The "Miracles" of the Written Word Early British Writing Masters' Views of Handwriting

Overview & Synopsis

This essay studies what British writing masters from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century considered to be the special powers of handwriting through their many treatises: their claims that handwriting “miraculously” abolished time, that the absent addressee could be made present, that script abolished distances, ensured secrecy of communication, defied mortality, fostered knowledge and communal memory. The article concludes that their objectives were never completely met, largely because of the complex technology of early handwriting and of the constraints of epistolarity. However, writing masters created essential imaginary communities and, by laying important building blocks, they ensured handwriting’s societal and aesthetic future.