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NEH Institute materials

July 2017

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Plain text as model and expression

Here are two printed images that conform to conventional typographic conventions, plus one that doesn’t. How is structure expressed through layout and typography?

William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Second Quarto, 1604/1605)

The quartos are early publications of some of Shakespeare’s plays. You can explore the Hamlet quartos at The Shakespeare Quartos Archive.

[Hamlet, Second Quarto]

[Image from http://liblamp.uwm.edu/omeka/SPC2/exhibits/show/classictext/shakespeare/shakespeare1604]

Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias” (First publication, 1818)

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias:

“Ozymandias” … is a sonnet written by English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), first published in the 11 January 1818 issue of The Examiner in London. It was included the following year in Shelley’s collection Rosalind and Helen, a modern eclogue; with other poems (1819) and in a posthumous compilation of his poems published in 1826.

[Ozymandias, first publication]

[Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias#/media/File:Ozymandias_The_Examiner_1818.jpg]

George Herbert, “Easter wings” (1633)

George Herbert’s “Easter wings” was printed in a wing-like layout.

[Easter-wings, first publication, 1633]

[Image from https://www.ccel.org/h/herbert/temple/Easterwings.html]