“A Great Deale of Good Stuffe”: The Cyberspace Renaissance Continues

Abstract

R eflecting on the promise of the “Cyberspace Renaissance” for the twenty-fifth anniversary issue of English Literary Renaissance in 1995, Leah Marcus hoped that “computerization” would help create “a new, neutral space within which we can re-engage our fascination with ideas of intellectual rebirth and renewal.” The appearance of revolutionary websites such as “Project Gutenberg” marked that year as “an important technological crossroad” for the study of literature and literary history. In terms of digital distance, of course, 1995 is centuries from 2020. In 1995, one of the most radical experiments in textual technology for early modernists was Cambridge’s Editions and Adaptations of Shakespeare, edited by Anne Barton and John Kerrigan, and available on the promising newmedium of CD-ROM for only $4000. The title of the book that got Marcus thinking about computerization suggests how far the digital domain has come in twenty-five years: The Internet Navigator: The Essential Guide to Network Explorations for the Individual Dial-Up User. One of the pitfalls of writing on how technology transforms disciplines is that technology itself transforms so quickly, and often in such unanticipated ways, that acts of futurism risk becoming dated almost as soon as they are written. Nonetheless, it is important to follow Marcus’ example and regularly assess the relationship between technology and our field. Marcus’ claim about the transformative nature of the cyberspace renaissance has proven true, fueled especially by the rise of digital humanities— a thriving subfield (or, more specifically, methodology), with its own journals, monographs, essay collections, conferences, degree programs, and, of course, online resources, but that was barely nascent when Marcus wrote.