Minor Knowledge and Microhistory: Manuscript Culture in the Nineteenth Century (Routledge Studies in Cultural History)

This book studies everyday writing practices among ordinary people in a poor rural society in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Using the abundance of handwritten material produced, disseminated and consumed some centuries after the advent of print as its research material, the book's focus is on its day-to-day usage and on "minor knowledge," i.e., text matter originating and rooted primarily in the everyday life of the peasantry. The focus is on the history of education and communication in a global perspective. Rather than engaging in comparing different countries or regions, the authors seek to view and study early modern and modern manuscript culture as a transnational (or transregional) practice, giving agency to its ordinary participants and attention to hitherto overlooked source material. Through a microhistorical lens, the authors examine the strength of this aspect of popular culture and try to show it in a wider perspective, as well as asking questions about the importance of this development for the continuity of the literary tradition. The book is an attempt to explain "the nature of the literary culture" in general - how new ideas were transported from one person to another, from community to community, and between regions; essentially, the role of minor knowledge in the development of modern men.

History

Olafsson, David

Magnússon, Sigurður Gylfi

Europe

Routledge

Taking its title from Marshall William Fishwick's description of "wordmongers" as those whose principal vocation is “speaking and writing words,” this book is a study of manuscript and scribal culture in the age of print. While the first part explores the flourishing scholarship of post-medieval scribal culture in Europe and beyond during the last generation and advocates a radical revision of traditional dichotomies (manuscript versus print, literacy versus illiteracy) in favor of more complex paradigms (multiple modes and media of transmission and reception), the second part focuses on literary and scribal culture in nineteenth-century Iceland.Davíð Ólafsson examines the societal framework of textual creation and consumption, as well as the specific case of the farmer, fisherman, and scribe Sighvatur Grímsson (1840–1930) and his cultural environment. The microhistorical approach of Wordmongers considers the career of this remarkable protagonist and the concentric impact his literary production had on his intimate community, Icelandic society, and the wider European and global context during the “post-Gutenberg era.”

Wordmongers: Manuscript Culture in the Age of Print and the Case of Nineteenth-century Iceland (Islandica)

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Cornell Univ Libraries

This book studies everyday writing practices among ordinary people in a poor rural society in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Using the abundance of handwritten material produced, disseminated and consumed some centuries after the advent of print as its research material, the book's focus is on its day-to-day usage and on "minor knowledge," i.e., text matter originating and rooted primarily in the everyday life of the peasantry. The focus is on the history of education and communication in a global perspective. Rather than engaging in comparing different countries or regions, the authors seek to view and study early modern and modern manuscript culture as a transnational (or transregional) practice, giving agency to its ordinary participants and attention to hitherto overlooked source material. Through a microhistorical lens, the authors examine the strength of this aspect of popular culture and try to show it in a wider perspective, as well as asking questions about the importance of this development for the continuity of the literary tradition. The book is an attempt to explain “the nature of the literary culture” in general – how new ideas were transported from one person to another, from community to community, and between regions; essentially, the role of minor knowledge in the development of modern men.

Americas

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