Kinds of Patronage The Paying Public and the Birth of the Author Andy Brown Pearl DeSure Chris...
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Transcript of Kinds of Patronage The Paying Public and the Birth of the Author Andy Brown Pearl DeSure Chris...
Kinds of PatronageThe Paying Public and the Birth of the Author
Andy Brown
Pearl DeSure
Chris Jimenez
Joe Olsen
Randall Star
11.5.08
Listen!!!
Difficult Beginnings
During the Early Medieval time period, literature was an avocation rather than a vocation. No one would choose becoming an author as a lucrative profession.
Early Medieval writers were heavily dependent on the courts for patronage. There was a very limited sphere of people who could read/write, so there was a very limited audience for the medieval author to reach.
The Public
Transition to a Paying Public
The creation of the printing press by no means had an immediate effect on the system of patronage, but it was a start towards a more literate public, and with it the end of the patronage system.
It is not until the rise of the capitalist society, in the 19th century, and with it the rise of the consumer, that we see the abandonment of the patronage system.
Authorship and the Object
How did print allow authors to become renowned?
How did the reader come to appreciate the author’s production?
How did the author utilize print technology for methods not available through orality or manuscript?
Birth of the Author
“Print produced exhaustive dictionaries and fostered the desire to legislate for correctness in language”
-Walter Ong
Diffusion!!!
Diffusion and Privacy
Print created a greater distance between the reader and the author. In consequence, the autonomous author was developed.
However, the reader develops a distant intimacy.
Intertextuality!!!
The Object
“Now, with print, two copies of a given work did not merely say the same thing, they were duplicates of one another as objects.”
-Walter Ong The text as an object, and the alphabet as a
phonetic tool, allow a new, non-oral, typographic arena for the author to play.
E.E. Cumming’s “Grasshopper”
r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r who a)s w(e loo)k upnowgath PPEGORHRASS eringint(o- aThe):l eA !p:S a (r rIvInG .gRrEaPsPhO
s) to rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)ngly ,grasshopper;
Translation:
Grasshopper who,
as we look, up now, gathering
(Grasshopper) into a (the): leaps!
Arriving, (Grasshopper) to become rearrangingly
grasshopper.
Closure and Solidity
Thomas Malory
1405-1471 Le Morte d’ Arthur Criminal history French Influence
William Dunbar
1460-1520 Scottish “Chaucerian” First printed obscenity “Unrivalled by any which Scotland has
produced”
Sir Philip Sidney
1554-1586 Courtier and Poet Watershed for
Renaissance movement
Christopher Marlowe
1564-1593 Playwright Controversy
Plargiarism
Plagiarism as a form of theft
Plagiarism derives from Latin roots: plagiarius, an abductor, and plagiare, to steal
Imitation as a form of homage now becomes an economic concern
“Aristotle, Virgil, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Coleridge, Dryden, and Sterne—regularly engaged in practices that, today, might well lead to charges of plagiarism.” -Green
Originality, Authorship, Economy
The Romantic conception of the “author” emerged from the economic interests of publishers, booksellers and authors
The idea of property—words and ideas The conception of “authorship” or “originality”
presupposes plagiarism
The creation of copyright
Invented after the creation of the printing press in accordance with public literacy
Rivalry between printers created varying and competing editions of works, which diminished the prospects of payment
The first copyright privilege in England in 1518 to Richard Pynson, a “monopoly” of two years
Functions of Emerging Popularity
Chaucer’s immense popularity contributed to the cementing of the English Language as the national tongue of Britain
Not only did the change in book production and the national language contribute to popularity of author the other contributed to the cementing of the national tongue.
Many later authors despised mass audience because they felt its demand for work written in a vulgar tongue degraded renaissance learning. Books had to be written not in Latin or Greek but in a vulgar tongue in order to reach mass audience
Later the most popular authors of the day such as Dickens and Thackeray would pander to the public demand
The Author’s Shifting Role
Popular authors in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries did not rely primarily on book sales for livelihood.
In the 18th and 19th century this changed. With the advent of mass printing some authors were able not only to make a living from their writing but to become cultural commodities
Authors in the early age of print were not as prominent as personalities. If they were it was more often for their political intrigues such as in the case of Sir Walter Raleigh.
Most readers during this time read books for the books not necessarily for the author who wrote them.
Continued
15th century English authors directed taste of the audience. However over the centuries this dynamic began to undergo a
reversal until in the 19th century an author’s work would more often be directed by public tastes
This change was brought about partly by increased economic incentive.
Authors such as Dickens and Thackeray were not only writers but business men. Raleigh and Spenser, though involved in court, did not produce literature for its economic incentives.
Though Spenser received a lifetime stipend from the Queen for his literary achievements culminating in the Faerie Queen, this was not his primary motivation for writing
Differences between renaissance writers and industrial age writers
Men of letters in Caxton’s time were not only writers but producers of print.
18th century author, industrialist and capitalist were not out of touch. Einstein says that “between 16th and ”
Sir Walter Raleigh said he loved working with the sound of print machines clanking. Authors also involved with politics and production. Literary matters were sometimes not first priority.
Later the division of labor in industrial age would free authors from production responsibilities however the depends of an immerging mass readership would pose new ones.
15th and 16th century authors possessed a certain degree of artistic independence that authors before them, with the demands of dominate patrons, as well as authors after them with the pressure of the mass reading public did not enjoy
Benefits and Drawbacks of Author as Public entity
Transition from private to public patronage could be difficult and varied in results
By 1776 Samuel Johnson was able to proclaim: “We have done with patronage.”
However patronage could sometimes provide a stable income on which to continue ones literary ambitions. Financial independence varied. Shakespeare was very successful as an independent business owner where as Edmund Spenser relied on 17 patrons to get him through the writing and publishing of the Faerie Queen.
Business aspect of literary production, as we would see later with Dickens and Carlyle, could interfere with private literary ambitions.
Recap!!!
A paying public meant that authors were more focused on a larger audience
Authors had greater (but not complete) artistic freedom
Subject matter changes Church loses authority More access to information
How did the stakes change?
Dangers/Rewards of a Paying Public
Recap again!!!
Dangers
Spread of new (dangerous!) ideas, such as unalterable diffusion of ideologies
Possible dismissal of traditional society Plagiarism as a form of piracy (similar to
identity theft of our day) The possibility of terrible authors Upsetting the church/court Death!?
Rewards
Growing literacy Spread of various ideas instead of one Creation of new intellectuals (authors) Possible improvement of society Transition to modern era Decreased dependence on the church
Questions?
Sources
Wikipedia.org Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy Stuart Green, Plagiarism, Norms, and the Limits of Theft Law http://www.hawaii.edu/aln/printing.htm http://www.aussiediary.com/?p=16 Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in early modern Europe