ABSTRACT

Recent critical studies have focused on the material presentation of literary texts, as their production evolved from a manuscript-based to a print-based process, and it has become clearer to what extent this evolution both refl ects the authors’ stated or unstated intentions and shapes the readers’ conscious or unconscious perceptions. In particular, scholars of the early modern period, like Adrian Armstrong, Cynthia Brown, Tom Conley, Malcolm Quainton and others, have paid much attention to the physical presentation of texts as it helps redefi ne some of the presuppositions of the classic theory of aesthetic reception.2 Yet, authorial sexual difference has not always been factored in assessing the nature and function of what has been called the ‘materiality of reading’. The move from script to print has usually been viewed as a univocal shift from self-effacement to increased authorial prominence. For instance, the Grands Rhétoriqueurs’ perception of their literary role was signifi cantly altered by their access to the printing press. To quote Cynthia Brown, an evolution can be

1 ‘Aux Dames Lyonnoizes’, Rymes de Gentile et vertueuse Dame D. Pernette du Guillet, Lyonnoise (Lyon: Jean de Tournes, 1545), ed. Victor E. Graham (Geneva: Droz, 1968), p. 3. All English translations are mine.