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Changing the script: a typology of Dutch theatre manuscripts in the Southern Low Countries, and the interaction between manuscript and print (17th-18th centuries)

Journal Contribution - Journal Article

Because of an almost exclusive attention to literature in print, early modern manu-scripts have until now failed to attract the scholarly attention they deserve. Literary histori-ans of the Early Modern period have only very recently turned to manuscripts, studying for example how they functioned within circles of collective readership (e.g. rhetoricians), how they materialise social networks (e.g. alba amicorum), or provide opportunity to appropriate and alter canonical texts for individual audiences (e.g. chronicles). A genre that so far has not attracted as much attention in Dutch scholarship as it has abroad, is theatre. ere are some individual case studies on theatre manuscripts from the Early Modern period, and theatre texts preserved in manuscript have been edited, but so far, no one has questioned the role of manuscript as a medium in early modern theatre practice. Working towards a typology of early modern Dutch theatre manuscripts, this contribution is the rst comprehensive attempt to chart various types of codices with Dutch theatre texts, and their respective functions and contexts of usage. e analysis is based on theatre material preserved in the Royal Library of Belgium, but has implications for theatre manuscripts generally, and for our understanding of theatre practice in the Early Modern period, especially in the southern Low Countries.
Journal: In monte artium : journal of the Royal Library of Belgium
ISSN: 2031-3098
Volume: 99
Pages: 7 - 42
Publication year:2019
Keywords:A1 Journal article
BOF-keylabel:yes
Accessibility:Open