Literary Coteries and the Making of Modern Print Culture

Schellenberg, Betty A.

doi:10.26530/oapen_611255

Cited by 4 publications

References 96 publications

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When a Coterie Becomes a Generation: Intellectual Sociability and the Narrative of Generational Change in Sayyid Qutb’s Egypt

Sabaseviciute

2021

Methodological Approaches to Societies in Transformation

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Departing from the case study of Egyptian intellectuals, focusing particularly on Sayyid Qutb, this chapter explores the relationship between narratives of generational change and cultural renewal. It argues that the observation of intellectual sociability is a productive angle from which to understand the conditions under which generational claims result in the effective reshuffling of the intellectual leadership, aesthetic norms, and principles of intellectual authority. The biography of Qutb (1906–1966), a poet and literary critic who abandoned his literary activity in the mid-1950s to pursue a career in Islamic activism—allows us to observe how the generational narrative articulates with his shifting intellectual networks. As a public intellectual, Qutb was at the forefront of two literary confrontations in early- to mid-twentieth century Egypt in which he made generational claims in order to place himself in the literary tradition that emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century, and later to cut himself off from that tradition by announcing the emergence of a new generation dedicated to political Islam. At the core of these competing uses of generational rhetoric, this chapter argues, is Qutb’s shifting relationship with the senior literary generation, some of whom he had considered his mentors. Departing from the case study, the chapter then argues that collectives defined as generational tend to emerge in tandem with the reshuffling of social bonds that a writer maintains with his seniors, switching from a bond of transmission to one of confrontation. The change announced in the generational narrative is effective when followed by the concrete action of shifting one’s intellectual solidarities from masters to peers, as this is the moment when the masters are abandoned to history and peers are promoted as the new literary generation. Depending on the particular set of relationships in which a writer finds himself, the notion of generation may act as a narrative of either change or tradition.

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When a Coterie Becomes a Generation: Intellectual Sociability and the Narrative of Generational Change in Sayyid Qutb’s Egypt

Sabaseviciute

2021

Methodological Approaches to Societies in Transformation

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The English Mercurie Hoax and the Early History of the Newspaper

Ellis¹

2019

Book History

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In 1794 the Scottish antiquarian George Chalmers (1742-1825) undertook research into the origin of newspapers, "those pleasant vehicles of instruction, those entertaining companions of our mornings" for his biography of the Scottish publisher and scholar Thomas Ruddiman (1764-1757). After assessing the historical evidence, he declared that the first newspaper, which he defined as a regularly printed gazette of news, was English. It may gratify our national pride to be told, that mankind are indebted to the wisdom of Elizabeth and the prudence of Burleigh for the first newspaper. The epoch of the Spanish Armada is also the epoch of a genuine newspaper. In the British Museum, there are several newspapers , which had been printed while the Spanish fleet was in the English Channel, during the year 1588. It was a wise policy, to prevent, during a moment of general anxiety, the danger of false reports, by publishing real information. And the earliest newspaper is entitled, THE ENGLISH MERCURIE, which, by Authority, was "imprinted at London by Christopher Barker, her Highnesses printer, 1588". 1 Although Chalmers noted some oddities about this example (it was printed in "Roman, not in black, letter" and had certain anachronisms), his discovery was celebrated in literary journals and magazines. 2 Over the following decades, it was accepted as authoritative in a series of reference works, beginning with the fifth edition of Isaac Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature (1807), 3 and thereafter the fourth volume of John Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century (1812), 4 Johann Beckmann's Concise History of Ancient Institutions (1823); 5 and from there in various encyclopaedias including Encyclopaedia Londinensis (1820), 6 Encyclopaedia Americana (1832), 7 Brockhaus's Conversations-Lexikon (1832), 8 and Encyclopaedia Metropolitana (1845). 9 There was only one problem with this patriotic discovery: it was a hoax. In 1839 The English Mercurie was exposed as a fake by Thomas Watts (1811-1869), Assistant Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum. His published Letter to Antonio Panizzi Esq Keeper of the Printed Books in the British Museum (dated 16 November 1839) declared that "the claims of the English to the invention of printed Newspapers are unfortunately of no validity, and that the 'earliest Newspaper' in the Museum is an imposture". Rather than merely repeating Chalmers's claim, he had examined the item himself. "On the book being brought, I had not examined it two minutes, before, to my surprise, I was forced to conclude that the whole was a forgery". Consulting with his colleagues, John Winter Jones and Antonio Panizzi, they noticed various "marks of unauthenticity" and declared it was impossible that the printing was from 1588. The English Mercurie was, he concluded, "an imposition". 10 When he returned to the topic of this "spurious production" a decade later, in an article for the Gentleman's Magazine, he was able to identify the author as Philip Yorke, second earl of Hardwicke (1720-1790), from his h...

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Introduction: "The Commerce of Life": Elizabeth Montagu (1718–1800)

Pohl¹

2018

Huntington Library Quarterly

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Literary Coteries and the Making of Modern Print Culture

Cited by 4 publications

References 96 publications

When a Coterie Becomes a Generation: Intellectual Sociability and the Narrative of Generational Change in Sayyid Qutb’s Egypt

When a Coterie Becomes a Generation: Intellectual Sociability and the Narrative of Generational Change in Sayyid Qutb’s Egypt

The English Mercurie Hoax and the Early History of the Newspaper

Introduction: "The Commerce of Life": Elizabeth Montagu (1718–1800)

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