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

Q 10. What were the features of Gutenberg Printing Press?

• Gutenberg was the son of a merchant and grew up on a large agricultural estate. 
• From his childhood he had seen wine and olive presses. 
• He learnt the art of polishing stones and became a master goldsmith acquired the expertise to create lead moulds.
• These moulds were used for making trinkets. 
• Drawing on this knowledge Gutenberg adapted technology to design his innovation.
• The olive press provided the model for the printing press,and moulds were used for casting the metal types for the letters of the alphabet.
• By 1448 Gutenberg perfected the system. 
• The first book he printed was the Bible. 
• About 180 copies were printed and it took three years to produce them. 
• By the standards of the time this was fast production.

Q 11. The new technology did not entirely displace the existing art of producing books by hand. Explain.

• The new technology did not entirely displace the existing art of producing books by hand as
• Printed books closely resembled the written manuscripts in appearance and layout.
• The metal letters imitated the ornamental handwritten styles.
• Borders were illuminated by hand with foliage and other patterns. Illustrations were painted.
• In the books printed for the rich, space for decoration was kept blank on printed page. 
• Each purchaser could choose the design and decide on the painting school that would do the illustrations.

Q 12.What was the print revolution?

• ln the hundred years between 1450 and 1550 printing presses were set up in most countries of Europe. 
• Printers from Germany traveled to other countries  seeking work and helping start new presses. 
• As the number of printing presses grew book production boomed. The second half of the fifteenth century saw 20 million copies of printed books flooding the markets in Europe. 
• The number went up in the sixteenth century to about 200 million copies.
• It was not just a development but was a new way of producing books. 
• It brought about a dramatic change in technology and transformed the lives of people, changing their relationship to information and knowledge and with institutions and authorities. 
• It influenced popular perceptions and opened up new ways of looking at things.
• With the printing press, a new reading public emerged. 
• Printing reduced the cost of books. 
• The time and labour required to produce each book came down, and multiple copies could be produced with greater ease. 
• Books flooded the market thereby reaching out to an ever-growing readership.

Q 13. What was the impact of print revolution?

• As the printing reduced the cost of books and could be produced with greater ease the books flooded the markets reaching out to an ever growing readership.
• Earlier reading was restricted to the elites. 
• Common people lived in a world of oral culture. 
• They heard sacred texts read out, ballads recited, and folktales narrated. 
• Knowledge was transferred orally. 
• People collectively heard a story or saw a performance. 
• Before the age of print, books were not only expensive but they could not be produced in sufficient numbers. 
• Now books could reach out to wider sections of people. If earlier there was a hearing public now a reading public came into being.
• Books could be read only by the literate, and the rates of literacy in most European countries were very low till the twentieth century. Common people enjoyed listening to books being read out. 
• So printers began publishing popular ballads and folk tales and such books would be profusely illustrated with pictures. 
• These were then sung and recited at gatherings in villages and in taverns in towns.
• Oral culture thus entered print and printed material was orally transmitted. 
• The line that separated the oral and reading cultures became blurred. 
• And the hearing public and the reading public became intermingled.

Q 14."Many were apprehensive of the effects to the easier access to the printed word and the wider circulation of books". Why? 

• Many were apprehensive of the effects that the easier access to the printed word and the wider circulation of books  could have on people’s minds.
• Not everyone welcomed the printed book and those who did also had fears about it.
• It was feared that if there was no control over what was printed and read then rebellious and irreligious thoughts might spread.
• If that happened, the authority of ‘valuable’ literature would be destroyed.
• Expressed by religious authorities and monarchs, as well as many writers and artists, this anxiety was the basis of widespread criticism of the new printed literature that had began to circulate.

Q 15.Why do some historians think that print culture created the basis for the French Revolution? What are the three arguments?

Many historians have argued that print culture created the conditions within which French Revolution occurred. 

Three types of arguments have been  put forward.

First 

• Print popularised the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers
• collectively and their writings provided a critical commentary on tradition, superstition and despotism. 
• They argued for the rule of reason rather than custom, and demanded that everything be judged through the application of reason and rationality. 
• They attacked the sacred authority of the Church and the despotic power of the state thus eroding the legitimacy of a social order based on tradition. 
• The writings of Voltaire and Rousseau were read widely and those who read these books saw the world through new eyes that were
• questioning, critical and rational.

Second 

• Print created a new culture of dialogue and debate. 
• All values, norms and institutions were re-evaluated and discussed by a public that had become aware of the power of reason, and
• recognised the need to question existing ideas and beliefs. 
• Within this public culture, new ideas of social revolution came into being.

Third 

• By the 1780's there was an outpouring of literature that mocked the royalty and criticised their morality. 
• In the process, it raised questions about the existing social order. Cartoons and caricatures typically suggested that the monarchy remained absorbed only in sensual pleasures while the common people suffered immense hardships. 
• This literature circulated underground and led to the growth of hostile sentiments against the monarchy.

Q 16. "The nineteenth century saw vast leaps in mass literacy in Europe, bringing in large numbers of new readers among children, women and workers". How print culture catered to children, women and workers?

Children

• As primary education became compulsory from the late nineteenth century, children became an important category of readers. Production of school textbooks became critical for the publishing industry. 
• A children’s press, devoted to literature for children alone, was set up in France in 1857.
• This press published new works as well as old fairy tales
• and folk tales. 
• The Grimm Brothers in Germany spent years compiling traditional folk tales gathered from peasants. 
• Anything that was considered unsuitable for children or would appear vulgar to the elites, was not included in the published version. 
• Rural folk tales thus acquired a new form. 
• In this way, print recorded old tales but also changed them.

Women

• Women became important as readers as well as writers. 
• Penny magazines were especially meant for women and manuals were teaching proper behaviour and housekeeping.
• When novels began to be written in the nineteenth century,
• women were seen as important readers. 
• Some of the best known novelists were women: Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters andGeorge Eliot. 
• Their writings became important in defining a new type of woman: a person with will, strength of personality, determination and the power to think.

Workers

• In the nineteenth century  lending libraries in England became instruments for educating white-collar workers, artisans and lower-middle-class people. 
• Sometimes, self-educated working class people wrote for themselves. 
• After the working day was gradually shortened from the mid-nineteenth century, workers had some time for self-improvement and self-expression. 
• They wrote political tracts and autobiographies in large numbers.