Tristram Shandy" to Contemporary Artists' Books Karen L
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 1998 The Look of the Book: Visual Elements in the Experience of Reading from "Tristram Shandy" to Contemporary Artists' Books Karen L. Schiff University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Comparative Literature Commons Recommended Citation Schiff, Karen L., "The Look of the Book: Visual Elements in the Experience of Reading from "Tristram Shandy" to Contemporary Artists' Books" (1998). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 3389. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3389 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3389 For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Look of the Book: Visual Elements in the Experience of Reading from "Tristram Shandy" to Contemporary Artists' Books Abstract In the age of the novel, we read fiction sequentially and unselfconsciously. This practice requires us to ignore the materiality and appearance of books, for these factors disrupt narrative absorption. "The Look of the Book" explores specific books from England and America whose visual and material characteristics resist and redefine ah bitual experiences of reading prose. These specimens connect word and image in the book format, and they therefore resist the theories of critics since Gotthold Lessing that have separated visual and verbal modes. Lessing's contemporary, Laurence Sterne, uses visual elements in Tristram Shandy (1760–67) to digress from the reading sequence while furthering the overall narrative. Sterne's techniques also establish a taxonomy of the book's constituent variables. In the twentieth century, as bookmaking technologies became more widely accessible, a printing renaissance brought artists into book design. Vanessa Bell creates images and designs page layouts to amplify her sister Virginia Woolf's ekphrastic fiction in the third "decorated" edition of Woolf's Kew Gardens (Hogarth Press, 1927). The illustrations change the pace of reading by integrating word, image and book structure. In Tom Phillips' A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel and Sheherezade: A Flip Book, by artist Janet Zweig and author Holly Anderson, words are inseparable from the visual layout of the page, and the resulting written texts create temporally fractured narratives. These postmodern artists' books show that narrative fiction and the physical novel are both malleable structures. In all of these works, the "book composer," who masterminds the visual arrangement of the text, influences the reading experience in ways that have not been explored in the context of literary criticism. As predictions about the 'death of the book' circulate in the academy and popular media, this dissertation suggests that books can make available complex modes of reading that we generally do not expect from novels. This interdisciplinary approach is essential at a time when images pervade the cultural context and are being integrated more thoroughly into print media. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Comparative Literature and Literary Theory First Advisor Wendy Steiner Subject Categories Comparative Literature This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3389 THE LOOK OF THE BOOK: VISUAL ELEMENTS IN THE EXPERIENCE OF READING FROM TRISTRAM SHANDY TO CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS' BOOKS Karen L. Schiff A DISSERTATION i n Comparative Literature and Literary Theory Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1998 I Wendy SteineyJ Supervisor of Dissertation g i- h z _________________ Rita Barnard, Acting Graduate Group Chairperson Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. COPYRIGHT Karen Lisa Schiff 1998 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TO MY GRANDPARENTS, M a x a n d R e n a G a s s , FOR THEIR STRONG LOVE AND SUPPORT i ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without many people. First, the past and present chairpeople of Comparative Literature and Literary Theory provided me with intellectual encouragement and financial support. I arrived at the invitation of Prof. Charlie Bemheimer, now sadly deceased, who opened my Penn career with a wonderful conversation. In subsequent years, Prof. Liliane Weissberg has worked tirelessly both to secure funding and to inspire excellence. Support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities allowed me to participate in the Dartmouth College Humanities Research Institute on "Books and the Imaginary" in the winter of 1997. For my final year of writing, a Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Fellowship proved invaluable. I am grateful to my committee, who furthered my progress on many levels through their efficient work. Prof. Wendy Steiner gave me incisive feedback, Prof. Liliane Weissberg kept up my momentum, and Prof. Gerald Prince was a reservoir of reassuring calm. Other faculty members, such as Prof. Michael Ryan and Prof. Craig Saper, were vital conversation partners at key junctures. Prof. Johanna Drucker generously shared thoughts and resources, Ivan Illich remembered the heart of the matter, and Prof. Vicki Mahaffey's wisdom has always stayed in my mind. Thanks to the Women's Studies Program for sponsoring a dissertation group this year; I found camaraderie and relearned that writing goes best with good conversation. Especially helpful were Suzanne Verderber's enthusiasm early on, and Bonnie Gordon's generosity and i v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. hilarity as we approached the final hour. Alev Cinar and Janine Mileaf offered essential suggestions and encouragements; my appreciation for this group is mixed with the sadness of leaving it. This project was made bearable by the support of family and friends. My mother always seemed to know just the right thing to send in the mail, and my sisters were a relief to talk with on the phone. Special thanks to Shelley Krause, who supplied me with a concluding detail and whose belief in my work has buoyed me. Ivy Gilbert, Amy Zucker, Greg Coleman and Jerry Allender reminded me of larger perspectives when I lost sight of them. JoAnne Dubil has been a perennial source of cheerfulness and caring. And I appreciated Mindy Flexer's ardent exhortations to "Write on, Dr. Schiff!" A large part of this project was clearly inspired by the work of my father and his wife, commercial graphic designers who have passed on to me an appreciation of print aesthetics. And as with any document such as this, there are the unnamed and the unnameable. For assistance in ways too diverse to detail, I am deeply grateful. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A b s t r a c t THE LOOK OF THE BOOK: VISUAL ELEMENTS IN THE EXPERIENCE OF READING FROM TRISTRAM SHANDY TO CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS' BOOKS K a r e n Sc h if f W e n d y St e in e r In the age of the novel, we read fiction sequentially and unselfconsciously. This practice requires us to ignore the materiality and appearance of books, for these factors disrupt narrative absorption. "The Look of the Book" explores specific books from England and America whose visual and material characteristics resist and redefine habitual experiences of reading prose. These specimens connect word and image in the book format, and they therefore resist the theories of critics since Gotthold Lessing that have separated visual and verbal modes. Lessing's contemporary, Laurence Sterne, uses visual elements in Tristram Shandy (1760-67) to digress from the reading sequence while furthering the overall narrative. Sterne's techniques also establish a taxonomy of the book's constituent variables. In the twentieth century, as bookmaking technologies became more widely accessible, a printing renaissance brought artists into book design. Vanessa Bell creates images and designs page layouts to amplify her sister Virginia Woolf's ekphrastic fiction in the third "decorated" edition of Woolf's Ket v Gardens (Hogarth Press, 1927). The illustrations change the pace of reading by integrating word, image and book structure. In Tom Phillips' A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel and Sheherezade: A Flip Book, by artist Janet Zweig and v i Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. author Holly Anderson, words are inseparable from the visual layout of the page, and the resulting written texts create temporally fractured narratives. These postmodern artists' books show that narrative fiction and the physical novel are both malleable structures. In all of these works, the "book composer," who masterminds the visual arrangement of the text, influences the reading experience in ways that have not been explored in the context of literary criticism. As predictions about the 'death of the book' circulate in the academy and popular media, this dissertation suggests that books can make available complex modes of reading that we generally do not expect from novels. This interdisciplinary approach is essential at a time when images pervade the cultural context and are being integrated more thoroughly into print media. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS X INTRODUCTION: COMPOSING FICTIONS 1 A. Historical Backdrop: Printing, Reading, 2 and the Space and Time of the Novel B. Word/Image Theory 6 C. The Material Text 13 D. Authorship Includes Book Composition 16 E. Examples 20 F. The import and impact of this work 26 C h a p t e r I: Physical D igressions inT r i s t r a m S h a n d y 28 A. Sterne as Composer 35 B. The M arbled Page 39 C. Digression, Progression, and Reading 52 D.