Peder Terpagers og Peder Syvs Boglader og den bibliografiske diskurs i lærdomskulturen o. 1700

Abstract

The scope of this paper is to illuminate a bibliographical discourse in the learned community in late 17th century Denmark in which the knowledge of books and learning were intimately tied. Books (indexes, inventories, lists, notes etc.) on books were produced in large scale. A particular focus is given on the first two national bibliographies in the vernacular, Peder Terpager’s and Peder Syv’s unpublished Boglader (bookstore a literal translation of the greco-latin bibliotheca, i.e. ‘bibliography’). Although much in line with the European bibliographical tradition, Terpager’s attempt was clearly distressed by the choice of bibliographical system and thereby the functions and potential readership of the bibliography. By including notions of philology, literary criticism, and consumer guidance to his lists of books, Syv’s manuscript displays a more complex example of the genre. The early bibliographies were meant not only as patriotic statements within thecontext of the early absolutist state, but also, as the argument goes, as expressions of a humanistic rooted culture of collecting and as well as pragmatic means of orientation on an ever more expanding and differentiated cultural marketplace.