April 28, 2-4 pm

Matti Peikola: ”Philology, Textual Editing and Religious Controversy in Sixteenth-Century England” (Monthly Talk of April organized by Turku Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies & Turku Centre for the Study of Christian Culteres)

Location: Seminaarisali, A270, Arcanum, Turun yliopisto ja ZOOM. Ilmoittautuminen etätapahtumaan: https://konsta.utu.fi/Default.aspx?tabid=88&tap=12604 (ilmoittautumalla saat ZOOM-linkin ja salasanan)

Abstract: A variety of medieval English vernacular texts (in Old and Middle English) were published and edited in print during the sixteenth century. These publications were often motivated by contemporary religious controversies for which arguments and precedents were sought from previous centuries. My presentation discusses the philological views of sixteenth-century editors and printers of such texts about how their old language forms and archaic material features should be presented to the contemporary audience. Depending for example on the age of the text and the religious context of the edition, different solutions were devised by editors and printers to maintain an authentic ‘feel’ of the medieval material while they at the same time also tried to render the text accessible to contemporary readers. In my presentation, prefaces and other editorial paratexts are used as a major source to access editors’ and printers’ philological thinking.