Lately I've been fearing for my new media soul. Anyone who's read previous entries know about my obsession with (nostalgia for) the codex book. Well, lately it's been getting worse.
I've been reading a lot of William Blake for an independent study class. Initially I was being a good little cyborg and reading it only online at the Blake Archive, toggling between textual transcription and the image. But then one day I was stuck at school and decided to go, like, totally retrograde, and find a codex version. I found a set of folio editions published by the Tate Gallery.
I think I'm in love.
Not only are the reproductions marvelous, but there are also ample introductory and contextual materials, and annotations of the image AND the text. True, the Blake Archive has some of all that--along with its imcomparable compare function--but only on the most basic of levels. The editors do not disquisit to the extent that the editors of the Tate Gallery folios do. (I'm wondering if there's something about the online experience that limits such disquisitions, such as the fact that most folks spend about 30 seconds, if that, on any given webpage).
I especially like David Worral's edition of the Urizen books. And it seems to me that the (First) Book of Urizen, especially, should be read in codex format, rather than online (or rather the online version should be a supplement, but not the primary reading location). After all, it is largely a depiction of Blake's near nightmarish anxiety in the face of the Authoritative Book, exemplified by the Bible. It is a book that undermines and deconstructs the idea of the book, and that, paradoxically, needs to be read as a book for that deconstruction to be understood.
I will also allow that perhaps it also needs to be read as a dissected book, which is what it essentially is in its online form.
But conclusion is that reading Blake only online--when one has books such as the Tate Gallery edition available--does the work something of a disservice.
I don't have to turn my New Media badge, do I?
Posted by jeb at September 28, 2004 11:37 PM | TrackBack