Privacy and Print: Reading and Writing in Seventeenth-Century England by Cecile M. Jagodzinski (review)

Abstract

Reviews Privacy andPrint.Reading and Writingin Seventeenth-Century England. By CECILE M. JAGODZINSKI. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia. I999. ix + 218 pp. $45. It is generally recognized that one of the most significant cultural phenomena in seventeenth-centuryEngland was the emergence of the notion of individuality,or the private self. In Privacy andPrint,Cecile M. Jagodzinski argues that the most important factor that contributed to a changing worldview in seventeenth-century England was the widespread accessibility of printed matter, enabling more and more men and women to indulge in the practiceof privatereading.InJagodzinski's view, it was preciselythrough the practice of reading that the concept of privacy as a personal right and as the core of individuality came into being; in short, it is argued that 'the reading experience bred a new sense of personal autonomy' (p. i). Jagodzinski sees this development of the private self as having occurred as the consumption of printedmattershiftedfrom the public arena of church and court to the privatespace of the home. Separatechaptersaredevoted to representationsof readingandreaders'accounts of their experiences in a range of literary genres. In her discussion of devotional writings,Jagodzinski challenges the idea that an increased reliance on the written word and a move towardsprivatedevotionwerepeculiarto Protestants.It is argued, rather,that the practice of privatereadingfosteredspiritualinteriority,and thus an awareness of the private self, not only among Puritans and Anglicans but also among Catholics, in spite of their differentdoctrinal positions. In her subsequent analysisof fourseventeenth-centuryconversionnarratives,Jagodzinskidiscernstwo different generic categories: those narratives in which conversion is a public proclamation of religious faith, and those in which the conversion experience enables a personal declaration of independence. The latter type of conversion narrative is regarded, justifiably, as a predecessor of the quintessentiallyprivate genre of the novel. Subsequent chapters are devoted to secular writings:private letters, plays, and narrativefiction.Jagodzinski focuses attention on the unauthorized publication of private letterswritten by Charles I to his wife, and on the posthumous publication of private letters written by John Donne. It is pointed out that the letters of both CharlesI andJohn Donne areimportantbecause theybearwitnessto a burgeoning sense of self, which may have prompted contemporary readers to consider the notion of privacy and selfhood in personal terms.Jagodzinski's analysisof several playsby MargaretCavendishdemonstrateshow theprivatelife of female characters in these plays is representednot as a stateof exclusion or nonparticipationin public affairs, but rather as a school of virtue, in which chastity is celebrated as an expressionof personal autonomy. Finally,Jagodzinski discussesAphra Behn'sLoveLetters Between a Nobleman andHis Sister,an epistolary novel in which the female protagonist achieves personal autonomy not through chastity but rather through indulging in illicit sexual conduct. A new kind of fictional heroine thus emerges in narrativefiction, one who, as both narratorand protagonist, is able to seduce the readerthroughthe revelationof the experiences of herprivatelife. YES,31, 2001 YES,31, 2001 PrivacyandPrintoffers insightful readings of a variety of seventeenth-century texts, on the basis of which Jagodzinski convincingly supports her theory of the relationship between the practice of reading and the development of personal autonomy. Especially worthy of mention is Jagodzinski's concern for the issue of gender. She makes the astute observation that in the writings discussed in her study the creation of fictional forms characteristically involves the central figure of a woman or imagined woman reader. One can thus discern a gendering of privacy in early modern English culture, that has had implications for the way in which we regard the notion of privacy today. OXFORD SHEILA OTTWAY John Milton: Latin Writings.A Selection.Ed. and transl. byJoHN K. HALE. (Bibliotheca Latinatis Novae; Neo-Latin Texts and Translations) Assen: Van Gorcum; Tempe, AZ: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies. I998. x + 250 pp. Geb.Dfl. 52,50. Milton Studies,XXXVI. Ed. by ALBERT C. LABRIOLA. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. I999. vii + 228 pp. $50. John K. Hale's new selection of Milton's Latin writings offers a fresh perspective on less well-known, but extremely important works. The edition modestly proposes to demonstrate 'how much [Milton] relied on his Latin, throughout his life and across many genres' (p. ix). Hale's prospective audience may be larger than he implies. Latin studies, at least on the...