Time, Reading, and the Material Text: Revising Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender

Studies of The Shepheardes Calender almost exclusively focus on its first edition, printed by Hugh Singleton in 1579. Yet in 1580, Singleton sold his publication rights to John Harrison II, who controlled its printing for the next twenty years. This essay traces how a series of printers enlisted by Harrison in the late sixteenth century made subtle changes to The Shepheardes Calender that de-emphasize its emblems and glosses. It argues that these changes reshape the central kineticism of the Calender that relies on the interplay between its eclogues and paratexts to vary how readers move through the work. By articulating how Spenser’s text connects serial reading with the passage of linear time, this essay calls new attention to the role played by mise-en-page in amplifying the Calender’s complex temporality.