Print Culture and the Modern World
Unit 1
1.Printing
in China Or The first Printed Books
Ø AD 594
onwards books in china were printed by rubbing paper – against the inked
surface of woodblocks.
Ø The
traditional Chinese “Accordian books” was folded and stitched at the side.
Ø The Chinese
government recruited the employees through the civil service examinations.
Ø So the
demand for the books increased in the country.
Ø During the
17th century print was not only used by scholar officials but also
been used by merchants and ordinary people.
Ø Fictional
stories, Poetry, Autobiographies, anthologies were published.
Ø Rich women
began to read and publishing their writings.
Ø Shanghai
became the hub of the new print culture.
2.Print in
Japan
Ø Buddhist
monks of China, introduced the print to Japan around AD768 -770.
Ø The oldest
Japanese book, “The Diamond Sutra” with six pages was printed.
Ø Pictures
were printed on Textiles, Playing cards and Paper money.
Ø Edo (Tokyo)
became the hub of the print.
Ø Painting depicted an elegant urban culture.
Ø Libraries
and bookstores were packed with various types of books on women, Music,
calculations, tea ceremony, flower arrangement etc.,
Unit 2
3.Print
comes to Europe
Ø In 1295,
Marco Polo a great explorer, took the woodblock printing to Italy.
Ø Producing
books with woodblock spread from Italy to other parts of Europe.
Ø Cheap
editions were published for students.
Ø Luxury
editions were still handwritten on very expensive Vellum.
Ø The demand
for the books increased in Europe.
Ø More than
50 Scribes often worked for one bookseller.
Ø Woodblock
printing became more popular in Europe.
Ø Woodblock
were being widely used in Europe to print textiles, playing cards and religious
pictures.
Ø There was a
great need for even quicker and cheaper reproduction of texts.
4.Demerits
of Manuscripts
Ø Handwritten
manuscripts could not satisfy the ever increasing demand for book.
Ø Copying was
an expensive, laborious and time consuming business.
Ø Manuscripts
were fragile, and awkward to handle.
5.Johann
Gutenberg and Printing Press
Ø Gutenberg
was the son of a merchant and grew up in agriculture estate in German.
Ø He had seen
Olive Press from the childhood and he was a master of gold smith.
Ø He created
mould of alphabets and olive press provided the model for the printing press.
Ø By 1448
Gutenberg perfected the system.
Ø The first
book published was the BIBLE. 180 copies were printed and it took three years
to produce them.
Ø By the
standards of the time this was fast production.
Ø The printed
books were closely resembled the written manuscripts. Borders were illuminated
with foliage and other patterns.
Ø Printers
from Germany travelled to other country seeking work and helping start new
press.
Ø By 15th
century 20 million books flooded in the markets of Europe. By 16th
century it was 200 million copies.
Unit 3
5.New Reading public
Ø Printing
reduced the cost of books.
Ø The time
and labour required to produce the book came down, and multiple copies could be
produced with greater ease.
Ø Access to
books created a new culture of reading.
Ø Earlier,
reading restricted to the elite. Common people lived in a world of oral
culture.
Ø People
heard sacred text read out, Ballads recited.
Ø New books
reach out wider sections of people.
Ø Hearing
public became a reading public.
6.Religious
Debates and the Fear of Print. (or) “Not Everyone welcomed the Printed books.”
Ø Religious
authorities and Monarchs were feared of printed books.
Ø They feared
that if there is no control over what was printed and read, than rebellious and
irreligious thoughts might spread.
Ø If that
happened the authority of “Valuable literature” would be destroyed.
Ø In 1517 the
religious Reformer Martin Luther King wrote 95 Theses criticizing the practices
and rituals of Roman Catholic Church.
Ø A printed
copy was posted in the church doors of Wittenberg.
Ø Martin
Luther writings were reproduced and spread very fast.
Ø The New
Testament sold 5000 copies in three months.
Ø Finally it
leads to new division of Protestant.
Ø Luther said
“Printing was the ultimate gift of god and greatest one.”
7.Print and
Dissent
Ø Menocchio a
miller in Italy, reinterpreted the Bible and formulated a view of God and
creation.
Ø It enraged
the Roman Catholic Church.
Ø When Roman
Catholic Church began its inquisition to repress heretical ideas, Menocchio was
executed.
Ø Roman
Catholic Church, imposed severe controls over publishers and booksellers.
Ø Church
began to maintain Index of Prohibited Books from 1558.
Unit 4
8.The
Reading Mania
Ø During 17th
and 18th century, Churches set up schools in villages.
Ø Literacy
rates were as high as 60 to 80 percent in Europe.
Ø Due to
increase in schools there was increased demand of books in Europe.
Ø Booksellers
employed PEDLARS who roamed around
the village carrying the little books for sale.
Ø In England Penny Chap books were sold for one
penny, so even poor could able to purchase the book.
Ø In France Biliotheque Bleue, were low priced
books printed in poor quality paper, in four to six pages.
Ø Periodic
press developed from early 18th century in Europe, published current
affairs with entertainment.
Ø Scientist
like Isaac Newton began to publish
discoveries, influence scientifically minded readers.
Ø The
writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau were also widely printed and read.
9. “Tremble
therefore, tyrants of the world”
Ø There was a
common conviction that books were a means of spreading progress and
enlightenment.
Ø Many
believed that books could change the world.
Ø Books could
liberate the society from despotism and tyranny.
Ø Louise-Sebastian
Mercier a novelist said “The Printing
Press is a most powerful engine of progress and public opinion is the force
that will sweep despotism away.”
Ø In many of
Mercier’s novel, the heroes are transformed by act of reading.
Ø Mercier
proclaimed “Tremble therefore, tyrants
of the world! Tremble before the virtual writer.”
10.Print
Culture and the French Revolution
Many historians have argued that print culture created the
conditions in for a revolution.
Three types
of arguments
Ø First: Print popularized the ideas of the
Enlightenment thinkers.
Ø There
writings provided critical commentary on tradition, superstition and despotism.
Ø They
demanded that everything be judged through the reason and rationality.
Ø They
attacked the sacred authority of church and monarch.
Ø Those who
read the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau they saw the world through the
rational and critical.
Ø Second:Print created a new culture of
dialogue and debate.
Ø All values
and institutions were re-evaluated and discussed by the public.
Ø Third: The literature of 1780 mocked the
royalty and criticized their morality.
Ø Cartoons
and caricatures suggested that monarchy involved in sensual pleasures, while
common people suffered immense hardship.
Unit 5 The
19th Century- New Readers like Children, Women and Workers.
11.Press
for Children
Ø A children press devoted to literature for
children alone was set up in France in 1857.
Ø They
published old fairy tales and folk tales.
Ø The Grimm
Brothers in German gathered folk tales from peasants and published their
collection I 1812.
12.Print
and women
Ø Women
became readers as well as writers.
Ø They wrote
about proper behavior of women and women as a powerful personality.
Ø Jane
Austen, Bronte sisters, George Eliot were the famous novelist.
13.Print
and workers
Ø Lending
libraries in England helped the middle class people and workers.
Ø After the
working day was shortened the workers find time to read.
Ø Some of
them turned into writers and they wrote autobiographies.
14.Innovation
in Printing press
Ø By 19th
century Richard M.Hoe of New York had perfected the power driven cylindrical
press.
Ø This was
capable of printing 8000 sheets per hour.
Ø This press
was particularly useful for printing news papers.
Ø In the late
19th century the offset press was developed which could print up to
six colours at a time.
Ø In the 1920
in England popular works were sold in cheap series, called Shilling Series.
This books were cheap so that people could able to buy books during Great depression
in 1930.
Unit 6
India and the world of Print
15.Demerits
of Manuscripts.
Ø Manuscripts
were expensive and fragile.
Ø Very
difficult to handle.
Ø They could
not be read easily as the script was written in different styles.
Ø Manuscripts
were not used in everyday life.
Ø There was
an Oral culture even in pre colonial schools of Bengal.
16.How
Print came to India?
Ø Portuguese
missionaries brought printing press to Goa.
Ø By 1674
about 50 books had been printed in Konkani and in Kanara Language.
Ø Catholic
priests printed first Tamil book in 1579 at Cochin.
Ø In 1713
First Malayalam book was printed.
Ø By 1710
Dutch Protestant missionaries has printed 32 Tamil texts.
17.Why
Warren Hastings persecuted Hickey?
Ø In 1780
James Augustus Hickey published the Bengal Gazette, a weekly magazine.
Ø It
described as a commercial paper open to all, but influenced by none.
Ø Hickey
published lot of advertisement on import, export and even slaves trade.
Ø Hickey also
published gossip about the company’s senior officials.
Ø It enraged
the Governor – General Warren Hastings, so he persecuted Hickey.
Ø East Indian
Company encouraged the publications which supported the company.
Ø Gangadhar
Bhattacharya, who was close to Rammohan Roy brought first weekly Bengal
Gazette.
Unit 7
Religious Reform and Public Debates
18.How print culture created debates and discussions
in India.
Ø Debates and Discussions took place over the matters
like widow immolation, monotheism, Brahmanical priesthood and idolarity.
Ø Raja
Rammohan Roy published his religious reforms in his magazine “SAMPTH
KAUMUDI”(1821)
Ø Hindu
orthodoxy published “SAMACHAR CHANDRIKA” oppose the opinions of Rammohan Roy.
Ø Persian
newspapers like JAM – I – JAHAN NAMA and SHAMSUL AKBHAR were published in 1822.
Ø Gujarati
newspaper BOMBAY SAMACHAR was also appeared.
Ø Muslims
were feared that colonial rulers would encourage conversions which could spoil
the religion.
Ø Ulama’s
published the FATWA telling that how Muslims should conduct themselves in
thousands of copies.
Ø RAMCHARITHA
MANAS of Tulasidas was published from Calcutta in 1810.
Ø Naval
Kishore Press at Lucknow and the Shri Venkateshwar Press in Bombay published
numerous religious texts in vernacular languages.
Unit 8 New
Forms of Publication.
Ø End of 19th
century a new visual culture was taking
shape.
Ø Painters
like Raja Ravi Varma painted the images for mass public.
Ø Wood
engravers setup shops near the letterpresses
Ø Cheap
prints and Calenders and Paintings were available in the market.
Ø By 1870,
Caricatures and Cartoons were being published in journals and news papers.
Ø Educated
Indians fascinated towards western taste of cloth and social change.
Ø Women and
Print
Ø Liberal
husbands and fathers allowed the women to get education, but not all families
were liberal.
Ø Hindus
believed that a literate girl would be widowed.
Ø Muslims
believed that educated women get corrupted by reading Urdu romances.
Ø In Bengal
Rashsundari Debi, learnt to read in secrecy of the kitchen. Later she wrote the
autobiography “ Amar Jibhan” published in 1876, First full length autobiography
in the Bengal.
Ø Kailashbhashini
Debi wrote about how women were imprisoned at home, kept in ignorance, forced to do hard domestic labour and treated
unjustly by the very people they served.
Ø Tarabai
shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote about the miserable lives of upper caste hindu
women and widow.
Ø A Tamil
novel expressed “ For various reasons, my world is small……More than half my
life’s happiness has come from books”
Ø In Punjab
Ram Chanda published the fast selling “Istri Dharm Vichar” (How women to be a
obedient wives). The Khalsa Tract Society published cheap books similar
content.
Ø Battala
book house was devoted to the cheap editions.
Ø Woodcuts
and coloured lithographic illustrations was also published.
Ø Pedlers
took Battala publications to homes, enabling women to read them in their
leisure time.
Print and
the Poor People
Ø Public
libraries were set up early 19th century in towns and prosperous
villages.
Ø Local
patrons setting up a library for a prestige.
Ø Jyothibe
Phule wrote about the injustice of caste
system in the “Gulamgiri” in 1871.
Ø B.R.Ambetkar
in Maharashtra and E.V.Ramaswamy Naicker in Madras wrote powerfully against the
caste.
Ø Kasibaba a
mill worker, wrote and published “Chota Aur Bade Ka Sawal” in 1938 to show the
links between caste and class exploitation.
Ø Sudarshan
chakr another Kanpur mill worker wrote “Sachi Kavitayan”
Ø In
Bangalore libraries were setup by mill workers,
sponsored by social reformers who tried to restrict excessive drinking
among them, to bring literacy and to propagate nationalism.
9.Print and
Censorship
Before 1798
East Indian company was not bothered about the press.
Ø So plenty
criticism appeared in news papers against the company, It affected the monopoly
of the company with trade with India
Ø 1820 The
Calcutta Supreme Court passed regulations to control freedom of press.
Ø In1835
editors of English and Vernacular news papers filed petitions for freedom of
press.
Ø Governer
General Bentinck and Thomas Macaulay restored the earlier freedom of press.
Ø After 1857
Revolt The English clamp down on the press.
Ø In 1878 The
Vernacular Press Act was passed, modeled on the Irish Press Laws.
Ø It provided
rights to the government to keep regular track of news papers.
Ø If any
report was judged as seditious, the news paper was warned and if the warning
was ignored, the press was confiscated.
Ø Bal
Gangagadhar Thilak wrote against of British in
his “Kesari” and imprisonment in 1908.
R.Ayyappan
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