this person via their notes or what it might look like to someone unfamiliar with the actual person, even though I can easily look up who actually said that thing in that way, and I’ve seen actual faces/heard the voices/etc. to go along with the names. I also have to wonder if the marginalia idea is really more for me than the students. Framing this type of discussion as such might be novel for some, especially if they are the sort of student who like to take notes in their books, but not everyone does that. I’ll have to try it out and see how students respond.

Deciphering Books: Margins and Collections

Some of the more entertaining and interesting manuscript mysteries surround the marginalia. For example, in Ashmole 61, a compilation of romances, exempla, saints’ lives, comic stories, and some prayers (mostly in verse), many texts are followed by the image of a fish, such as:

There is much debate over why a fish, what sort of fish is it, why the variations (and there are several), why do this more than once, what kind of person was the scribe (signed in a few places as “Rate” or similar) and so on. Animals figure pretty prominently in the margins of medieval books as part of the design and not, but that’s another discussion or several.

A quick search of the internet and you can find all kinds of marginal images and doodles from medieval books, from standard manicula (pointer fingers) like:

to abbreviations like “NB” for ‘nota bene’ (note well, or pay attention),

to my personal favorite:

on which a scribe has pointed to the smudge and told the reader it was not an error on his part, but rather a cat which had decided to pee on the book in progress, and a curse against said cat.

There are also plenty of medieval books that have explanatory notes and commentary with them, in fact with some books, their whole purpose was commentary, but the ones that don’t have that obvious context are in some ways more interesting, and often more entertaining to consider. We also have medieval books which seem to have been created by someone copying their favorite bits out of a range of texts. These commonplace books seem to have been pretty popular given how many of them survive from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and into the Early Modern era.

This brings me to contemporary books and how they might get used. I personally usually don’t write in the books I tend to read for fun, but I do write in textbooks and cookbooks.

As an undergrad I seem to have found it easier to take a few brief notes in my books, but mostly underline or arrow things of importance, such as passages pointed out by the professor (I also kept reasonably detailed notebooks with notes from lecture, but that’s another story). I now have found myself using those notes to write my own lectures and lesson plans, which in a few cases has meant transposing those notes and signal from one book (usually my original college textbook) to a new one (most often a later edition or similar but not identical title). Some of this might be the result of having to adjust to new versions of the same book, a situation unlikely for most of the Middle Ages given the general expense and labor involved in making a book copy. I also remember, only once or twice, with a used textbook, being able to make use of the previous owner’s notes. There are some documented marginal conversations and arguments in the margins of a few surviving manuscripts, but a significant amount looks more like what I’ve done to my own textbooks, although quite a few of the medieval scribes, scholars, and readers were a little more creative with doodles, not something I’ve done in textbooks. In some cases, these notes or doodles in the older books become a part of studying them for meaning, and you have to wonder what someone a few centuries from now might think of your student notes or textbooks (assuming you’ve altered them somehow as I have). In my own case, I have to thank past me for writing a little in those books, since it’s quite practically useful to me now, and I suspect it might have been a useful study aid at the time as well.

Again, on the practical side, in most of my cookbooks, there tends to be 2 types of notes: final verdict of recipe overall (ranging from J to “meh” to “nope”) and adjustments to the recipe I might have made, either in the ingredients or process. The final impression notes tend to be in the upper left of the recto page or upper right of the verso. There’s no real reason for it; that’s just how it seems to end up. On a more interpretive level, those phrases or images end up in that location because there’s open space in that part of the page in nearly all books of this kind. It’s also interesting to consider that nearly all of the notes are abbreviations or images of some kind, and how they might be taken when out of context. Would a smiley face be a positive or mockery? What does “ok” stand for or mean? Same for “meh” or “blech”, etc.? There might also be a question of ranking: is ‘nope’ better or worse than ‘bleh’?

In the ingredients, if there’s something I’ve left out, often a seasoning I either don’t have or know I don’t like (frequently basil, one of my least favorite herbs, or cumin, the spice I find most overused) it often gets labeled “opt.” (“optional”) or crossed out. If someone had my entire collection as it currently is, would they figure out that I don’t like basil much, or might they conclude that it was rare or otherwise inaccessible? Besides a reasonably sizeable collection of my own, I also have a few cookbooks owned by my great aunt and grandmother. These are considerably different in content, style, and look. These have virtually no marginal notes, but they do include a lot of inserts, things like magazine clippings or some notecards with recipes either written or glued on. Assuming future person noticed the difference in publication dates and had some understanding of the dating of the handwriting much in the way we now can do with a lot of medieval and Early Modern hands, how might they reconcile or not the two distinct types of books on those shelves?  I usually don’t modify the general process except to sometimes note adjustments to times required, adjusting for my current equipment, or using the oven instead of the stove-top.

And then there’s the question of what about those recipes I either didn’t alter, forgot to annotate, or never tried for whatever reason? If there was not notation or spatter on the page, would the conclusion be it was never attempted or was followed exactly or made no particular impression? There are some studies of such things from the Middle Ages and later, but there’s no guarantee that similar impressions on the future/present would be reached even if the same kinds of study and interpretive techniques were applied.

It is an interesting thought experiment though; if someone who didn’t know me or my time and place found my book collections, what would they conclude about me if anything? You might also consider that fact that there are bookcases with books in them in three rooms in my home. What would that future person conclude about that? Would they notice that all the books in one case were all cookbooks (probably if they also had access to the room, which is the kitchen)? Would they figure out that one shelf of books in another room were those that had been read and set aside for clearing out later on (selling or loaning/giving away)? What would they make or figure out from the collection of mostly fantasy and science fiction with some random graphic novels tossed in? And what about that third shelf in a third room? Would they figure those were the books that weren’t in active or imminent use, and what would be made of all the other odds and ends on that set of shelves (a few mugs, some craft bits and bobs, a few odds and ends for the planter in the room, etc)?

It’s an interesting thought experiment, especially if you add in the more “academic” library of personal books I keep in my campus office. If the two collections were found 10 miles apart, would their mutual ownership be determined? And what would the variety, and there is plenty, on those shelves mean or add to the whole personal library picture? And that’s not even considering the handful of actual library books between the two locations…

End of the year review: sort of

Maybe it’s just the people I’m around on social media, but it seems like nearly everyone was ending 2019 and/or starting 2020 with goals concerning reading, nearly always in the form of a goal number of books to be read or finish reading. Take Goodreads: it’s an easy way to keep track of what you want to and already have and are currently reading. It’s also pretty good for helping decide if a book is something you might want to add to your reading list, with the reviews. And it lets you do all this in public, in front of everyone you know via digital stuff. I’m reasonably sure you can’t turn off the feature that sends you an email every time you list another book as “Read”, although you can turn off or block the daily notices about what your friends are reading, adding, or finishing. So one question this all brings up is something of a paradox: reading is largely a solitary activity, and yet it has become a fairly public performance. The question then is how much of this is due to the oversharing/bragging/trolling (frequently anonymous) opportunities offered by social media, or how much of it is something else?

What strikes me is how much this resembles medieval practices in some ways. Books, or at least the contents of books, essentially were a form of social media, they were a prestige item, they had social and solitary aspects to them, and people had opinions about them. Books also existed in multiple formats, much as they do now, although obviously some of the forms themselves have changed.

Take audio books for example. I’ve never really been able to get into this method of experiencing books, but it is quite popular. Back in the Middle Ages, this way actually how a lot of people would experience books. The origins of the term “lecture” comes from the Latin for “to read”, and that’s how higher levels of education were often provided. The instructor would read from the lone copy of the textbook, and possibly commentate, while the students took notes. In some cases students could copy out their own versions of the book, but this would need to be done by hand, either by themselves or someone they paid. There are also records of medieval monasteries that indicate that it was a practice to have someone reading from scripture or other religious text while everyone else was eating.

Certain forms of ebooks also have medieval analogues or at least general comparisons. On several online platforms, including GoogleBooks, you don’t flip through the pages, you scroll. The modern book through which one flips or turns pages is a descendant of the codex, while the scroll through counterpart is the much older roll or scroll. You read as you unroll and re-roll. There’s actually an older hilarious video called “Medieval Helpdesk” (you can find it subtitled on Youtube, since it was originally done in Norwegian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ) that makes the very real suggestion that, at one time, the book in the shape that it’s now most commonly known for was a revolutionary thing.

Books had a social function much as they do now as well, especially if you follow platforms like the above mentioned Goodreads. People would leave comments in the margins containing critiques, comments, and sometimes even discussion threads. One of my favorite examples is from the Devonshire Manuscript (British Library Additional 17492). This book was originally passed around a group of lady friends at Henry VIII’s court, and one page has a poem composed by a gentleman hoping to court one of the ladies. Here is Cynthia Roger’s description of the thread:

Poem 8 on fols. 6v-7r is a declaration of love to Mary Shelton from one of her admirers. The first letter of each stanza spells out her last name. She seems to have known the author, as she writes a tart reply to his poem just below it— “Undesired service, requires no hire (payment).” Margaret Douglas seems to have also known the author and the fact that her friend was rejecting him, as she writes out to the side of this poem, “Forget this.” Mary, being a little more charitable, writes underneath Margaret’s comment, “It is worthy.”

Manuscripts like this also show people sharing favorite bits of text, much in the way we might now retweet or share a post we particularly enjoyed or wanted to share, and many such examples still survive.

Reading in the Middle Ages and beyond was commonly a public activity. In times before the printing press and better sources and methods of production came along, books were not something readily available. So, in this time which was also before modern forms of entertainment like television and streaming, people might get together and read to each other.  We get a look at this even in stories, like Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde. After Pandarus has agreed to help Troilus win Criseyde’s affections, he goes off to find her, and he finds her and two companions listening to a fourth lady reading out loud:

Whan he was come vnto his Neces place,

“Wher is my lady?” to hire folk quod he;

And they hym tolde and he forth in gan pace

And fond two othere ladys sete, and she,

With-inne a paued parlour, and they thre

Herden a mayden reden hem the geste

Of the siege of Thebes while hem leste.      (II.78-84)

 

Reading could also still be a private activity in the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, especially when it came to producing and collecting books. The anonymous writer of the lyric “Pangur Ban” for example describes a scene in which the monk studies alone, while his cat pays attention to the mice. Such scenes of personal solitary reading or study also show up in a lot of dream visions, like the introductions of Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess and Parliament of Foules. Many medieval books that still survive come to us from private collections gathered during the Early Modern period and later, and possessing such a personal or private library would have been a sign of wealth or prestige, or in other words, something only a few people could or did do.

Bookmaking was itself both a solitary and group activity. A monastery scriptorium for example was a public space used by many, but each copyist or artist was largely working alone on his part of the book.

Finally, the reviews. In addition to marginalia, medieval versions of reviews and trolls and fan fiction still survive, even in highly respected literary works. Gower and Chaucer and Lydgate all participated in such activities. Towards the end of Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer makes a dedication to “moral Gower” a label which stuck and has been taken as a slight insult towards his acquaintance and possibly friend. Lydgate frames his Siege of Thebes as an additional Canterbury Tale. While it’s not possible to definitively prove Chaucer’s intention in his remark about Gower, it has long been taken as snarky in a way that might pass for light-hearted trolling. It is possible to prove Lydgate’s fan-fiction though since Lydgate directly places himself within the frame of the Canterbury Tales, and he wrote admiringly of Chaucer in other works, such as The Fall of Princes.

There is a good deal of serious research and scholarship that has been done on reading as practice and what it meant culturally in medieval Europe, not to mention a good deal of modern scientific work on how the human brain may have evolved or adapted to/for reading and how it manages what appear to be several complex simultaneous processes that need to happen in order for reading to be done. While I’m not touching much on those details here, it is worth realizing that the idea of reading as well as the practice is far more complicated than most people realize. It’s something worth thinking about, even if only in terms of personal practice.