Almost Always Anonymous

Download or read book The Anonymous Renaissance written by Marcy L. North and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2003-05-15 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The book trade, she argues, created many intriguing and paradoxical uses for anonymity, even as the authorial name became more marketable. Among ecclesiastical debates, for instance, anonymity worked to conceal identity, but it could also be used to identify the moral character of the author being concealed. In court and coterie circles, meanwhile, authors turned name suppression into a tool for the preservation of social boundaries. Finally, in both print and manuscript, anonymity promised to liberate an authentic female voice, and yet it made it impossible to authenticate the gender of an author. In sum, the writers and book producers who helped to create England's literary culture viewed anonymity as a meaningful and useful practice."--BOOK JACKET.