Collecting Verse: “Significant Shape” and the Paper-Book in the Early Seventeenth Century

In this essay, Michelle O’Callaghan investigates practices of manuscript compilation, taking Don.c.54 and Rawl.poet.31, Bodleian Library, as her main case studies. Both manuscripts evidence a degree of organization and planning, and thus possess a “significant shape,” even though one (Rawl.poet.31) was produced by a professional scribe in a short span of time as a commercial enterprise, and the other (Don.c.54) was compiled by its owner (an amateur scribe) over the course of three decades. The essay uncovers the high level of skill and awareness of manuscript design that amateur as well as professional copyists could display. It explores the kinds of interpretive work required to analyze the complex interrelationship between material form and textual content.