Inscription and Erasure: Literature and Written Culture from the Eleventh to the Eighteenth Century by Roger Chartier, Arthur Goldhammer

ISBN: 9780812220469

University of Pennsylvania Press, 10 April 2007

Paperback, 224 Pages

The fear of oblivion obsessed medieval and early modern Europe. Stone, wood, cloth, parchment, and paper all provided media onto which writing was inscribed as a way to ward off loss. And the task was not easy in a world in which writing could be destroyed, manuscripts lost, or books menaced with destruction. Paradoxically, the successful spread of printing posed another danger, namely, that an uncontrollable proliferation of textual materials, of matter without order or limit, might allow useless texts to multiply and smother thought. Not everything written was destined for the archives; indeed, much was written on surfaces that allowed one to write, erase, then write again.