Materiality

Materiality is part of a growing area of research within the study of early modern women’s writing that investigates the role of objects within the creation, production, and reception of texts. Be it close analyses of discrete objects mentioned in texts and appearing on stage or broader studies of the materiality of writing, producing, and reading texts, scholars are increasingly encouraged to investigate materiality within and without the texts they read. This entry provides an overview of the “material turn” in early modern literary studies, outlines the background of this “turn,” and offers critical routes into “materiality,” including approaches from book history and Actor Network Theory. This entry also discusses why materiality and material culture are important to scholars of women’s writing. Women actively participated in and were shaped by early modern material culture and the research that foregrounds materiality offers new and undiscovered insights into women’s lives and the literature they produced.