Difference between revisions of "Altick 1957"
From Commonplace Book
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Altick, Richard D. The English Common Reader. University of Chicago Press, 1957. Print. | Altick, Richard D. The English Common Reader. University of Chicago Press, 1957. Print. | ||
==Intro== | ==Intro== | ||
| − | *1 "the place of reading in an industrial and increasingly democratic | + | *1 "the place of reading in an industrial and increasingly democratic society" |
| − | *"a revolutionary social concept: that of the democracy of print"''' | + | *'''"a revolutionary social concept: that of the democracy of print"''' |
**prefiguring (influencing?) Eisenstein | **prefiguring (influencing?) Eisenstein | ||
*2-3 methodological limitations of anecdotal evidence and records of bestsellers (but they have their uses too) -- the history of reading is rootedness in "the total history of the period" including political, religious, economic, and trchnological | *2-3 methodological limitations of anecdotal evidence and records of bestsellers (but they have their uses too) -- the history of reading is rootedness in "the total history of the period" including political, religious, economic, and trchnological | ||
| Line 9: | Line 9: | ||
*5 using Collins 1858 "the future of English fiction may well rest with this Unknown Public" | *5 using Collins 1858 "the future of English fiction may well rest with this Unknown Public" | ||
*7 common reader belongs to working class or expanding bourgeoisie | *7 common reader belongs to working class or expanding bourgeoisie | ||
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| + | ==Ch 4 Social Background== | ||
| + | *81 The development of the mass reading public, in fact, was completely dependent upon the progress of a social revolution [in terms of population increase and the “occupational and geographical distribution” changes of that population] | ||
| + | *83-4 marked change in shift from agricultural yeomanry to commerce and industry: 40% commerce/trade/manufacture, 19% in agriculture in 1841; 68% vs 10% in 1891 | ||
| + | *84 In the first half of the century English society was shaken as it had not been since the end of the Middle Ages. | ||
| + | *85 …the C19 witnessed on every hand a sharpening of class consciousness [because of this massive shift in hierarchical social structure] | ||
| + | * reading dependent on leisure, which was not in high supply for most | ||
| + | *88-9 the “coming of railroad travel” “resulted in an unquestionable increase in reading” | ||
| + | *90 Not until the cheap periodical press made efficient use of railway transportation and local distributors, and rural education received much-needed aid under the Forster Act of 1870, did the majority of country-dwellers acquire much interest in reading. | ||
| + | *91-3 factors against the “common man” being able to read: domestic hurly-burly and poor housing; poor lighting until late in the century; exhaustion | ||
| + | *96 Torn away from the old cultural tradition [and as he says on 95 from their individuality and personal pride in work by industrialization], battered and adrift in a feelingless world, the millions of common people needed decent recreation more urgently than any generation before them. | ||
| + | * With a few noteworthy exceptions like [Sir John] Herschel and Dickens, contemporary social critics and reformers failed to understand, or at least sympathize with, this imperative need on the [97] part of the physically and spiritually imprisoned. | ||
Revision as of 14:41, 1 November 2017
Altick, Richard D. The English Common Reader. University of Chicago Press, 1957. Print.
Intro
- 1 "the place of reading in an industrial and increasingly democratic society"
- "a revolutionary social concept: that of the democracy of print"
- prefiguring (influencing?) Eisenstein
- 2-3 methodological limitations of anecdotal evidence and records of bestsellers (but they have their uses too) -- the history of reading is rootedness in "the total history of the period" including political, religious, economic, and trchnological
- 3 "The history of the mass reading audience is, in fact, the history of English democracy seen from a new angle "
- 4 industrialization making reading more impt for purposes of escape (and the erasure of the "popular cultural tradition," tho I'm skeptical about the cleanness of that line, if only based on evidence from hardy novels)
- 5 using Collins 1858 "the future of English fiction may well rest with this Unknown Public"
- 7 common reader belongs to working class or expanding bourgeoisie
Ch 4 Social Background
- 81 The development of the mass reading public, in fact, was completely dependent upon the progress of a social revolution [in terms of population increase and the “occupational and geographical distribution” changes of that population]
- 83-4 marked change in shift from agricultural yeomanry to commerce and industry: 40% commerce/trade/manufacture, 19% in agriculture in 1841; 68% vs 10% in 1891
- 84 In the first half of the century English society was shaken as it had not been since the end of the Middle Ages.
- 85 …the C19 witnessed on every hand a sharpening of class consciousness [because of this massive shift in hierarchical social structure]
- reading dependent on leisure, which was not in high supply for most
- 88-9 the “coming of railroad travel” “resulted in an unquestionable increase in reading”
- 90 Not until the cheap periodical press made efficient use of railway transportation and local distributors, and rural education received much-needed aid under the Forster Act of 1870, did the majority of country-dwellers acquire much interest in reading.
- 91-3 factors against the “common man” being able to read: domestic hurly-burly and poor housing; poor lighting until late in the century; exhaustion
- 96 Torn away from the old cultural tradition [and as he says on 95 from their individuality and personal pride in work by industrialization], battered and adrift in a feelingless world, the millions of common people needed decent recreation more urgently than any generation before them.
- With a few noteworthy exceptions like [Sir John] Herschel and Dickens, contemporary social critics and reformers failed to understand, or at least sympathize with, this imperative need on the [97] part of the physically and spiritually imprisoned.
