That's One Hot "Bod"

Oxford tip of the day: never underestimate an "A".

Now, many students at Oxford probably won't even have looked at their Bodleian-emblazoned ID cards deeply enough to have spotted the single, auspicious-or-not letter right above the barcode. For me, though, and the other students in my course, this "A" means the difference between academic life or death, untold possibilities or abysmal exclusion. It is, my friends, the most important letter in the life of an Early Modern English master's student at this point in time:

The letter granting "A[ccess]" to the Bodleian Library's Manuscripts and Special Collections.

You see, the "Bodleian Library" is not just a single library. The image stamped on our ID cards is of the oldest part of it, a gothic structure housing a square courtyard--the corner of which houses the obligatory gift shop. But beyond this building--the "Old Bodleian Library"--is a whole system of libraries that compose the system collectively known as the Bod. These include the "New Bodleian," the Radcliffe Camera (just a few feet from the Old library), the Bodleian Japanese Library, libraries dedicated to basically subject you can imagine; the official "Guide to Libraries for the Humanities" guide lists thirteen just for that discipline. For me, the most important are the English Faculty Library ("faculty" being British for department), the Old Bodleian, the Camera, and, drumroll please...

...the Radcliffe Science Library?

Yes, it just so happened that I chose the most inconvenient time possible to undertake a master's degree at Oxford University. During the best of times, anyone who has spent any time in Oxford will tell you that it is useless to try to understand the Bodleian Library system. Theseus had it easy by comparison; the Bod is far too extensive and complicated for a single person to grasp. 

During the worst of times, therefore, God may have well as added, "Do you know where books are housed at Oxford University?" to His questioning of Job. And the worst of times is now. According to my understanding, the British government has informed the University that if it wishes to be able to maintain the insurance necessary for its collections it must renovate the whole New Bodleian Library building. But in so doing, Oxford University has set off a chain of shifts and transportations that defies even the piddly official guides to explain the system. Included in this chain is the removal of the University's priceless manuscripts and Special Collections (yes, uppercase!) from the Old and New libraries to the Radcliffe Science library. This means that in order to read a hand-written copy of Yeats' poems, one must pass the lines of orgo-cramming science students to get to the special area designated for such purposes in the library's basement.

But it is not just a location change. I should explain that finding a particular manuscript currently requires the perusal of FOUR library catalog systems: the online catalog, two sets of printed catalogs reflecting different compilation periods, and one set of card catalogs distributed among old-fashioned three-ring binders. These catalogs may or may not overlap, so you must search all of them to be completely thorough. 

This is complicated enough. But it is made even MORE so by the fact that most manuscripts can only be read in the Radcliffe Science Library--while some of the catalogs are only available in the Duke Humphrey reading room of the Old Library! So, if you're looking for, say, the manuscript of Thomas Traherne, as I was today, then you must first go to the Duke Humphrey, drop off any large bags in the storage area, clear your pockets of pens (only pencils allowed!), climb up to the top floor, sign in at the desk, look through the catalogs, find what you're looking for, write the shelfmarks on little paper slips, give it to the librarian, sign out at the desk, collect your belongings, wait a few hours, and THEN go the Radcliffe Science Library, where you lock your stuff in the lockers, empty your pockets again, sign in at the desk, exchange your card for the manuscripts, and at last sit down to read them. Now, granted, the Duke Humphrey reading room is worth a visit; dating to the fourteenth century, it has colorful, gold-lined designs painted on the ceiling panels and Renaissance-era portraits on the walls. But the trek across town is yet another hurdle in already over-complicated process.

Once there, though, it is hard to describe the sensation of wonder when you first open the specially fitted gray box and take out the leather-bound journal containing the scribblings of Thomas Traherne. After reading transcriptions for the past year and half, I cannot explain how surreal it was to page through the poetry of Traherne and Robert Southwell, using my newly learned bibliographic knowledge to analyze the manuscripts' contents.  There it was, the same ecstatic mysticism that entranced me during the spring of my junior year, but in Traherne's own handwriting, penned on paper that still bears the signs of his brotherhaving painstakingly measured out perfectly horizontal lines on which to write. I could see where Philip Traherne had practiced the upper-case letters for his signature, which ultimately appears surrounded by detailed designs and drawings of flowers a page into the manuscript; I could note where acid had begun to eat away at the bottom edges of Southwell's poems; I could practice imitating Southwell's flowing Early Modern script, as my professor had suggested as the best way to learn paleography. "Adopt a manuscript," he said. "Adopt a manuscript and learn how to forge your author's writing. I wiled hours away sitting in the King's Arms learning how to forge Shakespeare's handwriting until I could do it in my sleep." 

I must admit, I was too overwhelmed by the immensity of what lay before me to choose a single manuscript (I was also a little disappointed/offended that my paleography teacher sat down RIGHT ACROSS FROM ME and didn't even say hi!). Both Traherne and Southwell are relatively understudied. The latter was a fervent Catholic executed for his faith under Elizabeth I in 1595; the former is remarkable for the absolutely crazy poetic style through which he espoused his Christian mysticism. 

Both would prove a fascinating literary adoptee, and both have works housed in the Bodleian. I was just reading an article about how the term "hand" to denote "handwriting" has become metonymized, a symbol that stands for the writer's identity as a whole. This idea as potentially dangerous literary ramifications, but I must admit, it is hard not to adhere to this belief when one is sitting, breathing on the lines that, four hundred years ago, sprang from the pens of Thomas Traherne and Robert Southwell. Both, it seemed to me today, are still alive, and both are made available, thanks to that tiny letter "A".