Writers' libraries and vestigial notes as cultural heritage: minding the gaps in the material record

Book section : Chapter

The moment the literary public starts paying attention to the holograph sources of modern writing differs depending on cultural contexts. In English literature, keeping one's manuscripts is a relatively recent phenomenon, compared to for instance the Italian tradition, which has holograph sources that go back at least to the fourteenth century. Using examples mainly from Samuel Beckett and James Joyce, this chapter will zoom in on writers' libraries and reading notes to trace creativity in literature. These two aspects of literature (notebooks and personal libraries) that are treated as relatively marginal phenomena in literary criticism do play a central role in creative processes. Paying special attention to the risks of implicit material bias, the essay develops an analogy with André Malraux's musée imaginaire. Its two-part structure focuses first on (a teleological and a dysteleological approach to) vestigial notes, followed by the second part on methods of reconstructing writers' libraries (both extant and virtual).

Authors: Van Hulle, D

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Routledge
• Host title: Cultural Heritage and the Literary Archive: Objects, Institutions, and Practices between the Analogue and the Digital
• Pages: 188-204
• Chapter number: 9
• Publication date: 2024-09-30
• Edition: 1st
• DOI: 10.4324/9781003432470-13
• EISBN: 9781003432470
• ISBN: 9781003432470
• Language: English
• Subjects: language & literature; information science; humanities
• Subtype: Chapter