ext_48467 ([identity profile] leafshimmer.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] sophiaserpentia 2012-08-12 11:28 pm (UTC)

Interesting. Have you ever read The World turned upside down by Christopher Hill? It's a survey of the pamphlets, chapbooks, broadsides, etc. that emerged in great quantity in England during the 1640s and 1650s during the Cromwell period. There's some really weird stuff that got printed because for a time there was no censorship of religious thought and printing had become really cheap and working-class mystics were allowed to write down what they thought. It's pretty amazing. Among other things, the surviving works of the Levellers and Diggers were printed during this period. It all survives because of somebody or other who carefully saved everything they could get their hands on and then, I think, locked it all up in a trunk and stowed it in an attic.

Some of it is great stuff, but there's other stuff in there that is just meandering weirdness, kind of like this text you cite.

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