Miscellanies, anthologies, and other collections that compile separate textual parts into bibliographic wholes have been studied by scholars interested in the organization of information, bibliography, reception, and sociability. But what do such compilations stand to teach us about literary form and style? This seminar invites participants to share work that approaches individual miscellanies, the practices of miscellanists, or larger cultures of compiling from the perspectives of poetics, stylistics, and/or literary form. 

The seminar takes inspiration from Megan Heffernan’s proposal that early modern printed poetry compilations “contributed to vernacular poetic craft” (Making the Miscellany: Poetry, Print, and the History of the Book in Early Modern England, 2021); what bearing has the miscellany had upon poetic craft, literary technique, and criticism in different times and places? How have miscellanists forged individual styles and even voices using the words of multiple and various authors? How can the category of miscellany illuminate the workings of certain genres (satire, travel writing, locodescriptive verse, etcetera) or individual literary texts? What poetics of arrangement do miscellanies apply or, maybe, develop? Papers examining the literariness of the miscellany and the miscellaneousness of literature are equally welcome, as are papers focusing on any language and period.

Please direct inquiries to Alexis Chema ([email protected]).