Inscription and Erasure: Literature and Written Culture from the Eleventh to the Eighteenth Century

by Roger Chartier

Book Overview

The fear of oblivion obsessed medieval and early modern Europe. Stone, wood, cloth, parchment, and paper all provided media onto which writing was inscribed as a way to ward off loss. And the task was not easy in a world in which writing could be destroyed, manuscripts lost, or books menaced with destruction. Paradoxically, the successful spread of printing posed another danger, namely, that an uncontrollable proliferation of textual materials,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812220463
• ISBN13: 9780812220469
• Release Date: August 2008
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.9" x 8.9"