“English” Black-Letter Type and Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender

Abstract

Modern studies of books as material objects have neglected the fact that in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England blackletter type was called “English.” Consequently, they have neglected the implications of such a designation. Returning blackletter type to its original context as “English” type demonstrates how it signified the English language. The relation between type and language expanded beyond black letter and the English language. Reflecting Continental typographic trends, English printers set modern European languages other than English in the typefaces in which they normally appeared in their native countries. In this way, typefaces represented a visual expression of language and nationality. The use of black-letter type in the first edition of Edmund Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender was a deliberate typographical deviation from its bibliographic model, a 1571 edition of Jacopo Sannazaro’s Arcadia. This deviation superimposed the English vernacular, represented by black-letter or “English” type, onto the Italian vernacular, represented by italic and roman type. The choice of “English” type supported the book’s overarching promotion of English literature and language, along with Spenser’s self-promotion as an English poet.

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