3 - Print and manuscript

Summary

Introduced to England by William Caxton in the 1470s, print is the form most (though not all) of Shakespeare's literary writings assumed during or shortly after his lifetime. Only the wide dissemination made possible by print guaranteed the survival of - and thus makes possible our modern engagement with - most of his works. On the other hand, the production and dissemination of literary works in manuscript was not simply superseded by print once and for all, but the two forms led a coexistence during Shakespeare's time - and well beyond. Some poets writing around the time of Shakespeare actively sought print publication, but others preferred disseminating their poetry in manuscript. A notable example of the former attitude is Edmund Spenser, who counted on print publications, from The Shepheardes Calender (1579) to The Faerie Queene (Books 1-3: 1590; Books 1-6: 1596), to shape his career as a poet-laureate. A famous instance of the latter preference is John Donne, whose poetry circulated widely in manuscript but who chose to keep most of his poetry unprinted during his own lifetime. Philip Sidney similarly did not seek print publication, and his Astrophil and Stella, Arcadia, and Defence of Poesy were all print-published after his death. While these authors clearly favoured one medium, print in the case of Spenser and manuscript in the cases of Donne and Sidney, Shakespeare is a somewhat more complicated and ambivalent figure, and we will need to examine in some detail his poetic output and his likely attitude as they relate to the two rival forms of dissemination.