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Topic-1
The first printed books
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| The print Culture |
The earliest print technology-a system of hand painting-was developed in China, Japan and Korea. Post AD 594, China started producing books and prints by rubbing paper against the inked surface of woodblocks.
As the paper was porous, both the sides could not be printed. The traditional Chinese 'Accordion book was folded and stitched at the side.
Superbly skilled craftsmen duplicated calligraphy accurately.
The 17th century saw diversification of the print due to the blooming of urban culture. The printed material went beyond the scholar-officials.
Merchants collected trade information on paper. Reading became a leisure activity Fictional narratives, poetry, autobiographies, anthologies of literary masterpieces, and romantic plays fascinated the new readership.
Wives of the scholar-officials and women of the upper classes began to read and publish their own works. Even courtesans reproduced accounts of their lives.
Western printing techniques and mechanical presses were imported in the late nineteenth century as western powers established their outposts in China.
Shanghai was made the centre of the new print culture. It catered to the Western-style schools.
Print in Japan
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| Diamond Sutra |
Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand- printing technology into Japan around AD 768-770.
The Buddhist Diamond Sutra published in 868 AD, was the oldest Japanese book to be printed. It had six sheets of text and woodcut illustrations
Pictures were also printed on textiles, playing cards and paper money.
In medieval Japan, poets and prose writers regularly published their works. Printing of visual material caused interesting publishing practices.
During the 18th century, in urban circles at Edo, paintings depicted an elegant urban culture. Libraries and bookstores had various hand-printed materials on women, musical instruments, calculations, tea ceremony, flower arrangements, proper etiquette, cooking and famous places.
Topic-2
Print comes to Europe
Paper went through the same silk route from China to Europe which facilitated the transportation of silk and spices. Manuscripts written by scribes were printed on paper.
The journey of print from China to Italy can be traced as follows:
(1) Marco Polo introduced the technique of woodblock printing to Italy after learning it during his exploration of China. Italians began producing books with woodblocks and transferred this technology all over Europe.
(2) Luxury editions were handwritten on expensive vellum, meant for aristocratic circles and rich monastic libraries because to them, printed books were cheap and of poor quality. Merchants and students in university towns bought the cheaper printed copies.
(3) Booksellers of Europe exported books to many different countries due to their rising demand. Book fairs were organised. New techniques of production of handwritten manuscripts were employed.
(4) Scribes or skilled hand writers were employed more often now and by booksellers more than wealthy individuals unlike earlier times. However, the ever-increasing demand for books could not be satisfied by the production of the handwritten manuscripts.
(5) Woodblock printing became popular By the early fifteenth century, woodblocks were being used to print textiles, playing cards, and religious pictures with short texts.
Gutenberg and the Printing Press
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| Gutenberg |
Gutenberg grew up on an agricultural estate where he had seen wine and olive presses.
He learned the art of polishing stones, became a master goldsmith, and had learned how to create lead moulds used for making trinkets.
Gutenberg adapted existing technology to design his innovation.
Moulds became metal types for the letters of his alphabet for the press. The olive press provided a model for the printing press.
He made the system free of technological flaws by 1448. He printed the Bible first It took him 3 years to produce 180 copies which was fast and efficient production according to that time.
The existing art of producing books by hand continued to be in use.
Printed books resembled the written manuscripts. The metal letters imitated the ornamental handwritten styles.
Hand with foliage and other patterns were Illustrations were painted. Some space for decoration was left blank on the printed page for the rich.
The designs and the painting school that would do the illustrations could be personally chosen by the clients. Printing presses were set up in most countries of Europe by the 1550s.
Printers from Germany travelled to other countries to spread this technology. Book production boomed.
Almost 20 million copies of printed books were printed by the end of the 15th century. This shift from hand printing to mechanical printing led to the print revolution.
Topic-3
The print revolution and its impact
The print revolution transformed the lives of people, heavily transforming their relationship with information, knowledge, institutions and authorities. It influenced popular perceptions.
A New Reading Public
The invention of printing press gave birth to a new and ever growing readership. Printing reduced the cost of books since multiple copies could now be produced efficiently and quickly with little to minimum labour involved.
A new reading culture was observed since, the common people began shifting to written literature from oral culture where knowledge was transferred to them orally.
This was prevalent because before the invention of the printing press, reproducing written texts was expensive.
Religious Debates and the Fear of Print
Print created the possibility of wider circulation of ideas and introduced a new world of debate and discussion.
People who disagreed with authorities transmitted their ideas through print. Through this, they could persuade people and even mobilise them.
Some people like the religious authorities and monarchs, as well as many writers and artists, were apprehensive of the effects caused by printed books and materials upon people's minds.
Irregulated publishing could cause rebellious and irreligious thoughts to spread. This would destroy the authority of good literature.
This resulted in widespread criticism of the new printed literature that had begun to circulate.
In 1517, the religious reformer Martin Luther wrote Ninety Five Theses criticising many of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. He challenged the Church to debate his ideas.
Quick printing and reproducing helped spread and develop his ideas into a revolution which led to a division within the Church and to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
Luther's translation of the New Testament sold 5,000 copies within a few weeks. Luther thanked printing technology as he said that, Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one
Print and Dissent
Print and popular religious literature stimulated individual and distinct interpretations of faith even among less educated or less informed people such as the worker classes.
Menocchio, an Italian worker, reinterpreted the message of the Bible and formulated a view of God and Creation that enraged the Roman Catholic Church.
Menocchio was ultimately executed to repress heretical ideas.
This led to the Roman Church imposing repressive control over publishers and booksellers and began to maintain an Index of Prohibited Books from 1558.
Topic-4
The reading Mania
Literacy rates went up in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. Churches set up schools in villages making peasants and artisans literate.
Literacy was as high as 60-80% by the end of the eighteenth century in parts of Europe. With the spread of education, there was a virtual reading mania. Readership was growing unprecedentedly.
New forms of popular literature began targeting new audiences. Pedlars who carried and sold little books were employed. Almanacs (ritual calendars), ballads and folk tales were printed and sold.
Romances and histories (stories of the past) were also printed.
Important
In England, petty pedlars known as chapmen, carried and sold penny chapbooks for the poor. "Biliotheque Bleue", which were low-priced small books printed on poor quality paper, bound in cheap blue covers were sold in France.
The periodical press combined information about current affairs with entertainment from the early 18th century.
Newspapers and journals carried information about wars, trade and news of developments.
Ideas of scientists and philosophers could be made more accessible to the common people. Ancient and medieval scientific texts were published along with maps and scientific diagrams.
This helped them influence a lot of readers with scientific tempers. Thomas Paine, Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau and their ideas about science, reason and rationality were widely printed and read.
Books were seen as a means of spreading progress and enlightenment.
Print culture and the Revolution
Many historians have argued that print culture created the conditions within which French Revolution occurred.
Three types of arguments put forward are:
(1) Print popularised the ideas of the enlightenment thinkers who provided a commentary tradition, superstition and despotism. They argued for the rule of reason against established ideals and customs. They wrote discourses eroding the legitimacy of a social order based on to tradition.
The writings of Voltaire and Rousseau transformed the perception of their readers. They made them questioning, critical and rational
(2) Print created a new culture of dialogue and debate. All values, norms and institutions were re-evaluated by people with developed power of reason. New ideas of social revolution came into being.
(3) By the 1780s, literature that mocked the royalty promoted questions about the existing social order. Monarchy was shown absorbed only in sensual pleasures while the common people suffered immense hardships in cartoons and caricatures. This literature circulated underground and led to the growth of hostile sentiments against the monarchy.
Topic-5
The nineteenth century
Further Innovations
By the late eighteenth century, the press came to be made out of metal. Richard M. Hoe of New York had perfected the power-driven cylindrical press by the mid-19th century.
It was useful for printing newspapers. The offset press was developed which could print up to six colours at a time in the late 19th century. Electrically operated presses accelerated printing operations in the 20th century.
A series of other developments that followed are:
(1) Methods of feeding paper improved. The quality of plates became better, automatic paper reels and photoelectric controls of the colour register were introduced.
(2) Several individual mechanical improvements transformed the appearance of printed texts.
(3) Nineteenth-century periodicals serialised important novels, which gave birth to a particular way of writing novels.
(4) In England, a cheap series called the Shilling Series was introduced. It contained popular classics. Book jacket and dust covers were also invented in the 20th century.
(5) Publishers feared a decline in book purchases due to the Great Depression of the 1930s. They brought out cheap paperback editions for sustenance.
Topic-6
India and the world of print
India had a very rich and old tradition of handwritten manuscripts in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and various vernacular languages. Manuscripts were copied on palm leaves or on handmade paper.
Pages were illustrated and pressed between wooden covers or sewn together to ensure preservation. Manuscripts continued to be produced till the late nineteenth century.
They were however fragile and expensive. They were written in different styles and not used widely for everyday use. The students of pre-colonial Bengal's village primary schools only learned to write.
Teachers dictated portions of texts from memory and students wrote them down. Hence, many literates had never read a book themselves.
Print Comes to India
(1) The printing press first came to Gog with and and Portuguese missionaries in the mid-sixteenth century. Jesuit priests learnt Konkani produced about 50 books in the Konkani in Kanara languages by 1674. Catholic priests printed the first Tamil book in 1579 at Cochin They printed the first Malayalam book in 1713. By 1710, Dutch Protestant missionaries had printed 32 Tamil texts.
(2) Despite the English East India Company beginning to import presses from the late seventeenth century, use of the English language did not grow.
Topic-7
Religious reform and public debates
There were intense debates around religious issues from the 19th century. Different groups the offered interpretations of the beliefs of different religions.
Some criticised the established customs and practices, arguing for reforms, others countered the arguments of reformers. These debates were carried out in public and in print.
Printed tracts and newspapers also shaped the nature of the debate. The discussion involved participation from the wider public. New ideas emerged through these clashes of opinions.
Intense controversies and conflicts were fought between social and religious reformers and the Hindu orthodoxy over matters like widow immolation, monotheism, Brahmanical priesthood and idolatry Tracts and newspapers circulated these arguments using everyday spoken language of ordinary people.
1) Rammohan Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi from 1821. The Hindu orthodoxy commissioned the Samachar Chandrika to counter them.
(2) From 1822, two Persian newspapers Jam-i-Jahan Nama and Shamsul Akhbar were published. A Gujarati newspaper, the Bombay Samachar, made its appearance.
(3) In north India, the ulama feared that colonial rulers would encourage conversion, change the Muslim personal laws and that would lead to collapse of Muslim dynasties. They used cheap lithographic presses, published Persian and Urdu translations of holy scriptures, and printed religious newspapers and tracts to counter these arguments.
(4) The Deoband Seminary, founded in 1867, published fatwas telling Muslim readers how to conduct themselves in their everyday lives, and explaining the meanings of Islamic doctrines.
(5) Muslim sects and seminaries appeared with a different interpretations of faith to enlarge its following and countering the influence of its opponents. Urdu print helped them conduct these battles in public.
(6) Print encouraged the reading of religious texts among Hindus, usually in the vernacular languages.
(7) The first printed edition of the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas came out from Calcutta in 1810.
(8) From the 1880s, the Naval Kishore Press at Lucknow and the Shri Venkateshwar Press in Bombay published numerous religious texts in vernaculars. They were portable and light. They could be read out in front of gatherings in villages.
(9) Religious texts reached a very wide circle of people, encouraging discussions, debates and In the twentieth century.
Topic-9
Print and censorship
Before 1798, the colonial state under the East India Company was more concerned about Englishmen in India who were critical of company misrule.
Most of their efforts at censorship were directed towards controlling the printed matter published by them. They were worried that this criticism could be used by officers who didn't approve of them in attacking their trade monopoly.
The Calcutta Supreme Court passed certain regulations to control press freedom by the 1820s.
The company encouraged the publication of newspapers that would celebrate British rule.
In 1835, upon insistence from the editors of English and vernacular newspapers, Governor-General Bentinck decided to revise press laws. Thomas Macaulay formulated new rules bringing back the lost freedom.
Their relaxed attitude towards freedom of the press changed after the 1857 revolt. English officers demanded restrictions on the 'native press with rising nationalism in vernacular newspapers.
The Vernacular Press Act (based on Irish Press Laws) was thus passed in 1878. It provided the government with extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press.