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