About the Project
1. Introduction
2. Methodology
3. Future Versions Introduction
This website is a working alpha of a platform proposed in the dissertation, "Remediating Reading: Visual Culture and Early Modern Literature," currently under development by Richard Snyder at Washington State University. Server space is generously provided by the Creative Media and Digital Culture (CMDC) Program at WSU Vancouver. The dissertation and its accompanying project is overseen by Dr. William Hamlin, Dr. Todd Butler, and Dr. Dene Grigar. Special thanks goes to Greg Philbrook for his technical support.
The Early Modern Visual Reader (EMVR) Project reintroduces elements of the visual culture in which early modern literary texts were produced by juxtaposing images from the period alongside those texts, aiming for a seamless experience of visual and verbal engagement. English visual culture included both native and imported works in various media, including but not limited to fine and popular prints, illustrations, emblems and imprese, paintings, wall hangings, embroidery, and other elements of the decorative arts that were popular throughout England and among all socioeconomic strata. At the same time, so little of this visual culture has survived--especially more popular pieces likely not to be collected--that it is often difficult to prove with sufficient rigor that one particular artifact influenced a particular literary work, or vice versa. Early modern poetics provides a framework for mutual intermedia influence between poetry and visual images in the period: some clear examples may be found in the research of Roland Frye, Anthony Wells-Cole, Clayton MacKenzie, and Katherine Acheson, among many others, that show how the indirect influence of visual culture upon authors, readers, and playgoers was not only possible, but probable. Furthermore, as a multimodal form in itself, the dramatic arts on display in England's public theaters during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods relied, often explicitly, upon audience members' imaginations in order to augment, and indeed provide, visual impressions of a scene at hand. As a playgoer imagined Caliban in The Tempest, cued by descriptions in the text, he or she was likely to draw upon visual depictions of monstrous discoveries, some fitting Caliban's exact description, which were illustrated in popular pamphlets at the time.
The research put forth in this dissertation has suggested that in attempting to recover elements of early modern visual culture in the reading experience via a digital platform, it is crucial to establish the affordances of the digital space and their impact on the project at hand, as well as how digital tools have reshaped our understanding of scholarly editing practices in non-print media. Likewise, the proposed platform embraces the experimental nature of electronic literature projects, with the goal of providing users with an exploratory experience. What follows is the description of my process for the development and deployment of this platform.
(under construction)
Future Changes(under construction)
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