5 - Library Use

Weekly EEBO ETC

Here is another installment of my attempts (weeks 1, 2, 3, 4) to make sure I use the resources my library affords, particularly EEBO. I started this to make sure my librarians had the stats to justify keeping the database I knew I was going to rely on for my Fall semester teaching. And, it hasn’t been hard, since my furlough days are devoted to making progress on a very old book project; my use and needs are not merely performative or just a nod to what I’ll use more often when my class starts in August; I’m actually hoping to finish a chapter draft in the next month.

Last week (my actual 5th week), I used EEBO to access several texts about London, including A breefe discourse, declaring and approuing the necessarie and inuiolable maintenance of the laudable customes of London namely, of that one, whereby a reasonable partition of the goods of husbands among their wiues and children is prouided: with an answer to such obiections and pretensed reasons, as are by persons vnaduised or euil persuaded, vsed against the same. STC (2nd ed.) / 16747 (London, 1584).

I don’t really think there was a whole lot in this one worth sharing, but I will note that when I started to read it, I had not read the whole title — I really was in it for the “laudable customs of London” and so was pretty surprised when the author started to talk about marriage. You might be thinking “But it’s right there in the title…” Or, like me, you got through “breefe discourse…London…that…” and nothing registered after that point. Early modern titles, LOL.

David M. Bergeron, “Patronage of Dramatists: The Case of Thomas Heywood” English literary Renaissance Volume: 18 Issue 2 (1988)

I also read this article in ELR by David Bergeron on Thomas Heywood, which was fine, though focused on 1630s pageants and not especially for thinking about the plays Heywood was writing in the late 1590s.

I believe now I have given ELR scholarhsip more clicks this summer than I had in the past year. Also, I believe Werner Gundersheimer is a very fun name to say.

Finally, I returned after several years to Thomas Deloney’s The Gentle Craft, which also has a much longer title. It’s fine. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The gentle craft A discourse containing many matters of delight, very pleasant to be read: shewing what famous men have beene shoomakers in time past in this land, with their worthy deeds and great hospitality. Declaring the cause why it is called the gentle craft: and also how the proverbe first grew; a shoemakers sonne is a prince borne (1637 ) Bibliographic name/number: STC (2nd ed.) / 6555.

I looked at some other stuff, but these are the main things for the previous week and some of this week.