Print Culture and the Modern World...........Part I

SUMMARY OF THE TOPICS

The First Printed Books

Print Comes to Europe

The Print Revolution and Its Impact

The Reading Mania

The Nineteenth Century

India and the World of Print

Religious Reform and Public Debates

New Forms of Publication

Print and Censorship

1. Answer the following questions.

Q 1.What are the various evidences of print that we find around us?
We find evidences of print such as— 

• In books, journals, newspapers, prints of famous paintings.
• In theater program me, official circulars, calendars, diaries, advertisements, cinema posters at street corners.
• We read printed literature, see printed images, follow the news through newspapers, and track public debates that appear in print.

Q 2. Where did the print technology first develop? Explain the system of hand block printing.

• The earliest kind of print technology was developed in China, Japan and Korea. 
• This was a system of hand printing. 
• In China books were printed by rubbing paper against the inked surface of woodblocks. 
• As both sides of the thin, porous sheet could not be printed so they were printed on one side.
• In hand-block printing the required matter is engraved on a woodblock and then ink is applied on the surface of the woodblock.
• A plain paper is rubbed against the surface of the woodblock which leaves impression on the paper.
• The traditional Chinese ‘accordion book’ was folded and stitched at the side. 
• Superbly skilled craftsmen could duplicate,the beauty of calligraphy.

Q 2. What is Calligraphy?

The art of beautiful and stylized writing is called calligraphy.

O 3.For what purpose were prints used in China in 16th century?

• For a very long time, the imperial state of China was the major producer of printed material. 
• China possessed a huge bureaucratic system which recruited its personnel through Civil Service Examinations. 
• Textbooks for this examination were printed in vast numbers under the sponsorship of the imperial state. 
• From the sixteenth century, the number of examination candidates went up and that increased the volume of print.

Q 4.What were the various types of printed material used In China in seventeenth century?

• By the seventeenth century as urban culture bloomed in China the uses of print diversified.
• Print was no longer used just by scholar officials even merchants used print in their everyday life to collect trade information. Reading increasingly became a leisure activity. 
• The new readership preferred fictional narratives, poetry, autobiographies, anthologies of literary masterpieces, and romantic plays. 
• Rich women began to read and many women began publishing their poetry and plays. 
• Wives of scholar-officials published their works and courtesans wrote about their lives.

Q 5. Name the hub of the new print culture in China.

• The new reading culture in China was accompanied by a new technology and western printing techniques and mechanical presses were imported in the 19th century with western powers established their outposts in China. 
• Shanghai became the hub of the new print culture and catered to the Western Style schools.

Q 6. Explain the development of print in Japan.

• Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-printing technology into Japan.
• The oldest Japanese book is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, containing six sheets of text and woodcut illustrations. 
• Pictures were printed on textiles, playing cards and paper money. 
• In medieval Japan, poets and prose writers were regularly published, and books were cheap and abundant.
• Printing of visual material led to interesting publishing practices. 
• In 18th century the flourishing urban circles at Edo  had illustrated collections of paintings depicted an elegant urban culture, involving artists, courtesans, and tea house gatherings. 
• Libraries and bookstores were packed with hand-printed material of various types of books on women, musical instruments, calculations, tea ceremony, flower arrangements, proper etiquette, cooking and famous places

Q 7. What is vellum? 

• Vellum is a parchment made from the skin of animals. 
• Luxury editions were handwritten on vellum for aristocratic circles and rich monastic libraries. 

Q 8. What were the drawbacks of manuscripts?  

• Copying was an expensive, laborious and time consuming business.
• Manuscripts were fragile and awkward to handle.
• They could not be carried around or read easily and their circulation  remained limited.
• Manuscripts were difficult to read as style of writing of different people varied from one another.

Q 9.Who invented printing press and when? Which was first book to be printed? 

• Johann Gutenberg developed the first printing press in the 1430's. 
• The first book to be printed was Bible.