The history of authorship and blogging

Hi there,
I was going to try to clarify Professor Gronas's project on Amazon.com customer reviewers (since Hope asked about that), but I discovered that I left my copy of his talk at my office--so that will be another post. For now I want to share something that I just learned that seems relevant to blogging.

A friend and former student, Kim Sharp, shared an essay that she wrote on 17th century coterie poets (such as John Donne, author of "Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty"). Kim got an MFA at Oregon State, where I teach, and she developed an interest in the coterie poets' collaborative practices when she took a class on 17th century literature.

The coterie poets were writing in a time of transition. The printing press had been developed, so publishing their work in print form was possible, but many preferred to circulate manuscripts within a small circle of friends. According to Kim, Donne was particularly notable for his refusal to publish/print his poems. (As a Ph.D student I focused primarily on 19th and 20th century authors, so I'll have to take Kim's word for it.)

As Kim points out, "coetrie authors intended for their work to be read by a very specific, select group." While bloggers are happy if they have a large readership, many are content with a similarly limited group of readers, especially readers who are at least partly known to them via their comments. According to a scholar who Kim cites, the coterie poets felt as though they belonged to "a social as well as intellectual elite."

The coterie poets were also intensely collaborative. They not only circulated manuscripts but often reshaped the work itself to accord with their own interests and tastes. Kim says that "This act, it seems, was not done as a means to `correct' the original author's work, but to more fully engage in the process, to continue a thought, to bring that sense of community to the writing." This reminds me of the intensely collaborative nature of much blogging, where readers' comments are as central to the blog as the "author's" comments. In fact, the author/reader distinction is challenged by both the coterie poets and by contemporary bloggers.

Kim has a very interesting discussion of the critical reception of Donne's work. I have always thought of him as a great canonical author, but according to Kim some critics have attempted to devalue his work as "occasional writing." This is because he doesn't fit the contemporary model of the author, who claims originality and sole propriety over his or her work.

One implication of Kim's study are potential connections between manuscript cultures and internet/blogging cultures. I don't know enough to say anything much more specific beyond the statement that authors writing before printing was established as the privileged medium for circulating writing and before intellectual property and copyright have pre-modern notions of authorship, notions that emphasize collaboration and the circulation of texts among like-minded friends and colleagues.

I'm going to follow up with some of the sources Kim cited in her study, and if I learn more of interest I'll pass it on. In the meantime, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Kim Sharp again for sharing her interesting and informative study with me. (Kim, if you read this blog entry and have any corrections to make or comments to add, please chime in!)