ABSTRACT
This chapter argues for a re-evaluation of the role of woodcut illustrations in early modern English printed books. By tracing the principle reasons for their dismissal to the desire both then and now for a respectable native tradition of visual art, it is possible to see that critical appraisals of early modern English culture have underestimated the cultural function of a wide range of visual material produced in the period. Even a cursory examination of the Orlando Furioso illustrations reveals the extent to which they deviate from ideal notions of illustration and aesthetic printmaking. Graphic reproduction's status as a derivative form was its defining feature from the earliest days of printmaking. Present before the introduction of the letter press primarily in textile printing, woodcut was a method that aimed to produce what Walter Benjamin famously called "the art designed for reproducibility.".
