Print Culture and the Modern
World
•When did printed literature begin to circulate?
•How has it helped create the modern world?
•In this chapter we will look at the
development of print.
The First Printed Books
• The earliest kind of print technology was developed in
China, Japan and Korea.
• From AD 594 onwards, books in China were printed by
rubbing paper – also invented there – against the
inked surface of woodblocks.
• Textbooks for civil service examination were printed
in vast numbers.
• Reading increasingly became a leisure activity.The
new readership preferred fictional narratives, poetry,
autobiographies, anthologies of literary masterpieces.
1.1 Print in Japan
• Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-
printing technology into Japan around AD 768-770.
• The oldest Japanese book,printed in AD 868, is the
Buddhist Diamond Sutra.
• In medieval Japan, poets and prose writers were regularly
published, and books were cheap and abundant.
• Libraries and bookstores were packed with hand-printed
material of various types – books on women, musical
instruments, calculations, tea ceremony, flower
arrangements, proper etiquette, cooking and famous
places.
An ukiyo print by Kitagawa Utamaro. Kitagawa Utamaro, born in Edo i1753,
was widely known for his contributions to an art form called ukiyo (‘pictures
of the floating world’) or depiction of ordinary human experiences,
especially urban ones.
A morning scene, ukiyo print by ShunmanKubo, late
eighteenth century.
A man looks out of the window at the snowfall while
women prepare tea and perform other domestic duties.
Print Comes to Europe
• For centuries, silk and spices from China flowed
into Europe through the silk route. In the
eleventh century, Chinese paper reached Europe
via the same route.
• Then, in 1295, Marco Polo,a great explorer,
returned to Italy after many years of exploration
in China, with technology of woodblock printing.
• Luxury editions were still handwritten on very
expensive vellum.
• As the demand for books increased, booksellers
all over Europe began exporting books to many
different countries.
A Portrait of Johann Gutenberg, 1584.
He learnt the art of polishing stones, became a
master goldsmith, and also acquired the
expertise to create lead
moulds used for making ornaments
• Gutenberg adapted existing 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.
– Gutenberg Printing Press.
Frame
Handle Screw
Platen
Printing block
placed over
paper
A printer’s workshop, sixteenth century.
The Print Revolution and Its Impact
A new reading public emerged.
• Books flooded the market, reaching out to an ever-growing
readership.
• If earlier there was a hearing public, now a reading public came
into being
Religious Debates and the Fear of Print.
• Through the printed message, they could persuade people to
think differently.
• Some feared that if there was no control over what was printed
and read then rebellious and irreligious thoughts might spread.
• In 1517, the religious reformer Martin Luther wrote
Ninety Five Theses criticising many of the practices
and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church.
• This lead to a division within the Church and to the beginning of
the Protestant Reformation
celebrating the coming of print.
Print and Dissent
This sixteenth-century print shows how the fear of printing
was dramatised in visual representations of the time. In
this highly interesting woodcut the coming of print is
associated with the end of the world. The interior of the
printer’s workshop here is the site of a dance of death.
Skeletal figures control the printer and his workers, define
and dictate what is to be done and what is to be produced
The Reading Mania
• Through the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries literacy rates went up in most parts
of Europe.
• There was a virtual reading mania.
• People wanted books to read and printers
produced books in ever increasing numbers.
Print culture and the French Revolution
• Print popularised the idea of Philosophers like
Rousseau8,Voltair.
• Print created a new culture of debate and dialogue.
• Literature raised question about the existing social
order.
• Print helped to spread the ideas of the philosopher.
People widely read it and influenced by their ideas.
• Print opened up the peoples mind to think
differently.
Print and poor people
• In 19th c, very cheap and small books were to market.
• From the early 20th c, public libraries were set up mostly in
towns, cities and prosperous villages.
• Jyotiba Phule wrote about the injustice of women in
“Gulamgiri” in 1871.
• In the 20th c, B.R. Ambedkar, E.V.Ramaswamy Naicar wrote
powerfully about castism.
• Bengal millworkers set up libraries to educate themselves.
• Print culture helped to begin nationalism in India.
India and the world of Print
• India had a rich and old tradition of handwritting
manuscript.
• In the mid 16th c.Printing came to India with Partugueese
Missioneries.
• In 1579 Cathelic priest first printed the Tamil book.
• In the late 17th c. East India company Brought the first
printing press to India.
• In 1780 James Augustus Hickey began to edit the “Bengal
Gagette”.
• Gangadhar Bhattacharyaa was the first Indian who
published the newspapper Bengal Gagette.
• Social reforms and novels created a great interest in
women lives and emotions.
• Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote with
anger about the miserable lives of Upper caste Hindu
women.
• A few Bangali women like Kailashbashini Devi wrote
books highlighting the experiences of women about
how women were imprisoned at home, kept in
ignorance and forced to do hard domestic works.
• From 1870, Hindu print culture had developed. Urdu,
Tamil, Bengali and Marathi print culture had already
developed.
• By the early 20th century, journals were popular. They
discussed issues like women’s educations,
widowhood, widow remarriage and the national
movement
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, capable of printing 8,000 sheets per hour,
useful for printing newspapers
• The offset press was developed which could print up to six
colours at a time.
• electrically operated presses accelerated printing operations.
• Methods of feeding paper improved, the quality of plates
became better, automatic paper reels and photoelectric
controls of the colour register were introduced.
Fig. 13 – Advertisements at a railway station in England, a lithograph by
Alfred Concanen, 1874.
Printed advertisements and notices were plastered on street walls, railway
platforms and public buildings
India and the World of Print
• India had a very rich and old tradition of handwritten
manuscripts –in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, as well as in various
vernacular languages.
• Manuscripts were copied on palm leaves or on handmade
paper pressed between wooden covers or sewn together
• Manuscripts, however, were highly expensive and fragile.
They had to be handled carefully, and they could not be read
easily as the script was written in different styles.
Pages from the Rigveda.
Handwritten manuscripts continued to be produced in India till much after
the coming of print. This manuscript was produced in the eighteenth
century in the Malayalam script
Print Comes to India
• The printing press first came to Goa with Portuguese
missionaries
• in the mid-sixteenth century. Jesuit priests learnt Konkani and
printed several tracts.
• By 1674, about 50 books had been printed
in the Konkani and in Kanara languages.
• From 1780, James Augustus Hickey began to edit the Bengal
Gazette,a weekly magazine .
New Forms of Publication
• Other new literary forms also entered the
world of reading –lyrics, short stories, essays
about social and political matters.
• Painterslike Raja Ravi Varma produced images
for mass circulation.
• By the 1870s, caricatures and cartoons were
being published in journals and newspapers,
commenting on social and political issues.
Raja Ritudhwaj rescuing Princess Madalsa
from the captivity of demons, print by Ravi Varma.
Raja Ravi Varma produced innumerable mythological
paintings that were printed at the Ravi Varma Press .
Women and Print
• Women’s reading, therefore, increased enormously
in middle-class homes.But not all families were
liberal. Conservative Hindus believed that a literate
girl would be widowed and Muslims feared that
educated women would be corrupted by reading
Urdu romances.
• But still Rashsundari Debi,wrote her autobiography
Amar Jiban which was published in 1876. It was the
first full-length autobiography published in the
Bengali language
• A few Bengali women like 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
• Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote with
passionate anger about the miserable lives of upper-
caste Hindu women, especially widow
Print and Censorship
• 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 Britsh rule.
• After the revolt of 1857, the attitude to
freedom of the press
• changed
• In 1878, the Vernacular Press Act was passed
• It provided the government
• with extensive rights to censor reports and
editorials in the vernacular
• press.
