In Writing Matter: From the Hands of the English Renaissance,
Jonathan Goldberg writes of the preparation of secretaries in general,
and Spenser in particular. In a chapter titled "The Violence of the
Letter:
Instruments of the Hand," Goldberg writes, "The scene of writing, we
could assume
after Derrida, is always associated with violence; here, with the very
materials of his craft, scenes of mutual violence are staged, openings
and enclosures that extend and contain the activity of writing" (69).
"At a basic material level, then, writing begins with a tool of violence,
the knife or razor, and it produces the point of the quill as another
cutting edge" (Goldberg 74).
"Penna in Latin means wing, of course, and the scene of writing
does not obscure that etymological connection or the violence against the
winged creature that produces the plume. . . ." (Goldberg 80).
