as the language of forms. And this structuralist approach to 
experience engenders the awareness that “unconsciousness in 
relation to the one who knows is nonexistence.” (85) That is to 
say, that in so far as print structured language and experience 
and motivation in new ways not recognized in conscious ways, 
life was impoverished by mesmerism. Earlier in this volume, 
Shakespeare was shown as providing his contemporaries with a 
working model of print technology in action. For the separation 
of functions by mechanical inertia is the foundation of movable 
types and applied knowledge in all domains. It is a technique of 
reduction to a single level of problems, talents, and solutions 
alike. Thus Dr. Johnson “was scandalized by the untimeliness of 
many of Shakespeare’s puns. For a character to quibble in the 
teeth of death, as many do in the plays, was contrary to 
‘reason, propriety and truth’.”  (86)