Voices and Books in Early Modern England, 1500-1800

The aim of this project is to establish a network of early modern scholars (1500-1800) and partners to explore new approaches to the history of reading that take account of how books were voiced and heard. We want to establish the ubiquity of this practice, and in order to do so will explore together the kind of evidence and research methods that might serve this end. Our aims are also interpretive. We will explore how reading aloud relates to other kinds of orality, what it can tell us about the civic life of the book in early modern culture (and in our own time too), and how awareness of performance might inform our reading of early modern writing today. We will work with non-HEI Partners who are committed to the benefits of Reading Aloud today with a view to enhancing their practice, adding a historical dimension to this activity and also increasing knowledge of early modern writings in the community, while also enhancing our understanding of the experience of reading aloud and listening. We are committed to exploring collaborative ways of working that will sustain the network into the future, after the completion of scheduled activities.

There is burgeoning interest in 'reading aloud' especially among literary historians of the eighteenth century. Although it is often acknowledged that Renaissance books were routinely read aloud too, we know relatively little about this. Oral reading is not embedded as an assumption in existing scholarship. On the contrary, over the last two decades it is the studious and usually silent male reader, pen in hand, who has been placed centre stage. At the same time, 'reading aloud' is usually understood rather narrowly, to involve the speaking voice only whereas we include 'singing' from books too. Plus, the history of reading has developed to date with lone scholars working, very often, on a specific period and in their discipline. So the history of reading *aloud* in the sixteenth / seventeenth centuries and the eighteenth century is developing differently. There hasn't been the pooling of disciplinary expertise to establish the evidence and methods needed to generate a confident research area. This is despite the fact that we understand that this was the common experience of the book, 1500-1800.

This project sets out to address all of these issues, encouraging scholars to share methods, resources and histories. It will explore singing from books as a form of reading aloud, helping musicologists to understand how the interpretation of early modern musical texts belongs to the history of reading; it will help literary scholars and historians to use musical resources to explore the sociability of non-musical as well as musical performance; it will help literary scholars and musicologists to work with and understand the methods being developed by linguists to recover the historical voice. It will also bring scholars from all of these disciplines into contact with the recent research of anthropologists working on non-European oral cultures, and with non-HEI partners who have an interest in and commitment to the benefits of 'shared reading' or 'public reading'. We will explore together with our non-HEI partners ways of valuing and making meaningful today texts that were written to be read aloud many centuries ago. We will consider how awareness of this reading experience, then and now, might inform, say, scholarly editing for future generations, as well as the the way we read all kinds of earlier literatures as scholarly as well as simply interested readers.

Beneficiaries include:
City Libraries, Newcastle upon Tyne
The Reading Experience Database;
National Early Music Association UK;
Seven Stories (The National Cente for Children's Books);
More broadly, local libraries, schools, learned and musical associations and readers in Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester, London (and across the UK more generally).

It will benefit potential users and participants by:
- interacting with local communities to consider their experiences of reading/ being read to and enabling participants to create further local links and connections;
- fostering dialogue with non-academic participants in historical interest groups, thus enriching understanding of the ways
in which texts are heard, from a variety of viewpoints, but also supporting possible future collaborations;
- opening dialogues with non-HEI partners in support of innovative and creative practice, promoting an enriched, historical
understanding of their practice;
- providing an online forum for discussion and information exchange, with links to resources, which will be
accessible to members of local community and historical interest groups.

Reading aloud is intrinsically social and democratic. It happens routinely, everyday, in social settings from primary schools to funeral services to law courts. This makes it an ideal topic to find common ground between academic researchers with an interest in the history of reading aloud, and charities (like Moving Forward in Newcastle, with whom the PI has been working in 2012-13), libraries, learned associations and interest groups based in the wider community, locally and nationally, who are engaged in this practice now. We aim to generate and foster interactions that will enrich our understanding of the ways in which reading aloud is practised today in diverse communities and settings as well as share historical knowledge that can inform future practice and understanding of the kinds of texts read. We also aim to catalyse creative thought about ways in which early modern research and inter-sector activity may be used to benefit all kinds of readers.

All of our networking events will be held in different parts of the UK enabling us to reach a variety of local constituencies in Manchester, Glasgow, London, and Newcastle. To all of these events we will invite members of local archives, libraries, history groups, schools, musical associations, as approrpiate. Our intention is not just to invite these members to come and hear academic papers, however, but to involve them at each event. Non HEI participants will be invited to talk about what they do, the materials they hold, or the contribution they might make to the widening of the network in whatever form they deem appropriate: a short talk, posters or fliers, or just information on the website. Although we have invited prominent academic speakers to each proposed workshop already, the final shape of each event will be decided by the convenor in consultation with local interest groups and the network's steering committee (and also taking into account feedback from earlier events). Each workshop will end with a roundtable in which we will explore possibilities for future collaboration.

The website will provide a continuing online forum for exploration and dissemination of thought on 'voices and books', and will facilitate future collaboration between academic, voluntary, and publicly-funded organisations. Lay members of the steering committee will advise on its development so that their perspectives on what is useful are built into the architecture and content of the site. There will be a space for people to record their experiences of oral reading, and we will actively seek to encourage contributions from diverse communities and age groups. Along with connections made during the workshop, it will offer opportunities to generate new cross-disciplinary, cross-institutional and third sector collaborations.