Early Modern Literary Genres and Reading Habits

Reading history and marginalia have become more and more central for global cultural studies. The scholarly community already has in-depth knowledge of the reading habits and annotation systems practiced in vast portions of the modern world, particularly for the 16th and 17th centuries: from Africa to China, from Europe to the Middle East. However, there are still many questions for which we have no answers. Literary Genres and Reading Habits in the Early Modern investigates through various contributions how modern readers approached different textual forms: from Machiavelli’s political treatise to Aristotle's philosophical essay, from Scaliger's poetical work and Dante's literature to scientific and mathematical production. Drawing on a wide range of interdisciplinary approaches that combine historical analysis and stylistic-formal inquiry, the volume aims to document two hypotheses: that reading is a multiple cultural (and ethical) practice, as varied as the genres to which it applies, and that marginalia and reading notes are analyzable and interpretable as an autonomous literary genre.