severed hands

Blog;

It’s over 20 years since Jonathan Goldberg published Writing Matter: From the Hands of the English Renaissance, a study of how early modern students were disciplined by their teachers to become at once fine penmen and docile subjects of the crown. I remember being sceptical, when I first read it, about Goldberg’s claim that the pen-holding hands depicted in writing manuals were actually being violently dismembered (‘the body and its natural life are menaced by writing’). But a couple of weeks ago I came across these pointing hands in the margins of a late sixteenth-century book.

As Bill Sherman has taught us, in his more recent study Used Books, the manicule was one of the most important symbols that early modern readers used to process their reading. But although Sherman emphasizes the ‘excessive and quirky’ nature of many manicules, including those that emerge from elaborate ruffs, or sprout leaves and flowers, or turn phallic to mark discussions of male genitalia, I don’t think he has any that actually bleed. I’m just sorry that I’ve missed Hallowe’en for this post…

2 Responses to “severed hands”

  1. Selena Says:
    November 16th, 2011 at 17:19

    I’m interested in the source of the images that you’ve posted. I’m working on a Tudor Drama project investigating images of dismemberment in early modern culture — particularly around the time that Shakespeare was writing Titus Andronicus.
    Thanks,
    Selena

  2. Jason Scott-Warren Says:
    November 18th, 2011 at 10:59

    Email me on jes1003@cam.ac.uk and I’ll find you the reference!

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