Re: what is old is new again

Eric,

Curiously, one of the freshly printed books that the Internet Archive
likes to hand out like (cool) party favors at various meetings is
Irving's 'Old Christmas'. Do you think he would have appreciated the irony?

http://www.archive.org/details/oldchristmas00irvirich (worth a visit for
the pictures alone).

--Sebastian

Eric Lease Morgan wrote:

> Regarding catalogs, what is old is new again.
>
> I was recently reading a bit of Washington Irving, specifically, "The
> mutability of literature: A colloquy in Westminster Abbey" in his The
> Sketch Book written around 1819. In the story the narrator takes a
> walk, wonders into a dark room of Westminster Abbey, and begins
> having a conversataion with a book. Go figure.
>
> What is most interesting to me is the way the number of books
> available to readers is described as a "torrent", a "river", and a
> "sea". "It will soon be an employement of a lifetime merely to learn
> their [authors'] names.... erudition will be little better than a
> mere walking catalogue."
>
> Below is the most relevant (but long) paragraph from the story. The
> entire story is a short read:
>
>   ...In like manner the works of genius and learning decline, and
>   make way for subsequent productions. Language gradually varies,
>   and with it fade away the writings of authors who have flourished
>   their allotted time; otherwise, the creative powers of genius
>   would overstock the world, and the mind would be completely
>   bewildered in the endless mazes of literature. Formerly there
>   were some restraints on this excessive multiplication. Works had
>   to be transcribed by hand, which was a slow and laborious
>   operation; they were written either on parchment, which was
>   expensive, so that one work was often erased to make way for
>   another; or on papyrus, which was fragile and extremely
>   perishable. Authorship was a limited and unprofitable craft,
>   pursued chiefly by monks in the leisure and solitude of their
>   cloisters. The accumulation of manuscripts was slow and costly,
>   and confined almost entirely to monasteries. To these
>   circumstances it may, in some measure, be owing that we have not
>   been inundated by the intellect of antiquity; that the fountains
>   of thought have not been broken up, and modern genius drowned in
>   the deluge. But the inventions of paper and the press have put an
>   end to all these restraints. They have made every one a writer,
>   and enabled every mind to pour itself into print, and diffuse
>   itself over the whole intellectual world. The consequences are
>   alarming. The stream of literature has swollen into a torrent-
>   augmented into a river- expanded into a sea. A few centuries
>   since, five or six hundred manuscripts constituted a great
>   library; but what would you say to libraries such as actually
>   exist, containing three or four hundred thousand volumes; legions
>   of authors at the same time busy; and the press going on with
>   fearfully increasing activity, to double and quadruple the
>   number? Unless some unforseen mortality should break out among
>   the progeny of the muse, now that she has become so prolific, I
>   tremble for posterity. I fear the mere fluctuation of language
>   will not be sufficient. Criticism may do much. It increases with
>   the increase of literature, and resembles one of those salutary
>   checks on population spoken of by economists. All possible
>   encouragement, therefore, should be given to the growth of
>   critics, good or bad. But I fear all will be in vain; let
>   criticism do what it may, writers will write, printers will
>   print, and the world will inevitably be overstocked with good
>   books. It will soon be the employment of a lifetime merely to
>   learn their names. Many a man of passable information, at the
>   present day, reads scarcely any thing but reviews; and before
>   long a man of erudition will be little better than a mere walking
>   catalogue.
>
>   http://infomotions.com/etexts/literature/american/1800-1899/irving-
> mutability-582.txt
>
> What is old is new again.
>
> --
> Eric Lease Morgan
> University Libraries of Notre Dame
>
> (574) 631-8604
>
>

--
Sebastian Hammer, Index Data
quinn_at_indexdata.com   www.indexdata.com
Ph: (603) 209-6853 Fax: (866) 383-4485