In early modern England, there was a prevalence of something called “commonplace books.” A commonplace book is a kind of journal in which one writes down quotations, poems, letters, and other information, as well as one’s thoughts about these things. There are a couple of possible explanations for this prevalence – the level of literacy of English people at the time and the technology of printing. In 17th century England, following the introduction of moveable type, literacy was catalyzed by education becoming an emphasized facet of civilized life in urban settings 1 and as such, many people were practicing reading and writing by way of creating their own commonplace books. Because printing had become less expensive by this time, there was a prevalence of books being printed. However, the cost of printing and of books themselves was still quite high for those who were not wealthy. Elizabeth Newell, to whose work not much scholarship has been dedicated, was an author of one of the commonplace books described here, and until now, her book of poems was thought to be an original work. To better understand commonplace books and Newell herself, I will be exploring the phenomenon of writing these kinds of books, and as such, that of manuscript poetry culture.
The process of printing went through many technological stages before becoming what we know today. The first form of printing, “block printing,” arrived to the West from China sometime in the 13th century. This form involved carving the characters or images into wooden blocks, inking the blocks, and finally transferring the ink to paper; this form of printing was incredibly time consuming and financially problematic because each character, image, or word was carved onto a separate block2 . In the Middle Ages, printing with moveable type was introduced, and during the next few centuries, the circulation of printed publications such as magazines, pamphlets, and newspapers began to flourish. With these technological advances in publishing, books became cheaper to print, making it worthwhile for the common man to learn how to read3 . However, though the cost of publishing had decreased considerably from when block printing was the norm, publishing and books themselves were still quite expensive for the common man. “Even up until the early part of the seventeenth century, the high cost of publishing and purchasing printed tracts prevented the printing press from actually serving as a public instrument. Although pamphlets were the cheapest publications available, they were generally only produced and consumed among a ‘small and intimate’ selection of literati until the 1620s when a new, less expensive type-face technologies reduced the cost of production4 .” The lack of a technology that could make the printing of books cheaper, and therefore make the cost of the books themselves lower, caused books to be largely unavailable to England’s less wealthy citizens. This contributed to the lower literacy rates of the middle- to lower-class individuals in 17th Century England. Even though many strides had been made in the industry of printing and publishing, manuscript works were still being published at a high rate during the English Renaissance. Arthur Marotti expounds on this phenomenon in his book, Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric. “During the English Renaissance, despite the widespread effects of the Gutenberg revolution, much literature continued to be written for manuscript circulation rather than for print. In fact, it could be said that literature itself did not become institutionalized until more than a century and a half of print culture had passed, during which time the two systems of publication coexisted. In the older, manuscript system, the modern boundary between the literary and the nonliterary had not yet solidified, and texts were immersed in social worlds whose conditions enabled them to be produced and consumed… Read aloud to live audiences or passed from hand to hand in single sheets, small booklets, quires, or pamphlets, verse typically found its way into manuscript commonplace books rather than into printed volumes5 .” The widespread phenomenon of manuscript publishing even while printed publication was an available technology was due to the social nature of literature at the time. Manuscripts of literary works were created to be circulated among social groups, and therefore were more personal than works that were printed for publication.
In the 17th Century, literacy rates in England were on the rise as a result of a new emphasis on education. Be that as it may, the level of literacy among the “lower classes” was considerably lower than that of the courtly aristocracy. “Those who could not write out their name, who instead usually simply signed documents with a cross, were counted as illiterate. The results of this approach suggested that in the seventeenth century only roughly 30% of adult men were fully literate, and only 10% of women were. When broken down by social group, the results show considerable divergence across the social scale. Almost 100% of the gentry were literate. The number was around 60% for yeomen (i.e. wealthier farmers) and tradesmen: the groups historians tend to see as the ‘middling sort’ or middle class. But for husbandmen (poorer farmers) and labourers, the percentage that could read and write was only between 15-20%. Put crudely, all gentlemen were fully literate, just over half of middling class men were, but less than 1 in 5 men from the lower classes were. For all classes of women the figure was more like 1 in 10 6 .” These fairly low literacy rates are somewhat surprising, but this information makes Elizabeth Newell’s commonplace book all the more important, seeing as female literacy rates were significantly lower than those of males. Though the manuscript of devotional verse housed at Yale University is the only known record of Newell’s life, it can be assumed that she was of a higher social class and therefore was educated, which would explain her practice of reading and writing in her commonplace book.
Footnotes
1 “The State of Publishing: Literacy Rates.” McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Web. 17 Nov. 2015. <http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/literacy-rates>. Back to text.
2 Kreis, Steven. “The Printing Press.” The History Guide: Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History. 13 Apr. 2012. Web. 15 Nov. 2015. <http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/press.html>. Back to text.
3 “The Invention of Printing.” The Literacy Company. Web. 17 Nov. 2015. <http://www.readfaster.com/articles/invention-of-printing.asp>. Back to text.
4 Griscom, Amanda. “Print: Media and 17th Century Society.” Web. 17 Nov. 2015. <http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/infotech/asg/ag14.html>. Back to text.
5 Marotti, Arthur F. Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995. Back to text.
6 Hailwood, Mark. “‘The Rabble That Cannot Read’? Ordinary People’s Literacy in Seventeenth-Century England.” The Manyheaded Monster. 13 Oct. 2014. Web. 15 Nov. 2015. Back to text.