HISTORIES AND TEXTS: REFIGURING THE DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS

Abstract

The following attempts a modest reconsideration of one of the most well-known early modern Englishmen, Samuel Pepys. More precisely, the article suggests that much closer attention needs to be paid to Pepys's textuality (not sexuality). In modern times, his diary has achieved canonical status to the detriment of other texts scripted in unison with the famed Cambridge manuscript, now meticulously transcribed. Tracing the multiple textual transactions elided by the final manuscript allows for important insight into the diary's partiality. We need to resist, as much as possible, the temptation of contextualizing the diary with biographical detail because that detail is so often derived from the diary itself. We should reverse our interpretive strategy: begin with Pepys's texts (plural), unravel their main interconnections, and only then reach tentative conclusions about the man. Establishing motive is a risky business when there is no subject for interrogation. There is, however, a text that wants a more rigorous contextualization.