Simenon and Maigret

First of all, writing covers more than literature. Second of all, literature is still about language and not its manner of mechanical reproduction. Until something like the 18th century, printing was done on forms of animal
hide. The changeover to paper made print cheaper and more widely available. I'm sure people bemoaned the change. Cheap paperbacks of canonical literature were not received with universal joy. One could go on and on.

As for aesthetics, it is all about what people do to change things, or, as Hegel says, it is born in the mind and born again. Wine is not art and art regularly destroys tradition and long received practices. And Warhol showed it can also be spoof.
 
Damn, here I was all geared up for a stemwinder and Jonathan writes a nuanced, thoughtful, succinct response.

However, I do have more to say, and will soon, both in image and word.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
First of all, writing covers more than literature. Second of all, literature is still about language and not its manner of mechanical reproduction. Until something like the 18th century, printing was done on forms of animal
hide. The changeover to paper made print cheaper and more widely available. I'm sure people bemoaned the change. Cheap paperbacks of canonical literature were not received with universal joy. One could go on and on.
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even in the late 15th century when the printing press was just getting going, much of the printing was done on paper. 'the bookseller of florence' by ross king documents this clearly.

page 260: "printed books cost less than manuscripts because, obviously, they could be produced far more swiftly and in greater numbers and because they primarily used paper rather than parchment.
 
This gets picky, but it matters. As Bill Clinton did not say, it depends on how you define paper. The model definiton is material made of vegetable fiber and, by that definition, paper was invented in China around in the second century CE. But that paper was made of silk. Using parchment was much less expensive and its what virtually all pre-printing press manuscripts in Europe used. It's quite true that shortly after Gutenberg, much printing occurred on material made of hemp and linen, thus technically paper. This was still expensive and books still were not widespread. Robert is correct that animal skins (parchment) were mostly gone by 1600, but "paper," if you mean the cheap stuff that comes from wood pulp, was not used until much later.
 
i believe that paper was called paper before the evolution of paper made from wood pulp. and even today if you want to spend the money you can get rag bond paper.
 
originally posted by robert ames:
i believe that paper was called paper before the evolution of paper made from wood pulp. and even today if you want to spend the money you can get rag bond paper.
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surely a derivation of papyrus? from the pulp of the papyrus plant, pounded into sheets?
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by BJ:
Come on y'all: ereaders are pure spoof.
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Writing is a means of getting one person's thoughts into the brain of another. Its material manifestation is only a problem if it occludes the language. Once one starts determining one mode is authentic and another mode is spoof, one is well on one's way to Socrates determining that all writing was merely an etiolated version of speech and a danger to memory.
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well, of writing and memory: it has been shown that retention of read material is better from paper sources. The reason isn't because of physical material, but because the brain can reference a "place" where the text was seen. In a newspaper it might have been in a lower corner. In a novel it might be the way kerning breaks up a line or ends a paragraph at the top of a page. Meanwhile the slippery pages of e-readers merge into one.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
This gets picky, but it matters. As Bill Clinton did not say, it depends on how you define paper. The model definiton is material made of vegetable fiber and, by that definition, paper was invented in China around in the second century CE. But that paper was made of silk. Using parchment was much less expensive and its what virtually all pre-printing press manuscripts in Europe used. It's quite true that shortly after Gutenberg, much printing occurred on material made of hemp and linen, thus technically paper. This was still expensive and books still were not widespread. Robert is correct that animal skins (parchment) were mostly gone by 1600, but "paper," if you mean the cheap stuff that comes from wood pulp, was not used until much later.
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there is no lexicographic definition of paper as "cheap stuff that comes from wood pulp." paper as defined by samuel johnson is made from limen fibres (1755). while wood pulp is a plant fibre, i understand the use of wood pulp started about 1830 and became the norm around 1860. the word paper was in common usage in 1600 when parchment was mostly gone.

not sure how you campare this to bill clinton's splitting hairs while testifying about monica lewinski.
 
Surely, I said very clearly that the definition of paper involves being made from vegetable fiber. And, yes, you can still buy rag paper if you have money to throw around. This started, however, with resistance to new medium. The movement to what only on this board will now be called wood pulp paper, as opposed to paper, revolutionized reading by making the material object cheap and widely available.

Johnson's definition (I'm assuming this is a typo for linen?} would have excluded most things we call paper. I'm not sure where he got it from. But Johnson's dictionary is always delightfully eccentric rather than a reference source.
 
jonathan--what i was correcting was this statement : "Until something like the 18th century, printing was done on forms of animal hide."

just not true. some printing yes was still on parchment and vellum no doubt, but far, far from the majority. it's been mainly paper since late 15th centory.
 
originally posted by robert ames:
jonathan--what i was correcting was this statement : "Until something like the 18th century, printing was done on forms of animal hide."

just not true. some printing yes was still on parchment and vellum no doubt, but far, far from the majority. it's been mainly paper since late 15th centory.
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A statement that I also withdrew in my first response to you. If it helps, I'll withdraw it again here.
 
your statement "Until something like the 18th century, printing was done on forms of animal hide" is incorrect.

i have nothing more to add.
 
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