Feb. 5

Learning to Read in the Early Modern Era

I. Between 1500 and 1800, Europeans learned to read and write.

A. Now, obviously, a few people had been literate before, and they were generally state officials, religious leaders, and members of the commercial bourgeoisie. What kinds of texts did they have?
B. The arduous task of copying such documents. Rise of state and church bureaucracies in the Middle Ages gives some encouragement to literacy, but still highly restricted.

II. Literacy rates. Based on people who could sign their names, scholars have information for a few regions in Europe. Generally, very low literacy rates. Higher in urban areas, and in north and northwest of Europe.

III. But from sixteenth century on, expansion of literacy. The reasons:

A. Reformation--emphasis on the Word, hence on the vernacular language.
B. Calvinist areas more literate. Expectation that Bible would be read in home every day.
C. Urbanization.
D. Economic development.
E. Rise of states--though as yet no public schooling.
F. And, of course, the greater availability of the written word through printing.

IV. Literacy brings with it a whole new relationship to the self and to others. The creation of privacy and individuality.

A. How do people read? Often out loud.
B. The other really novel development of the 16th-18th century, was reading in private, in quiet.
C. This means an entirely new sense of space as well. Where does one read?
D. A new self-mastery: how one sits, carries one's body.

1. The self-discipline required to have a relationship to the word.
2. But also, a certain casualness, the opportunity to stretch out on a chair or chaise as one reads.
3. And with that, fears of degeneration, especially of women too preoccupied with romantic literature. Women "abandoned" to mischievous thoughts.
4. Also, upsurge of memoirs, diaries, and, by the latter part of the 18th century, autobiographies, and then, of course, the novel.

V. Conclusion: Both a new form of sociability and a new individuality. The two develop together. And what began under largely religious impulses, ends up also becoming a force of secularization.