ABSTRACT
For as the bodies of books, seeing that they are formed of combination of contrary elements, undergo a continual dissolution of their structure, so by the forethought of the clergy a remedy should be found, by means of which the sacred book paying the debt of nature may obtain a natural heir and may raise up like seed to its dead brother, and thus may be verified that saying of Ecclesiasticus: His father is dead, and he is as if he were not dead; for he hath left one behind him that is like himself. And thus the transcription of ancient books is as it were the begetting of fresh sons, on whom the office of the father may devolve, lest it suffer detriment. (Bury 98-99)
Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat, —Hypocrite lecteur,—mon semblable,—mon frère! (Baudelaire 36)
The notion of a personified book is as urgent in Richard de Bury’s fourteenthcentury Philobiblon as it is in Baudelaire. Precisely because the book-as-person topos is so old, so powerful, and so multivalent, it is a suggestive site for a culture to inscribe a subtle record of its social history, and in particular, of its experience of books. The printed book was of central importance to the Renaissance,167 but books did not merely transmit texts. Publishers habitually dressed their texts in carefully fitted garments of presentation. What sort of reading experience did these garments call for? How did front matter connect the main text to the reader? The following chapter will explore in greater depth the various kinds of metaphoric engagement created in these pages, which often pivot around the idea of a personified text.
