‘Bound up and clasped together’: Bookbinding as Metaphor for Marriage in Richard Brome's <em>The Love-Sick Court</em>

Authors

  • Eleanor Lowe Oxford Brookes University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12745/et.16.1.5

Keywords:

bookbinding, Brome, metaphor, marriage,

Abstract

Analytical studies of book production in dramatic metaphors most commonly make reference to printing technologies and book replication and dissemination. This essay reconsiders the new bibliography by extending its scope to include bookbinding, with especial attention paid to Richard Brome’s 1638 play The Love-Sick Court. In act 4, Doris the maid rejects Geron’s advances: ‘We are not yet one volume, both bound up / And clasped together’. I consider this claim in the light of courtship and marriage with particular analysis of the process of bookbinding (from personal practical experience) in relation to the sacrament of marriage. The essay pays additional attention to the close synergies between paper and clothing, and the trope of book/woman.

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Published

2013-06-20

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 1 (2013)

Section

Articles

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