How the Printing Press Effected History - Essay Example

of the English of the Teacher 29 May How the Printing Press Effected History and how it can be related to Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest It is a fact that the very act of writing and documenting history is something that is vulnerable to a range of influences and vested interests. The growth of human history and culture has been something that had been open and exposed to a range of cultural, social and economic factors. Hence, it is but natural to say that a realistic documentation of history is something that by its very nature should be open to diverse influences, interests and interest groups. And this is how the things were before the invention of printing press. The history created and documented before the advent of the printing press was most of the times oral and folk in its scope and interpretation (Meltnzer 21). That is why it happened to be so diverse and colored. The history contrived before the invention of printing press was open to being influenced by diverse sections of the society. That is why the historical accounts of those times happened to be variegated and conflicting in their documentation and interpretation. However, the sad thing about printing press was that it divested the fine popular art of writing history of its diversity and variety and made it utterly singular, linear and conformist. The amazing thing about the oral and folk history existing before the invention of the printing press was that it happened to be more accurate. This was because it expressed the ideas, views and opinions of most of the sections of the society. However, with the invention of the printing press, the writing and preservation of popular history became confined to the elite and learned sections of the society. This deprived history of its grass root accuracy and appeal as Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest says, “I don’t play accurately- anyone can play accurately- but I play with wonderful expression (Act I).” With the coming of the printing press, the codification and writing of history became confined to the elites and the educated, which deprived the historical records of their basic accuracy, variety and plurality. Before the invention of the printing press, historical accounts and narratives happened to be something that was open to popular appeal, interpretation and interests (Heyer 118). Thereby, the history that existed before the advent of the printing press absorbed something from every section of the society (Heyer 118). No wonder one could readily expect such historical records to be more accurate and truthful. This was because of the very diversity of sources that the oral and vernacular history drew its material from did assure that much of it happened to be accurate and believable. So far as history is concerned, it is but natural to conclude that if a variety of sources have a say in the writing of history, it would prevent any one dominant section of the society from writing and presenting history as per one’s own beliefs and vested interests. Before the invention of the printing press, much of the writing and drawing of historical accounts was painstakingly done with hands by special people called scribes (Thompson 57). Many of these scribes happened to live in the monasteries and did specialize in compiling and documenting historical records and accounts (Thompson 58). The best thing about this was that these scribes owing to their monastic background remained in contact with diverse sections of the society, and many of them belonged to a farming or working class background. Besides, the way a scribe compiled and contrived a historical account happened to be exclusively unique and totally unlike the work drafted by other scribes. The books in those times happened to be things that were utterly rare and thereby while compiling history, the scribes predominantly relied on popular, vernacular and folk rendering of historical accounts. Hence, it was quite impossible for any one section of the society to dictate as to how the rest of the society should understand and interpret history. The sad thing is that printing press deprived the compiling of history of its diversity and thereby gave the elite and learned sections of the society the power to dictate as to what type of history others may read as Algernon says, “Oh! It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read (Act I).” Thereby, the invention of printing press divested history of its essential variety, diversity and multiple perspectives. It made history a toy in the hands of the elite sections of the society who could read and write and could use printing press to popularize their version of history. This took a heavy toll on the oral, folk and vernacular versions of history that happened to be so rich in variety and interpretation. The amazing thing about printing press was that when it was invented, the print word became a new medium for spreading and selling ideas (Feather 15). Thereby there opened up many printing shops and publishers and the art of printing developed into a new and thriving trade (Feather 15). The printing press was increasingly used to pass on printed versions of history to large sections of the society in a cheap and affordable way. This relatively reduced the importance and hold of the oral and folk forms of history. The fact is that all people tend to see historical facts in a different way and different people do tend to have different perspectives on historical facts and ideas. Each person’s interpretation of history depends on one’s biases, likes and dislikes and perspectives. So earlier, when the printing press was not there, different people tended to have different opinion regarding historical concepts like wars and kings and queens. The historical figure which happened to be one class’s hero happened to be a villain for some other section of the society. The sad thing about printing press was that it took away the power from those sections of the society, which could not write and print history, and with time only those versions of history became popular that eventually got printed and passed on through decades. It deprived the history of its diversity and made the words of Napoleon seem so true that, “history is a set of lies people have agreed upon (Conkin & Stromberg 81).” Just because the printed versions of history attracted the repetitive attention of the literate audience over decades, they ended up being considered truer and believable as compared to the folk and popular accounts of history and culture. The most important reason as to why the characters in The Importance of Being Earnest lie is to get a break from the more regular, popular and mundane aspects of their life as to engage in flights of fantasy and pleasure. This could indeed be related to the historians who used printing press to popularize their fanciful notions of history and subdue the more regular and common versions of historical occurrences and characters. However, the sad thing about characters in The Importance of Being Earnest is that once they strengthen the wrongs notions of themselves by lying about them repeatedly, it gets really next to impossible for them to get out of those lies irrespective of their best intentions and sentiments. As the situations in the play gradually get more complicated, the characters are left with no option, but to contrive increasingly sophisticated lies to disentangle themselves from the lies already popularized by them. The printing press impacted the compiling of history in the very same way. First is popularized the biased accounts of history and then to strengthen such faulty notions of history, the printing press was used to further falsify history. Yet, there are people who hold contrary opinion regarding the impact printing press had on history. They believe that the printing press ushered in a more systematic and research based compilation of history. The printing press encouraged the historians to sift the folk tradition from the actual and factual history and to assure the printing of such versions of history that happened to be fact based and truer. Printing press also popularized the study of history and encouraged people to study history. The printing press did assure that works of history were accessible to all the sections of the society in an affordable manner and thereby popularized the more realistic accounts of history (Eisenstein 127). The ironic fact is that in the contemporary world, printing is more of a business than a human and historical vocation. Thereby, the power of the printed word is confined in the hands of those who are elites and who have control over the printing business. Considering this fact it is indeed true to hold that the printing press greatly tempered with the compilation of history and popularized only such historical accounts and interpretations that furthered vested interests. As in The Importance of Being Earnest, the characters use one lie to counteract other, the historians having control over the power of the printed words repeatedly falsified history to further their agenda. Works Cited Conkin, Paul K, & Roland N Stromberg. Heritage and Challenge. Arlington Heights, IL: Forum Press, 1989. Print. Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Feather, John. A History of British Publishing. New York: Routledge, 1991. Print. Heyer, Paul. Communications and History. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988. Print. Meltnzer, Milton. The Printing Press. New York: Benchmark Books, 2004. Print. Thompson, Paul. The Voice of the Past. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Print. Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. New York: Create Space, 2012. Print. Read More