I really like books. I like collecting them and having them on my shelves. I think I probably like books themselves more than I like actually reading them. Which works fine, incidentally, if your preferred revision technique is osmosis.
Naturally, then, I was unashamedly, geekily excited to visit the newly opened Weston Library (I’ve already been twice). Its (free!) new exhibition displays an impressive selection of the Bodleian’s extensive collections, exploring the idea of ‘genius’ as it is recorded in physical works and manuscripts . It’s an absolute treasure trove of cultural landmarks, boasting a first edition of Dante’s Divina Commedia, hand-written drafts of Jane Austen’s novels, and a copy of the Magna Carta.
There’s something pretty awe-inspiring about seeing first-hand such important manuscripts and miscellany which I don’t think you have to be a self-confessed bibliophile to appreciate. These are works of breathtaking craftsmanship: the decorative illustrations on a 15th Century Qur’an and William Morris’s Kelmscott Chaucer are paragons of finesse in manuscript and printing practices.
What’s more, there is a profound sense of the miraculous physicality of their presence. There, behind a pane of glass in the Weston, through some remarkable tenacity, are the tattered fragments of papyrus because of which we are still able to enjoy Sappho’s poetry today. Even some of the more eclectic inclusions become remarkable testimonies to the importance of archiving history – juxtaposed against Sappho’s fragments, there is something quietly profound about John Johnson’s collection of printed ephemera, which includes adverts, bus tickets and cigar bands.
In their display cases, these works of genius are curiously divorced from their usual, functional value. Unable to read them, we’re encouraged to have a very different kind of interaction with these artefacts; an appreciation besides, but not divorced from, the importance of their content. We come to see them with the eyes of collectors, regarding and valuing them at what cultural critic Walter Benjamin would call “the stage of their fate.”
It may seem as though I, like Benjamin, am trying pretty hard here to justify my strange fetish for the printed word and lazy reading habits, but there is something undoubtedly magical about Marks of Genius. While we still await the outcome of the e-books revolution and continue to be surprised at how nice Kindles actually are, I would highly recommend a visit to the Weston Library in the near future.
