About

In my research, I will investigate how medieval scribes engaged emotionally with the religious texts they were copying; for instance, adding language to intensify the text, changing 'Curseyd caitiffs' to 'Foule curseyd caitiffs', to give just one example. I will study evidence of scribal activity in the manuscripts of devotional texts - including changes in the language of the text, marginal annotation, compilation, tables of contents, and other evidence - in order to locate forms of affective response in the record of scribal activity, and the effect this has on the text as it is passed down through the ages: that is, how the text itself is literally changed by the scribe's emotional response. I will consider the material evidence available, including the types and patterns of affective scribal response. I will also consider how this evidence may develop our understanding of the practices of reading. My research will function at the intersection between the study of manuscripts and modern affect theory. It will consider how study of scribal activity, as evidenced in these manuscripts, can tell us more about the emotions of reading - how we identify or empathise with characters, how emotional responses are elicited by the language of the text, or how the emotions of a text work with or against broader understandings of politics or religious doctrine - and how we can adopt a critical approach that incorporates these emotional factors as significant in their own right. My research will provide a theoretical reframing of the question of affective interpretation because it will study the text not only as an object that changes us but something that is changed, something which undergoes literal, physical change as a result of scribal interaction, and how scribes respond to and contribute towards the text as a vector of emotions.