The Value of Time in Early Modern English Literature. Tina Skouen. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018. Pp. x+234.

Abstract

Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewThe Value of Time in Early Modern English Literature. Tina Skouen. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018. Pp. x+234.Katherine EllisonKatherine EllisonIllinois State University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreWhy did seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century English writers complain so frequently about being out of time? How did one take their time in an era of fast printing and constant demand for new work? Informed by book history, publishing studies, the history of rhetoric, poetics, religious studies, and philosophy, Tina Skouen builds from previous work in rhetoric and the history of science to examine authorial claims of speed or slowness, and condemnations of fast writing and production as mere desperation for profit, as expressions of literary and intellectual value. She finds that seventeenth-century writers struggled under the tension between the classical humanist tradition of slow writing and the real demands of accelerating deadlines of the printing industry. Framed by readings of authorial apologies in prefaces and dedications, Skouen looks to emblem books, devotional literature, philosophy, poetry, drama, and romance from 1580 to 1730, noting that “instead of merely accepting that the worries expressed in prefaces and dedications are related to external conditions, this study develops an alternative argument that the expressions of haste reflect a deeper conflict between the ideal of slow writing in the humanist rhetorical tradition and the sometimes grim reality of print publication” (ix).While prejudice against haste and speed continued into the eighteenth century, writers demonstrated increased awareness of the relative value of their texts based on conflicting expectations about productivity and process; some, like Henry Peacham, insisted on maintaining the classical standard of Horace’s rule, in Ars poetica, to wait nine years for publication, while others, like Robert Greene and Margaret Cavendish, embraced their reputations as speed writers and used the convention of the apology to create a new image of the talented writer as spontaneous and quick witted. Skouen’s focus on the kairotic moment, or timeliness, is original and helpful in understanding the shifting attitudes toward literary labor during the early modern period. While the study would benefit from a more methodical and chronological development of its own timeline, and its very brief survey of the early eighteenth century needs more elaboration and support from secondary scholarship, Skouen persuasively builds from Bruno Latour’s and Michael Serres’s theories of object temporalities to conclude that seventeenth-century English writers recognized the multitemporality of their texts and their careers.Like Anthony Grafton, Skouen sees the early and mid-seventeenth century as a new kind of culture of revision and correction that helps form the modern notion of the author. As Skouen notes, much scholarship on time during the early modern period focuses on literary strategies for representing time, particularly in William Shakespeare’s plays, and on time as a theme. Broader studies of early modern time by Achsah Guibbory, J. K. Barret, and Ricardo J. Quinones are mentioned, but she is correct that there is a gap in scholarship from a rhetorical perspective. The opening chapter overviews technologies and sociomaterial influences that emphasized speed and pressured writers with deadlines, and the second chapter helpfully provides more information on the classical humanist praise of slowness as a sign of careful, deliberate thinking and high quality production. Here, Skouen also looks toward the eighteenth century to note that between John Dryden and Alexander Pope, there is a “shift towards cynicism and resignation,” though resignation to what is not clear (37). More engagement with Pope scholarship is needed to understand the poet’s unique writing process and relationship with his contemporary print culture and its deadlines. Skouen seems aware that Pope was not overly pressured by time, but she asserts his advocacy of print publication without careful discussion of his method of manuscript circulation, during which he would continually, and quickly, revise through crowd sourcing before printing. The absence of Eliza Haywood from this quick glance at the years before 1730 is also conspicuous; one can hardly discuss attitudes toward fast writing in the first decades of the eighteenth century without mentioning the astoundingly prolific Haywood. Much stronger is Skouen’s next chapter on Henry Peacham’s emblem books, a case study of the confrontation between the classical tradition of slow writing in production and the faster demands of publishing. Peacham’s careful process is then contrasted with Margaret Cavendish’s reputation as a speed writer. The final chapter focuses on Robert Persons, Edmund Bunny, and Richard Baxter’s contrasting writing processes and characterization of time in their devotional manuals.Skouen takes a pragmatic rather than philosophical approach, but her work in the fifth chapter on both the religious and commercial goals of moral discourse—devotional manuals as a lucrative genre—does a good job of articulating some of the philosophical questions of timekeeping and the ideas of wasting or spending time. A chapter on the new sciences of the later seventeenth century, in line with Skouen’s previous work in Rhetoric and the Early Royal Society (2014), would have followed nicely from that discussion, though Skouen does include brief observations of Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton. This would have also been the place to acknowledge the goals and popularity of universal language schemes, stenography, and file keeping as well as the linguists, like John Wilkins, who advocated for faster communication strategies and organizational systems. Bishop Wilkins’s A Discourse Concerning the Beauty of Providence (1649) is missing in the study but would have allowed Skouen to work more slowly through the middle decades of the seventeenth century, with particular attention to the influence of the urgent politics and fast publishing of Royalist and Parliamentarian propaganda during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The dissolution of Star Chamber, and the flood of publications in the 1640s and 1650s, changed the pace of the period in ways that could support Skouen’s argument.There are many highlights in The Value of Time that offer original readings of works that deserve more attention. The discussion of Erasmus and his printer, Aldus Manutius, could have been a full chapter but is helpful as it sets up the “maniacal dedication to textual labor” needed to navigate the print industry (20). Erasmus helps establish the convention of transparently acknowledging the valued tradition of slowness through apologies for the pressures of print, and Manutius’s adoption of a business logo of an anchor and a dolphin, to symbolize slowness and speed, emphasizes the “paradoxical principle of hurrying slowly” (19). During an eye-opening consideration of King James I’s role in shaping literary expectation, Skouen finds that James took up Horace’s nine-year rule in his advice book for his son, Prince Henry, in Basilicon doron (1599, 1603). Peacham then solicited the new king’s approval to produce an emblem version of that book, for which he created illustrations across four versions, including a curious emblem representing this same principle, “hurrying slowly,” with a shellfish holding a quill (80). Skouen goes to lengths to decipher the mysterious symbol, which leads the reader through the manuscript and print versions to appreciate the complexity of the Latin motto, Scripta non temere edenda (Writings not to be published rashly). Also interesting is her analysis of John Dryden’s preface to his translation of The Works of Virgil in English (1697), which reveals that Dryden uses the trope of “wanting time” to emphasize how in demand and valuable his work is yet also to establish that he is a writer always in revision.Skouen seems to overlook or bring only brief attention to the impact of the significant diversification of both authorship and audience during the seventeenth century. More attention to class and the demographics of urban and rural English communities is needed to expand on a promising point in the first chapter: “Whereas the chimes of a work or city bell in medieval urban communities created a sense that everyone was enmeshed in the same ‘chronological net,’ early modern time consciousness arose from a need to follow a uniform, regular pace while also committing to a personal schedule” (14). That schedule was created by the upper classes, who were more likely to own time-measuring devices. Other forms of measurement also shaped lower- and working-class routines, however, that would have been interesting to include. In keeping with the study’s focus on the business of print, the rhythmic street circulation of quickly printed broadside ballads would offer a way into the issue of audience diversity. In fact, a chapter or long section on news would have been helpful as it challenged the classical ideal writer but also influenced nearly every writer of the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, particularly the subjects of the second chapter on poetics, with attention to Pope, Jonathan Swift, and Samuel Johnson.A study working from the late sixteenth and only through the end of the seventeenth century would have allowed Skouen to explain other important discussions of time, speed, and slowness; there is only one mention of Roger Ascham, an “old-school pedagogue,” whose The Scholemaster (1570) would have fit well with the project’s scope (46). Ascham helps reinvigorate the connection between speed of thought and divinity, as he witnessed so many members of Elizabeth’s court climb quickly in the ranks. He validated their meteorite rise as evidence of their higher intelligence. Close reading of René Descartes’s influential Regulae ad directionem ingenii (Rules for the direction of the mind), published posthumously in Dutch in 1684 and in Latin in 1701, would have helped balance the study’s pragmatic approach, with assistance from Christopher Goodey’s recent work in disability studies on early modern attitudes about cognitive quickness and slowness. Goodey finds that despite classical traditions, by the 1650s speed was highly valued in both professional and academic communities as a marker of intelligence.That the concepts of speed and slowness can forge so many connections across fields like disability studies, the history of science, rhetorical studies, print and publishing history, book history, theology, philosophy, and literary and cultural studies is testament to the importance of the topic Skouen has chosen. As Skouen explains in the afterword, the topic could perhaps not be more timely, or kairotic. Data-driven scholarship at once increases the rate at which researchers can analyze and produce work, yet it has been countered by appeals to return to slow reading. Inside Higher Ed and other academic publications frequently run pieces advocating for slowing down, and Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber’s The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy (2017) has been widely embraced. New archival work also complements Skouen’s findings, such as Jane Desborough’s The Changing Face of Early Modern Time, 1550–1770 (2019). Skouen’s unique contribution is in her understanding of rhetorical history and attention to emblem books and devotional literature; a future book entirely on either of these genres, focused on the seventeenth century, would be welcome. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Modern Philology Volume 118, Number 3February 2021 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/711763 Views: 169 HistoryPublished online November 02, 2020 For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.