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English 245 with Dr.
Gary Gutchess |
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Course Lessons 2. Beowulf 1 3. Beowulf 2 4. Middle Ages 5. Romance 6. Sir Gawain 7. Malory 9. Wife of Bath 11. Biblical Drama 12. Play of Mankind 14. Thomas More 15. Philip Sidney 16. Print Culture 17. Walter Raleigh 18. Twelfth Night 1 19. Twelfth Night 2 20. Civil War 22. Aphra Behn 23. Reading Papers 24. Gulliver 25. Rape of the Lock 27. New God 28. Revolution
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*** 16. Print Culture *** |
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READINGS FOR THIS LESSON
The Technologies of Literature |
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NOTES AND
COMMENTARY
"Literature" literally means writing made of letters. The term comes from Old French lettre, from Latin littera, ultimately from Greek diphtherā, meaning hide, leather, writing surface, as the Greeks like other ancient peoples originally wrote on animal skins. Pictorial representation however, goes back a long way before letters, at least back to the Neolithic cave painters of 12,000 BC. Though to some extent we can read signs in nature all the way back to the Big Bang, pre-literate times are very difficult to know. Four Ages of Literature 1. The Age of Memory: the spoken word from the invention of language with the development of voice in prehistoric times (200,000-100,000 BCE?) to the use of writing. Although literature as defined above does not exist, songs and stories are performed. Performances vary by performer and even, in improvisation, varying by performance, though attempts are made through music, dance and ritualization to preserve important words. Distribution is limited to those within hearing distance. How many of these small audiences will hear the same story? Any complex story-telling in the Age of Memory is restricted to trained bards or scops using mnemonic and musical devices, such as rhyme, meter, and alliteration. The artists typically work for chiefs who can afford to retain them. The art is used for entertainment and, more importantly, for team-building. The song of the legendary past (usually dubbed by modern scholars as myth, mythic history, epic, or heroic song) may have originated in this Age, but short lyrics, songs and ballads must have been the most common literary forms. 2. The Age of Manuscripts: the handwritten word from the use of writing to the printing press. (European literary writing begins perhaps as early as 1200 BC, certainly by 750 BC. European mechanical printing begins about 1436 AD.) Writing and reading gradually replace singing and listening, as text replaces song. Performance becomes fixed or nearly so (scribes may add new items to old manuscripts). Distribution broadens a little since copies can be made of the same story, but copies are limited in number because hand copying is inefficient. Literacy is restricted to a small professional class (such as scribes or monks or scholars) who think of themselves as learned. Copying becomes a value in itself: literary emphasis falls on the handing-down of authentic stories from old authorities and the close imitation of those models. Most authors are supported by politically powerful and wealthy patrons, so literature typically is priestly, courtly, or aristocratic. Classical literature and medieval literature represent the Age of Manuscripts in European history. 3. The Age of Books: the printed word from the invention of the printing press until the internet. With every printed copy identical, the performers’ words are absolutely fixed for the first time. Mechanical copying allows mass distribution. The low cost and ease of publishing permits an explosion of different kinds of literature, different kinds of authors, different stories, translations into different languages, specialization in every direction. It even permits publication of criticism about literature, so that literary self-consciousness develops to an unprecedented (some would say ridiculous) degree. Performance length becomes no obstacle, technologically speaking: nearly all novels belong to this phase. Literacy becomes an essential skill in a text-based world. Commercial distribution favors popular literature; writers no longer depend for support on wealthy patrons but cater to the masses. Junk literature proliferates. Literature engages in social criticism, humor, humble subjects, fantasy and pure entertainment. Renaissance to modern literature represents the Age of Books in the west. (One might insert here, between the third and fourth age, a mini-age of public broadcast media: radio, television and film. Was this period the Modern Dark Ages when the art of writing was lost for 100 years? Or was this period the final flowering of the Age of Books, when mechanical reproduction finally was extended from text to recorded voice and recorded performance? However we choose to see them, broadcast media form an important evolutionary link to the Fourth Age introduced by computers.) 4. The Age of the Internet: the web word from the invention of electronic text until ??? Use your imagination to describe this one. How fortunate we are to live at this "post-modern" time when such important changes are beginning to take place! Will the Internet Age resemble the Age of Memory since internet presentations are interactive and even "live," unlike old-fashioned books, manuscripts and recordings? Will bards and performing arts make a come-back in cyberspace? How far will machines and simulations take the place of human performers? How different will they be from the artists of the first age? These different ages of literature are not absolutely fixed historical periods, of course. We have oral story telling today at the outset of the Internet Age, and we have manuscripts and more books than anybody can read, too. The old ages are with us still, not having vanished and not showing signs of going away. From age to age it’s the cumulative variety of media that grows, and the relative emphasis among media that changes. Transitions are gradual. When changes finally come, people tend to see the new technology in light of the old. Homer and the Beowulf poet seem to illustrate this principle, since their work is preserved in manuscript, but the words apparently are composed in the style of an oral bard. Within the age of manuscripts, beginning with Roman codexes in the first century AD, handwritten papers were bound together in book-like volumes. Early in the age of the printing press, mechanically published books had manuscript-like illustrations (recall More's Utopia), and for many decades the font styles remained unnecessarily and confusingly ornate, resembling handwriting. Similarly at the start of the Internet Age, we see the new web technology used first for book distribution in Amazon.com, electronic texts, and . . . even this print-heavy course? Meanwhile, the novelties of the new medium, like interactivity, are underutilized, and internet applications that seem wonderfully advanced to us now surely will seem primitive in the years to come. Here we are at the very beginning of a great transitional time. How will literature change to make full use of electronic text, the computer and the world wide web?
Four Ages of English Literature The Old English
Beowulf,
which takes the appearance of a bardic song, is the most complete remaining example of
the first age, though it was preserved only in the age
of manuscripts. Chaucer's Middle
English
Canterbury Tales
is the most complete (and wonderful) example of the
second. The Age of Books in England began at the dawn of
the Renaissance with
Caxton
the printer, and it is represented by thoroughly
bookish neo-classical writers like
Philip Sidney (16th century),
John Milton (17th century AD) and
Alexander Pope (18th century) and almost everybody since
their time through the twentieth century. There's at
least rough correlation in history among the Age of
Books, the
British Empire, and the spread of the English
language around the earth. (Recall
Lesson 1.) |
Left: These symbols shown
to the left, represented in 7th century Lombard stone
carving, might have been understood by illiterate
speakers of many languages. The invention of writing
restricted access to information to those who could
read, even as it also made possible great improvements
in information-keeping and retrieval.
Left: early books looked like manuscripts, with cursive fonts such as black letter ("Tudor font") and woodcut illustrations to compete with manuscript illumination.
Below: A 16th century print shop including readers, typesetters, ink rollers, pressmen, bookbinders and distributers. Folios were produced by folding the single sheets once. Quartos were produced by a second folding into quarter sheets. It has been estimated that up to 1000 sheets could be pressed in 12 hours. |
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OTHER RESOURCES & AMUSEMENTS William Harrison, A Description of Elizabethan England (1577) at Bartleby Francis Bacon, Sir Francis Bacon (includes Bacon's Essays and The New Atlantis) at Bartleby. John Bunyan from Bartleby. |
Students are not examined on these "other resources and amusements." However, if you know of an excellent website that would wonderfully complement this lesson, please send it to Dr. G. If he adopts it in his list, extra course credit will be awarded. |
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ASSIGNMENTS FOR THIS LESSON The lesson includes both a quiz and a journal writing assignment to be submitted on the interactive course site at SUNY Learning Network. See General instructions on Journaling for this course. For a sample journal, see Dr. G's 2007 Brit Lit 1 Journal. Journal Write for an hour (or more if you have time). Summarize the readings or make notes you will find useful on the final essay. Some journaling ideas for this assignment include any of the questions posed on this page. Some of the more important ones might be:
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