This thesis examines the relationship between pedagogy and print in early modern England. I argue that while print held great educational opportunities, it also presented intense pedagogical challenges. Writers had to overcome the difficulties of teaching a remote, anonymous readership and deal with the problematic status of their pedagogical publications as commodities. These difficulties forced writers to employ sophisticated rhetorical strategies in order to facilitate instruction and privilege their educational ideals, resulting in a level of expressive activity in their writings which has often been underestimated. Chapter 1 considers the implications that the organisation of contemporary schools had for reading, and shows writers such as Roger Ascham and Edmund Coote appropriated spatial techniques of discipline to manage their readers. Chapter 2 continues to re-evaluate the disciplinary thrust of schooling, demonstrating grammatical instruction performed a more complicated form of inculcation than previously appreciated. Chapter 3 develops the connection between educational authority and economic morality raised in Chapter 2, arguing educators such as William Kempe promulgated injunctions against the sale of wisdom to establish their pedagogical prerogative and discredit competitors. Building on this, Chapter 4 examines how Thomas Elyot and Ascham apply discourses of giving in their prefaces to distance their writings from the pursuit of self-interest and establish a pedagogical bond with readers. Finally, Chapter 5 investigates the impact of the Protestant valorisation of work on the self-presentation of pedagogues such as Richard Mulcaster and John Brinsley, arguing the idealisation of industry provided educators with a powerful new claim to authority. I conclude that by the end of the sixteenth century, educators were coming to see their work as a skilled and honourable profession, and that the writers discussed in this thesis participated in this transformation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:540344 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | McGregor, Rachel |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=166198 |
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