Trithemius -- week 5 (?)

There were two really interesting ideas that I thought about while reading Trithemius’s article. First, the idea of a scribe’s works being holy work, which seemed like a decidedly old idea. Sure, it is still considered “holy” to share religious ideas in the modern world, but I doubt that many people think it matters how the religious ideas are spread. In the case of Christianity, for example, religion and popular culture have become entwined. There are Christian websites, and Christian comic books, and Christian blogs. All of these are newer forms of technology that are used to convert the masses, who can’t be bothered by reading huge books like the Bible.
Certainly, I am overstepping a little bit by saying this. Although my personal experience is limited, I am sure that most religious groups do not consider these other forms of learning about religion in any way comparable to reading the actual Bible. Most Christians would probably be expected to read the actual Bible later, as they mature in their faith. Comic books and websites are more secular ways of getting people interested in religion, a sort of conversion technique. Yet I also don’t think there are many people today who are going to care if a Bible is hand written, or printed, or downloaded. We may have our individual preferences for aesthetic or practical purposes, but the really important part is understanding the Bible for what it is…not how it is made.

At the same time, some of the ideas in the article seemed rather current to me. Like many bibliophiles, I hate the idea of books disappearing in lieu of newer forms of technology. I don’t want to have to read an entire novel online. Sure, maybe a twenty page article, but not a three hundred page book. There is something so much more organic about holding a book in one’s hand, than having to stare at a glowing computer screen. You can smell a book, and touch the paper, and be impressed or annoyed by the cover art. What is more fun than perusing a book store, or a library, and stumbling across a book you never would have heard of, and discovering you like it? How exactly do you have a comparable experience on a kindle or google books?
Though it seems weird to me that there was a time when people would have said printed books were worthless in comparison to a hand written book, I think that my feelings about books as opposed to eBooks are very similar. I can understand some of Trithemius’s points. For example, the act of copying a book by hand would help that individual to really understand that book, in a way that just reading it may not. And as I wrote before, I can understand how someone might be more attracted to the aesthetic qualities of a hand copied book. Yet at the same time, the printing press helped to spread education, literacy, and ideas in a way that handwritten books never could have. For the first time, books were not priced exorbitantly. As we read in Chartier’s article, man’s whole view of himself in the world changed. Certainly, the merits of the printed book outweigh whatever drawbacks it had. So who knows, maybe someday I will see how much eBooks change the world and realize how much better they are, at least practically speaking, than regular books…

….but I doubt it.

Chartier

Maybe it was just my state of mind this week, but in some ways I found the actual process of reading Chartier’s article to be tedious. At the same time, I found many of the article’s ideas and implications about literacy, and the practice of reading to be incredibly fascinating.

The first thing that I found interesting was the use of signatures on documents to be a measure of literacy. Certainly the problem of defining literacy, specifically in a time before there were records for such things, is a difficult one. Also, Chartier admits it is not a perfect measure, like when he writes that there were surely people who knew how to read who could not write. Although it certainly makes sense that people were able to read and not write, it struck me as sort of strange at first. Reading and writing are so connected in modern education, that it seems strange to think of a time when they were not so closely connected.

A similarly interesting point of Chartier’s, was the idea that silent reading was a kind of revolution. To begin with, he mentions that one had to master new skills to accomplish reading to oneself, which I found strange. Again it made sense in an obvious way, but is so integral to modern education, that it seems strange that there was ever a time when silent reading itself was strange! He also talks about the ways that reading privately, made people more individual. Chartier writes about how it changed man’s view of himself, of religion, and of community. That is pretty revolutionary.

I guess my main reaction to this article is surprise. It is pretty amazing how practices that have become so mundane, such as basic literacy, could have reshaped entire societies as recently as a few centuries ago. And yet, at the same time, it is so obvious. I guess for me it’s hard to imagine a time when the experience of reading was understood so differently from how it is today.

Robert Darnton-- week 3

I found Darnton’s article “Peasants Tell Tales: The Meaning of Mother Goose” to be incredibly interesting. Like most people I suppose, I have always liked fairy tales and folk stories. When I was a child I liked them because they were magical and usually involved fairies, and princesses, and true loves; just the sort of things I loved as a little girl. As I got older I realized that the Disneyfied versions of the fairy tales I was familiar with were a far cry from the originals, which were dark and cruel and violent. And so I read Grimm and other older versions. I remember the first time I read Grimm’s tales, I was probably ten or twelve, and was slightly disturbed by the violence of many of the lesser known tales. Imagine my surprise when I found out that even these stories were somewhat “cleaned up” from still earlier forms!

My interest in fairy tales has not waned as I’ve gotten older. I have read many recent “retellings” of these very old tales, and had mixed reactions to them. There seem to be two kinds of “retellings.” Some of them, like Louise Murphy’s The True Story of Hansel and Gretel only use the original tales as a sort of framework. I usually tend to like these books best, because they resonate with the older stories, without trying to actually be the older tale. You can’t really rewrite a fairy tale. Extremely old stories are connected to something very old, something that you can sense more than you can really grasp mentally. Capturing that old essence and complexity is near impossible in modern times, for the world is different now. But some author’s do try. Often they claim to be “liberating” fairy tales, with all their dark and violent glory, from the watered down Disney versions. Ellen Datlow and Teri Windling’s fairy tale anthologies for Avon Books are more representative of this latter attempt. I certainly have not read all of these anthologies, and I did like some of the stories in them, but I also found that the author’s in the series seemed to be cramming in violent and sexual themes, without really having a point. It was still watered down, just no longer suitable for children. Like a Disney film, with an R (or sometimes X) rating.

After reading Darnton’s article I think I am beginning to understand why I felt this way. Darnton claims that the psychoanalytic reading of Little Red Riding Hood is not particularly apt. Not only were many of the elements that fit this reading added in later versions of the story, but it was also not something that would have applied to people of early modern France. The folk tales that survive are relics of an earlier time, in a world that was very different from our own. Who can imagine living in a world where survival is such a struggle? Where no one has enough to eat? And where sickness and death are always just a heartbeat away? It makes sense that stories would warn against being too trusting of strangers. And it is not surprising that cunning and intelligence would be rewarded, instead of the tiresome purity and innocence of Disney films. In early modern France, the pure and naïve likely would die young. Rather than being viewed as a virtue, innocence was equated with stupidity and weakness.

This is a world that is parallel to the modern world, but also very different. And it makes sense that stories of that time would reflect such cruelties and harshness. If the greatest wish that a person can conjure is to not have to go hungry, there is not much room for grand moralizing, or for tales that always work out fairly. More than anything these tales are sad; they reflect a world that is narrow, and dark, and extremely limited. Though there are certainly many fanciful elements in folktales, when viewed in context of the world they arose in, these tales are actually heartbreakingly realistic. Tales of this kind could not be written now, and still be authentic in the same way. But we would do well to remember them, and understand them for what they really are.

Old Books, New Histories

The main idea that Old Books, New Histories impressed upon me is that book history is a very diverse field of study. One’s interests and areas of expertise can take them in seemingly endless directions in this field. As one continues to read Howsman’s book, it becomes clear that book history is not one specific thing; it can be looked at from many different angles. I think it is important to note how often Howsman stresses that book history is an interdisciplinary field. The discipline of History, for example, cannot come close to encompassing everything that is important about book history, but neither can literary studies or bibliography. Each field has viable and important ideas, which together begin to form a cohesive grasp on the history of the book. And even then there are new way to look to look at the subject. Howsman hints at studying the history of the book from an anthropological perspective, for example.

Much of this diversity in perspectives can be explained by the history of the book being a relatively recent development as an individual academic discipline. Unlike English literature, with its “canon” to be followed or rebelled against, there is no set path for book history. This makes the field intriguing, and even exciting, to people of many disciplines and interests. Perhaps there are entirely new ways of studying book history that no one has yet thought about! But it also makes the study somewhat frustrating, especially to a novice. There were certainly points of Howsman’s book that I found difficult, mostly because the scope of the information was so wide-ranging that I had a hard time taking it all in. Sometimes I felt that I really could not get a good grasp on what book history actually is!

On a lighter note, I found the parts about reading the notes that people had written in their copies of a particular book extremely fascinating. I have always liked to read people’s scribbled notes in books I pick up at used book sales, or in ancient copies of classic books I check out from the library. It is a sort of insight into other people’s points of view, almost like reading a review. Who knew this could be of interest to actual scholars? (Then again, what isn’t interesting to some scholar somewhere?) All the same, maybe someday someone will look to my battered copy of Jane Eyre for scholarly insight…