Sunday, January 11, 2015

The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 3. Language and the Printed Word. Part 11: Culture Without a Capital;



Chapter 44.  Rays diverging from a focus
  • Poor quality of literary works opened market for imports
  • different emphasis of printed matter
    • relevance
    • utility
    • reader-interest
    • universality of appeal
  • a "transparent" reading matter, calling attention to its object and not itself
  • literature of Western Europe
    • a literature of the dominant classes
    • written in dead and alien classical language
    • prestige and power to chase with education to read and understand it
  • Ancient knowledge
    • a man of refinement should know an esoteric literature in Greek or Latin before coming to his own language, a practice which America reversed
    • never gained widespread prestige in colonies
  • Centers for reading along Atlantic seaboard
    • bookish culture an import
    • Americans looked to London
    • cities along coast were separate funnels for dispersion of book culture
    • no one city established an undisputed cultural dominance over cultural life
    • no American London or Paris
Chapter 45.  Boston's "Devout and Useful Books"
  • In early life of city, books were a numerous and profitable commodity
  • central commercial position gave it power over the literary taste and reading matter of neighboring colonies
  • a marked dominance of religious matter
    • most important libraries owned by clergy
    • no respectable non-theological collection until the late 18th century
    • ministers, through sermons, spread knowledge of books
  •  books brought to Boston for a purpose
    • titles from cheap bookstores on London bridge not to be found
    • books for titillation never seen
  • In the 18th century, the strong practical and didactic predominance passed
  • early Boston's bookish characteristics
    • narrow practical spirit
    • literary culture too bland
    • kept from becoming a cultural capital
    • could have given America intellectual life a different turn
Chapter 46.  Manuals for Plantation Living
  • Williamsburg, center of government, remained a sleepy village
  • books in Virginia
    • acquired from London on special order
    • followed example of English gentleman
    • thoroughly practical emphasis
  • reading habits
    • limited to aristocracy due to widespread illiteracy
    • leading men themselves not particularly bookish or widely-read
  • law books
    • often made up largest group of books
    • lawyers in short supply
      • fortunes rested in land holdings
      • legal claims often disputed
    • English legal tradition very cement of community and knowledge of it was a necessity
  • Virginia remoteness
    • southern hospitality actually veiled loneliness
    • literary tastes remained remarkably singular
    • the more remote they were, the more eager they were to cling to old English ways
  • Virginia mind vs. Puritan New England mind
    • less crabbed and perverse
    • equally hard-headed, legalistic, and unpoetic
  • Virginia unwilling to accept cultural leadership from New England
  • Planters' tastes not strong enough to dominate colonies
  • No place for a literary class
 Chapter 47.  The Way of the Marketplace:  Philadelphia
  • a breadth and liberality to book culture (foreign to Va. and N.E.)
  • intellectual life offered room for active minds to range
    • less policed by orthodoxy than New England
    • less confined by narrow practical and political concerns than Virginians
    • less dominated by tastes of a literary aristocracy than Londoners
    • tolerant atmosphere encouraged interchange of books and ideas on many subjects
  • Book trade did not dominate colonies but grew and flourished like no other
  • Competition among booksellers helped disseminate books and ideas
    •  first American business to advertise extensively
    • first to use modern dramatic methods of merchandising
  • Robert Bell
    • most enterprising of American merchandisers
    • developed book auction into major American institution
    • wit and antics were a staple Philadelphia entertainment
    • could not have flourished in the more stifling literary climates of New England and Virginia
  • Social library
    • first success here
    • early example of American ideal of learning with self-improvement
    • earliest one grew out of Franklin's "Junto" (1727)
    • declared purpose similar to later service organizations
    • Library Company of Philadelphia
 Chapter 48.  Poetry without Poets
  • lack of a literary class
    • rich variety and equal competition of American town life
    • no center of things
  • lasted into 19th century until appearance of Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper
  • Poor written account left of Revolution War
    • a nation too preoccupied with practical facts of life to write
    • a nation with a borrowed literature
  • Attempts to produce a polite American literature proved stiff, self-conscious, and sterile
  • best writing of colonial period
    • pamphlets
    • sermons
    • newspaper columns
    • thousands of miscellaneous items

Related posts:
The Americans: The Colonial Experience by Daniel Boorstin,  Book 1.  The Vision and the Reality Part 1.  A City Upon a Hill:  The Puritans of Massachusetts.  (12/8/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Part 2. The Inward Plantation: The Quakers of Pennsylvania.  (12/10/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Part 3. Victims of Philanthropy: The Settlers of Georgia.  (12/13/2014)
The Americans;  The Colonial Experience, Part 4.  Transplanters:  The Virginians.  (12/14/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 2. Viewpoints and Institutions. Part 5: An American Frame of Mind.  (12/17/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 2. Viewpoints and Institutions. Part 6: Educating the Community
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 2. Viewpoints and Institutions. Part 7: The Learned Lose Their Monopolies.  (12/24/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 2. Viewpoints and Institutions. Part 8: New World Medicine.  (12/31/2014)
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 2. Viewpoints and Institutions. Part 9: The Limits of American Science
The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Book 3. Language and the Printed Word. Part 10: The New Uniformity.  (1/6/2015)

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