Introduction: Print takes over
Rachel’s post on the publication of theEncyclopedia Britannicacalls attention to both the rapid accretion of information in the 18th century and the almost obsessive determination to print and distribute that new knowledge. The first edition of the Encyclopedia, published after 1771, formed three volumes (eventually sold as a set) and grouped information by topic, rather than alphabetically. The second edition was begun only six years after the first (1777), and yet formed ten volumes upon its completion. The authors were literally pulling large sections of text directly from the publications of contemporary thinkers, including Ben Franklin, and directly reprinting them for distribution. After reading through Ben Franklin’s writings on his numerous experiments, I think the authors of an Encyclopedia musthave been overwhelmed by an incredible influx of new ideas. For some reason their plight brings to mind this video clip—no time to rewrite or edit, just print it, quickly, before more ideas roll in!
This fascination with recording and distributing ideas during the Enlightenment led to new enthusiasm for the medium of print in general. People were no longer content to leave the printed word to academia; the quantity and variety of books and newspapers greatly increased. As printbegan to gain ascendency as the preeminent mode of communication, it was not content to stick to its original genus. In the way the Internet has begun to consume and incorporate traditional media-sharing vehicles, the 18th century witnessed a vast expansion in the nature of print. The medium began to “gobble up”(Cervantes) the aesthetics of other forms of communication like letters, speeches and dialogs. For example, the Encyclopedia Britannica took Franklin’s ideas, many of which were originally put forth in the form of letters to other scientists, and turned them into printed material. In this final blog post, I chose to explore the different ways in which many of the printed materials we have read as a class seek to embody or even masquerade as other types of communication.
Letters: Written to one, read by all
Over the course of the semester, we have read a large number of printed materials meant for mass distribution that are disguised asletters. The prominence of letters rose during the 18th century due to the spectacular development of the postal system and an upsurge in general literacy (Bragg, 2007). It is no surprise then, that the medium of print soon assumed this method of communication as an alternative written format in the quest to spread ideas.
The transformation of letters into printed material clearly altered the function and message of this time-honored form of communication. Letters, in their most traditional sense, are inherently personal. When ideas are placed in the context of a letter, it is customarily understood that the reader is gaining a privileged view of the psychology of the author (Bragg, 2007). There is an informality and frankness to letters not present in formal essays and declarations. In contrast, when letters are printed in a newspaper or novelthe reader is aware from the beginning that the ideas within are intended for a mass audience. Yet many of the printed letters of the Enlightenment are able to maintain the candid nature of a more personal message. In this sense, printed letters fulfilled a purpose that other, official modes of print could not.
The most notable offender in print’s absorption of the epistolary format is obviously Ben Franklin himself. As a newspaperman and master of voice, Franklin both authored and printed numerous letters meant for mass circulation. He understood that even when obviously fictitious, the lack of ceremony the characterized printed letters held mass appeal. In this vein, many of his letters are obviously ironically humorous in content and tone. His letter on “Rules for the New-England Courant” puts forth a host of rules for a newspaper that are comically impossible to implement. The rules include avoiding the tendency to cast judgment on the religious, the influential, and actually just the whole country in general. It is signed, “Your hearty Friends and Well-wishers.” Clearly, Franklin’s readership would have understood that the letter was written as a sarcastic response to criticism. If Ben’s readers were are anything like the public today, who prefer fake news to real news, they probably would have favored this form of response to a formal essay addressing grievances against the New-England Courant. Though perhaps the printed letter is not personal in a literal sense, the inside joke that Franklin shares with his audience actually makes the reader feel quite privileged—thus keeping with the historical character of the epistolary format.
The Silence Dogood letters serve a different function for Franklin:allowing him to interact with his readers as a “voice of the people” and merge with the public discourse (Warner, 117). The transparently fictional nature of Dogood’s name, rather than detracting from the social observations in the letters, adds anonymityand honesty. Regardless of whether or not readers thought 16-year-old Franklin was a middle-aged woman, they knew whoever was writing the letters was publically anonymous. That measure of secrecy seems to create an aura of integrity around ‘her’ observations, because they are not self-serving. Additionally, this persona allows Silence to eavesdrop around Boston and stay intimately connected to current opinion. In fact, Jess’s post from September 12 points out that readers grew so attached to Dogood that when she disappeared the Courant’s readerhip actively sought her out. Dogood is an on the ball, no-nonsense observer—a role Franklin would play his entire life—and though the letters are public, she seems more like a shrewd neighbor who lets you in on her estimations than an official critic. The epistolary format allows Franklin to pull this off while endeavoring to correct the foolishness he saw all around him.
In a post on September 13, Alex Tapper wondered if Franklin’s assumption of a persona constituted a breach of honesty because he is effectively lying about his identity. I do agree that the tactic is a bit devious, for by assuming the persona of a stranger, cultural critics like Franklin could strengthen their influence by making it seem as though they came from a neutral source, while also avoiding public criticism (Callaway, 35). However, taking on a pseudonym and writing in the form of a letter also reinforces Franklin’s argument, because it implies a sort of personalization and reliability of content. If Franklin had put his own name on the letters, there is no doubt that they would not have been published in the first place, but they also would have attracted more attention to the history of the author than then the commentary. These types of letters were common in the early 18th century (Bragg, 2007) and I think the audience would have expected and even looked forward to some layer of fiction, as long as the letters were apt and clever.
Printed Dialogue: An outsider’s perspective
In addition to printed letters, we have also read several snippets of fictional dialogue this year. At its core, dialogue is the communication of information between people—when printed material is presented as a dialogue it significantlycomplicates that simple communication. The act of printing a dialogue deliberately extends the exchange of ideas beyond the immediate speakers to include an unknown readership. This intentional inclusion of an audience through the act of printing makes a dialogue intrinsically self-conscious, because it is necessarily printed to inform or instruct others.
Obviously, the dialogueswe read in this course are far different than the ancient philosophical dialogues of Plato, Cicero, and Lucian and they are much less formal than the popular dialogues of the Renaissance period (Heitsch and Vallee, xiv). The dialogues we have looked at are informal and are integrated into larger pieces of writing. They do notself-consciously seek to enlighten us by driving towards some obvious and predetermined conclusion. However, despite being written in a more casual tone than the instructional, theoretical writings of earlier periods, even the dialogues we’ve read seem to entail a certain level of pedagogy.
One of the first dialogues we looked at this semester was between Crusoe and Friday in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. In this dialogue, Crusoe educated Friday on the existence of God and the devil while Friday peppers him with questions about their relative strength. Friday wonders why God, if stronger than the devil, has not yet killed the devil. At first, Crusoe falters and pretends he does not heat the question, but then he eventually responds that God will eventually cast the devil down into a fiery pit, but not kill him. Friday seems satisfied with this half-answer, but Crusoe sends him away in order to pray for help in Friday’s religious instruction.
This conversation is complicated further by the fact that Robinson Crusoe is an epistolary novel and the dialogue is consequentlycontrived on two different levels. First, because the dialogue is in print, we are aware that it is fictional and designed by Defoe in order to enlighten us in some way. Second, because Crusoe ‘writes’ the novel after he has returned to England, the dialogue has necessarily been reconstructed from the character’s memory, edited, and presented as accurate. The knowledge the reader takes away from reading the dialogue is what Defoe wants us to believe that Crusoe wants us to take away from it. The passage of information between two people has been turned into something intended to provoke self-exploration in a third party (us). It seems that Crusoe’s commitment to God is real, but Defoe renders him unable to satisfactorily answer Friday’s questions, implying that Crusoe’s commitment to God is somehow less genuine than he would have us think.
Another printed dialogue we read this year was between a virtuous almoner and a rather sexually liberal Tahitian man named Oruo. In Denis Diderot’s Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville, which was printed in 1772, we are presented with a dialogue praising the naturalness of sexual pleasure. Orou is endowed with “a tender heart and an innocent soul unacquainted with either mistrust or remorse,” and accordingly, asks the Almoner to knock up his last virgin daughter (Diderot, 267). The almoner, ever the gentleman, replies that morality and religion prevent such an act. This dialogue is more formal than Defoe’s, and ends on a relatively conclusive note as Orou convincingly explains the absurdity of religious establishments and laws.
Though both dialogues involve the presentation of a unexpected perspective on accepted English custom, Diderot’s goal in printing this dialogue is much more obvious than Defoe’s decision to include Friday’s direct questioning of Crusoe in his novel. Diderot was known to disagree with established moral customs and the extended speech of Orou does not even affect to mimic conversational tone. Perhaps Diderot chose this form of printed expression, rather than an essay on the absurdity of organized religion, because through Orou he can force his audience to assume an outsider’s perspective on their own traditions. This form of print is more interestingthan one more article bashing the establishment.
I think it safe to argue that every printed dialogue we have read this year is employed to assert an outsider’s perspective on common English assumptions—a common theme in Enlightenment writing. I do not have the space here to address the many dialogues that take place in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels but as anyone familiar with the text can attest, many of them serve a similar purpose. Franklin also used this medium to express and outsider’s point of view to English readers in his Conversation on Slavery. Evidently, as this medium of verbal communication was absorbed into print, it gave authors an outlet not only to hold imaginary debates with their readers, but also to offer up the worldview of another without fear of pretention or judgment.
Speech: The reader as a bystander
As print assumed the look and feel of dialogue, it also took on another form of oratory: public speaking. Printed text that seeks to impersonate rhetoric holds very different implications for the reader than the reprinting of speeches that were actually spoken in real life. This method of print allows writers to express their thoughts eloquently but anonymously. By printing their words in a speech spoken by a character, writers can distribute their ideas in a way that is similar to printed letters or dialogues while avoiding the necessary trappings that come with pretending you do not have an audience. Unlike the personal nature of letters and dialogues, speeches are meant to convince or explain a set of ideas to previously identified addressees. Printed, fictional rhetoric must necessarily have the same aim. This means that the author can un-self-consciously address the reader as their judge and jury, without attaching their name and prejudices to the speech.
However, when printing a fictional speechthe author is given a significant advantage over actual rhetoric in that they can create a public reaction to the speech before it has even begun. This semester we read the Speech of Miss Polly Baker, written anonymously by Franklin in 1747 in London’s General Advertiser. Miss Baker’s speech defending her fifth bastard pregnancy to a court in Connecticut is given a short forward, which sets the stage for our interpretations. Franklin prefaces the discourse by letting the audience know that the speech they are about to read is so persuasive that not only were the charges against Miss Baker dropped, but indeed one of the judges asked to marry Polly the next day. From the start, the audience is expecting to be won over.It is the 18th century equivalent of watching a video on Youtube with a really compelling title like “YOU’RE GOING TO LAUGH SO HARD,” rather than being asked to evaluate the humor of said video while you watch it.
Using Miss Baker’s voice, Franklin is able to effectively argue for the abolition of laws against pregnancy out of wedlock. Rather than writing a dissertation on the unjust nature of these laws, Franklin translates speech into print and can argue the case from the perspective of a woman most compellingly afflicted by them. However, because the speech is a work of fiction, the woman Franklin creates is beautifully spoken, economically astute, and persuasive—oh, and she also happens to have five illegitimate but charming children. El Leon does a great job of describing Franklin’s more general use of storytelling to make a point in his post from September 14.
Miss Baker’s entire speech overturns popular opinion about the laws, and ends with the statement that if anything, a statue should be erected in her honor. As Scott Singer discusses in his post from September 15, the speech is an example of how,“for the first time, it seems, the Enlightenment is giving not just a voice, but a powerful, influential voice, to the common man, and through the explosion of mediation during this era, Polly's exploits surely made their way beyond the scope of [the publication].” Obviously, Franklin’s use of the medium of speech is inherently more effective when translated into print material. He is able to use his gifts—rhetoric and writing abilities—and strengthen them by putting them in the hands of a character that can emotionally sway her audience.
Conclusion: From encyclopedia to wikipedia
Print’s ability to assume these different modes of communication added variety to Enlightenment texts and challenged authors like Ben Franklin to transform every form of interaction into comprehensible, distributable print media. I believe the boom of print mirrors the rise of the Internet in recent decades as the primary mode of human interaction and idea sharing. During the 18th century, print was means not only to share knowledge with a large audience, but also to collect and categorize information. Today, we use the Internet for the same purposes and it has also managed to “gobble up” all other forms of communication: video, telephone, radio, letters, dialogues, dictionaries and almost every other mode of human communication have been reinvented by the Internet. We have adapted to these new hybrid forms much the way Enlightenment readers did, by engaging with the new content and eventually, making our own. I believe the “publish” button on our class blog is a tribute to this idea. The Internet has found a way to transform the format of personal diary into a public forum, much the way print transformed private letters into public declarations. We are like the publishers of the Encyclopedia Britannica, gathering and synthesizing information as fast as we can before some new idea comes to distract us.
Sources
Alex Tapper. “An Exercise in, and Persuasion!” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Age of Enlightenment. Blogger, Sept. 13, 2011.
Bragg, Melvin. “Episolary Literature.” In Our Time. BBC. March 15, 2007. Radio.
Click here to listen
Calaway, Jared. “Benjamin Franklin and TransgenderalPseudonymity,” Constructing the Past: Vol. 3: 2002: Iss. 1, Article 5.http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/constructing/vol3/iss1/5
Cervantes, Gaberiel. Via email. Dec. 12, 2011.
Diderot, Denis. “Enjoyment and Tahiti”. The Portable Enlightenment Reader, 1st ed. Isaac Kramnick. New York: Penguin, 1995. 265-274.
El Leon. “Proper Law and Order.” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Age of Enlightenment. Blogger, Sept. 14, 2011.
Heitsch, Dorothea and Vallee, Jean-Francios. “Printed Voices: The Renaissance Cutlure of Dialogue”. Canada: University of Toronto Press Inc., 2004. x-xvi.
Jess Wisiackas. “The Value of Anonymity.” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Age of Enlightenment. Blogger, Sept. 12, 2011.
Scott Singer. “A Man’s World.” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Age of Enlightenment. Blogger, Sept. 15, 2011.
Rachel H. “Encyclopedia Brittanica.” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Age of Enlightenment. Blogger, Nov. 29, 2011.
Warner, Michael. “Franklin and the Letters of the Republic.” Representations, No. 16 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 110-130.
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