Introduction to Creative writing

For the next two weeks I will be working on creative writing project. One of the interesting writing can be a creation of chapbook. Chapbook were small booklets, cheap to make and buy. A chapbook was a sort of printed street literature in early modern Europe. Chapbooks were compact, paper-covered booklets that were often produced on a single sheet and folded into books of 8, 12, 16, and 24 pages. They were frequently decorated with crude woodcuts that often had no relevance to the text (much like today's stock images), and they were frequently read aloud to an audience. Illustrations were deemed popular prints when they were included in chapbooks. The chapbook tradition began in the 16th century, when printed books became more cheap, and peaked in the 17th and 18th centuries. Chapbooks were used to publish a variety of ephemera and popular or folk literature, including almanacks, children's literature, folk stories, and ballads.

                                                                  'gothic chapbook'

Chapbooks were the primary reading diet of the lower classes, containing songs, tales, children's stories, history, and news. Street criers, hawkers, and itinerant pedlars, or chapmen, peddled chapbooks.

They were also available in fairs, printers' shops, taverns, and even toy stores. People may read the last words of a condemned criminal, a description of a recent calamity, a bouquet of melodies, or the history of legendary heroes such as William Wallace, Rob Roy, Nelson, or Napoleon for a penny. Chapbooks were almost never read aloud. They were frequently recited or sung publicly to an audience, which frequently included illiterate people. 

                                                               'fairy tale chapbook'

Chapbook was first recorded in English in 1824, and it appears to stem from the word chapman, which was used to describe itinerant salesmen who sold such books. The initial element of chapman is derived from the Old English word cap ('barter, business, dealing'), from whence the contemporary adjective cheap was formed.

In today's class we had a look of many examples of chapbook. Also we discussed different forms of writing. We can highlight:

When I think about my own chapbook I think mostly about narrative writing. Then I would consider poems. At the end of our class we had an 20 minutes writing exercise  and here I share with you my piece of it and I hope you enjoy!

 

Love is always my all

Sometimes it starts to fall

Like a puffed rag doll

Then raise again above all

Oh love sweet love

Wonderful like a foxglove

You are such smooth as dove

How it is easy to fall in love

In the next blog post I will show my Initial Ideas to create my own chapbook. 

Sources:

https://www.europeana.eu/en/blog/chapbooks-the-poor-persons-reading-material

https://slideplayer.com/amp/16200399/