Affective Scribal Activity in Medieval Devotional Writing, 1300-1500

在我的研究中，我将调查中世纪文士是如何在情感上参与到他们所抄写的宗教文本中去的；例如，增加语言来强化文本，将“Curseyd caitiff”改为“Foule Curseyd caitiff”，这只是一个例子。我将研究祈祷文本手稿中抄写活动的证据——包括文本语言的变化、边缘注释、汇编、目录和其他证据——以便在抄写活动的记录中找到情感反应的形式，以及这种形式在文本代代相传时对文本的影响：也就是说，文本本身是如何被抄写者的情感反应所改变的。我将考虑现有的物证，包括情感抄写反应的类型和模式。我还将考虑这些证据如何发展我们对阅读实践的理解。我的研究将在手稿研究和现代情感理论的交叉点上发挥作用。它将考虑如何研究抄写活动，正如这些手稿所证明的那样，可以告诉我们更多关于阅读的情感——我们如何识别或同情人物，文本的语言如何引发情感反应，或者文本的情感如何与对政治或宗教教义的更广泛理解相结合或相违背——以及我们如何采用一种批判性的方法，将这些情感因素纳入其自身的重要意义。我的研究将为情感解读问题提供一个理论框架因为它将研究文本不仅作为一个改变我们的对象，而且作为一些被改变的东西，一些由于抄写员的互动而经历了字面上的，物理上的变化的东西，以及抄写员如何回应和贡献文本作为情感的载体。

In my research, I will investigate how medieval scribes engaged emotionally with the religious texts they were copying; for instance, adding language to intensify the text, changing 'Curseyd caitiffs' to 'Foule curseyd caitiffs', to give just one example. I will study evidence of scribal activity in the manuscripts of devotional texts - including changes in the language of the text, marginal annotation, compilation, tables of contents, and other evidence - in order to locate forms of affective response in the record of scribal activity, and the effect this has on the text as it is passed down through the ages: that is, how the text itself is literally changed by the scribe's emotional response. I will consider the material evidence available, including the types and patterns of affective scribal response. I will also consider how this evidence may develop our understanding of the practices of reading. My research will function at the intersection between the study of manuscripts and modern affect theory. It will consider how study of scribal activity, as evidenced in these manuscripts, can tell us more about the emotions of reading - how we identify or empathise with characters, how emotional responses are elicited by the language of the text, or how the emotions of a text work with or against broader understandings of politics or religious doctrine - and how we can adopt a critical approach that incorporates these emotional factors as significant in their own right. My research will provide a theoretical reframing of the question of affective interpretation because it will study the text not only as an object that changes us but something that is changed, something which undergoes literal, physical change as a result of scribal interaction, and how scribes respond to and contribute towards the text as a vector of emotions.