Print Culture and the Modern World
How was the imperial state of China the major producer
of printed materials?.
1. China possessed
a huge bureaucratic system which recruited its personnel through civil service examinations.
Textbooks for this examination were printed in vast numbers by the govt.
2. From 16th
century, the number of candidates for examination went up and that increased
the volume of print.
3. As urban culture
bloomed in China reading became a
leisure activity in cities. The new readers read poetry, autobiographies
and romantic plays.
4. Print was also
used by Merchants collecting trade information.
5. Rich women began
to read, and many women began publishing their poetry and plays.
Why did Shanghai become the hub of the new print
culture?
1. As western
powers established their outposts in China Western style schools were
established.
2. Western printing
techniques and mechanical presses were imported to print books.
3. Shanghai
became the hub of the new print culture, catering to the Western-style schools.
Development of Print in Japan
1. Buddhist
missionaries from China introduced hand-printing technology into Japan around
AD 768-770.
2. The oldest Japanese
book is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra printed in AD 868, containing
six sheets of text and woodcut illustrations.
3. Pictures were
printed on textiles, playing cards and paper money with the help of woodblock
printing technology.
4. In medieval
Japan, poets and prose writers regularly published cheap and
abundant books
5. Printing of
visual material led to interesting publishing practices at Edo (Tokyo).
Libraries and bookstores were packed with hand-printed material.
6. Books on women, musical instruments, calculations,
tea ceremony, flower arrangements, proper etiquette, cooking and famous places
were also printed
The production of handwritten manuscripts could not
satisfy the ever-increasing demand for books.( Demerits of hand written
manuscripts)
1. Copying was an
expensive, laborious and time-consuming business.
2. Manuscripts were
fragile, awkward to handle, and could not be carried around or read easily.
3. Their
circulation therefore remained limited.
How did Gutenberg develop the Printing Press?
1. Gutenberg (from
his childhood) had seen wine and olive oil presses.
2. He learnt
the art of polishing stones.
3. He learnt the
art of making jewel and became a master goldsmith.
4. He also acquired
the expertise to create lead moulds used for making jewels
5. Drawing on this
knowledge, Gutenberg adapted existing technology to design his printing
machine.
The first
printed book
1. The first
book Gutenberg printed was the Bible.
2. About 180
copies were printed .
3.
It took three years to produce them.
The new technology did not entirely displace the
existing art of producing books by hand.( Demerits of printed books)
1. Printed
books at first closely resembled the written manuscripts in appearance and
layout.
2.
The metal letters imitated the ornamental handwritten
styles.
3. Borders were illuminated by
hand with foliage and other patterns, and illustrations were painted.
4. In the books printed for the rich,
space for decoration was kept blank on the printed page.
5. Each purchaser could choose the design and decide on
the painting school that would do the illustrations.
The Print Revolution and Its Impact
Print
revolution was a new way of producing books which transformed the lives of
people, changed their relationship with institutions and authorities. It opened
up new ways of looking at things.
1. Earlier, reading
was restricted to the elites. Common people lived in a world of oral culture. Now books
could reach out to wider sections of people and they became reading public.
2. The rates of literacy in most European
countries were very low. So printers began publishing popular ballads and folk
tales, and such books would be profusely illustrated with pictures to make
everyone to read books.
3. Print created a new world of
debate and discussion. Even those who disagreed with established authorities
could now print and circulate their ideas.
4. (Fear for
printed book)
A) Not everyone welcomed the printed book, and those
who welcomed also had fears about it.
B) They feared that if there was no control over what
was printed and read then rebellious and irreligious thoughts might spread.
C) If that happened
the authority of ‘valuable literature” would be destroyed.
5. (An Index of Prohibited
Books and Menocchio,)
A) He was a miller in Italy, began to read books that
were available in his locality.
B) He reinterpreted the message of the Bible and
formulated a view of God and Creation that enraged the Roman Catholic Church.
C) He was persecuted and the Church imposed severe
controls over publishers and booksellers and began to maintain an Index of Prohibited
Books from 1558.
Protestant Reformation.
1. The
religious reformer Martin Luther wrote Ninety Five theses criticizing many of
the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church.
2. A printed copy
of this was posted on a church door and he challenged the Church to debate with
his ideas.
3. Luther’s
writings were immediately reproduced in vast numbers and read widely.
4. This lead to
a division within the Church and to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
5. Deeply
grateful to print, Luther said, ‘Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the
greatest one.’ Several scholars, thought that print led to the Reformation.
Why did people want to read books in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? (Reading Mania)
1. Churches set up schools in
villages, provided literacy to peasants and artisans. And literacy rate went up to 80 per cent. As literacy and schools spread in
Europe, there was a virtual reading mania.
2. Booksellers
employed pedlars who roamed around villages, carrying little books like
almanac, ballads and folktales. In England, penny chap books were carried
by petty pedlars known as chapmen, and sold for a penny.
3. The periodical press newspapers and journals provided information
about current affairs with entertainment, information about wars and trade.
4. The ideas of scientists and
philosophers were also printed. Ancient and medieval scientific and
philosophical texts were compiled and published.
5. Louise-Sebastien
Mercier
a) Many believed
that books would spread progress and enlightenment, change the world and
liberate society from despotism and tyranny.
b) Louise-Sebastien
Mercier, a novelist of France, declared: ‘The printing press is the most
powerful engine of progress and public opinion is the force that will sweep
despotism away.’
c) In many of Mercier’s novels, the heroes are
transformed by acts of reading.
How did print culture create the conditions within
which French Revolution occurred?
OR
Why do some historians think that print culture
created the basis for the French Revolution?
1. Print popularized the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers and
they provided a critical commentary on tradition, superstition and despotism.
Those who read these books began to question..
2. Print created a new culture of dialogue
and debate. All values, norms and institutions were re-evaluated and discussed in
public.
3. The new literature mocked the royalty and criticized their
morality, it raised questions about the existing social order.
4. Cartoons and caricatures typically suggested that
the monarchy remained absorbed only in sensual pleasures while the common
people suffered immense hardships.
How did mass literacy in Europe bring in large numbers
of new readers among children, women and workers?
1. As primary
education became compulsory children became an important category of readers.
Children’s 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).
2. Women became important as readers
as well as writers. Penny magazines were especially meant for women. They teach
proper behavior and housekeeping. (Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot became important women
writers in defining a new type of woman: a person with will, strength of personality, determination and the
power to think.)
3. Lending libraries England became
instruments for educating white-collar workers, artisans and lower-middle-class
people. Sometimes, self-educated working class people wrote for themselves.
What were a series of new innovations in printing
technology in the nineteenth century?
1. Richard M. Hoe
of New York had perfected the power-driven
cylindrical press. This was capable of printing 8,000 sheets per hour. This
press was particularly useful for printing newspapers.
2. In the late nineteenth century, the offset press was developed which could print
up to six colours at a time.
3. From the turn of the twentieth century,
electrically operated presses
accelerated printing operations.
4. A series of other developments
followed. Methods of feeding paper improved,
the quality of plates became better.
5. Automatic
paper reels and photoelectric controls of the colour register were also
introduced in the same period.
What were the new strategies followed by the Printers
and publishers to sell their (books) products?
1. Nineteenth-century
periodicals serialized important novels,
which gave birth to a particular way of writing novels.
2. In England, popular works were sold in cheap
series, called the Shilling Series.
3. The
dust cover or the book jacket is also a twentieth-century innovation.
What were the languages and material used in manuscripts in India?
1.
Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian and
other vernacular languages were used in manuscripts
2.
Handmade paper and palm leaves were
used for writing .
What were the disadvantages in making and using
manuscripts in India?
1. Manuscripts were
highly expensive and fragile.
2. They had to be
handled carefully, and could not be read easily.
3. The script was
written in different styles. So manuscripts were not widely used in everyday
life.
Role of press in Religious Reform and Public Debates
in India
1. From the early nineteenth century
some criticised existing practices and campaigned for reform, while others
countered the arguments of reformers. These debates were carried out in public
and in print.
2. This was a time
of intense controversies between social reformers and the Hindu orthodoxy over
matters like widow immolation, monotheism, Brahmanical priesthood and idolatry.
3 .The ulamas were
deeply anxious about the collapse of Muslim dynasties. They published Persian
and Urdu translations of holy scriptures, and printed religious newspapers and
tracts and published thousands of fatwas
telling Muslim readers how to conduct themselves in their everyday lives.
4. Hindus published Holy Scriptures like
the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas in vernacular languages. (Naval Kishore Press at Lucknow and the
Shri Venkateshwar Press in Bombay published numerous religious texts in vernaculars.)
5. Print not only
stimulated the publication of conflicting opinions amongst communities, but
also connected communities and people in different parts of India in creating
pan-Indian identities.
New Forms of Publication introduced in India in the 19th century
1. The novel, a literary form in Indian
forms and styles were published. For readers, it opened up new worlds of
experience, and gave a vivid sense of the diversity of human lives.
2. Other new
literary forms like lyrics, short
stories, essays about social and political matters. They reinforced the new emphasis on human
lives and intimate feelings, about the political and social rules .
3. By the end of the nineteenth
century, a new visual culture was
taking shape. Visual images were reproduced in multiple copies. Painters like
Raja Ravi Varma produced mythological images for mass circulation.
4. By the 1870s, caricatures and cartoons were published in journals and newspapers,
commenting on social and political issues.
5. Some caricatures ridiculed the educated Indians’
fascination with Western tastes and clothes, while others expressed the fear of social change.
Women and Print in India
1. Conservative
Hindus believed that a literate girl would be widowed and Muslims feared that
educated women would be corrupted by reading Urdu romances. Liberal husbands and fathers began educating
their womenfolk at home, and sent them to schools when women’s schools were set
up in the cities and towns
2. Rashsundari Debi, a young married girl in a very orthodox
household, learnt to read in the secrecy of her kitchen. Later, she wrote her
autobiography Amar Jiban which was published in 1876.
3. Kailashbashini
Debi wrote books highlighting the experiences of women – 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.
4 . In Maharashtra, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote with
passionate anger about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women,
especially widows.
5. The journals,
written and edited by women, became extremely popular. They discussed issues
like women’s education, widowhood, widow remarriage and the national movement.
6. In Punjab folk literature was widely printed and
Ram Chaddha published the
fast-selling Istri DharmVichar to teach women how to be obedient
wives.
Print and the Poor People in India
1. Very cheap small books
were brought to markets in nineteenth-century in Madras. Public libraries were
set up which were located mostly in cities and towns and in prosperous villages.
2 The issues of
caste discrimination began to be written in many printed tracts and essays. Jyotiba
Phule, the Maratha pioneer of ‘low caste’ protest movements, wrote about the injustices
of the caste system in his Gulamgiri (1871).
3. B.R. Ambedkar in Maharashtra and E.V. Ramaswamy
Naicker in Madras, better known as Periyar, wrote on caste and their writings were
read by people all over India.
4. Workers in
factories were too overworked and lacked the education to write much about
their experiences. But Kashi baba, a Kanpur millworker, wrote and
published Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal in 1938 to show the links between
caste and class exploitation.
5. The poems of Kanpur
millworker, who wrote under the name of Sudarshan Chakr were
brought together and published in a collection called Sacchi Kavitayan. By
the 1930s, Bangalore cotton mill workers set up libraries to educate
themselves, following the example of Bombay workers.
Print and Censorship in India
1. The Company was
worried about criticisms and took
measures to control printed matter which were critical of Company misrule.
2. By the 1820s,
the Calcutta Supreme Court passed certain regulations to control press freedom
and the Company began encouraging publication of newspapers that would
celebrate British rule.
3. In 1835, faced
with urgent petitions by editors of English and vernacular newspapers,
Governor-General Bentinck agreed to revise press laws. Thomas Macaulay, a
liberal colonial official, formulated new rules that restored the freedom for
press.
4. After the revolt of 1857,
the attitude to freedom of the press changed. Enraged Englishmen demanded a close
down on the ‘native’ press. In 1878, the
Vernacular Press Act was passed. It provided the government with extensive
rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press.
5. From now on the government kept
regular track of the vernacular newspapers published in different provinces.
When a report was judged as seditious, the newspaper was warned, and if the
warning was ignored, the press was liable to be seized and the printing
machinery confiscated.
1. Despite repressive measures, nationalist
newspapers grew in numbers in all parts of India. They reported on colonial
misrule and encouraged nationalist activities.
2. Attempts to throttle nationalist criticism
provoked militant protest. This in turn led to a renewed cycle of persecution
and protests.
3. When Punjab
revolutionaries were deported in 1907, Balgangadhar Tilak wrote with great
sympathy about them in his Kesari. This led to his imprisonment and
led to widespread protests all over India.
