home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Understanding McLuhan
/
Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
/
pc
/
mcluhan.dxr
/
08667_Field_TCGG T432.txt
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1996-04-10
|
935b
|
16 lines
in our attitude towards the book and in our appraisal of
different literary activities, that it requires some effort of
historical imagination to realize vividly the very different
conditions under which books were produced, acquired,
disseminated, and procured in medieval times. I must ask
you to be a little patient in following some of the
reflections I am about to set down which may well appear
to be obvious and self-evident. But it can hardly be denied
that these material conditions are much too often lost
sight of in discussing literary problems of the Middle Ages,
and that our mental inertia tends to make us apply
criteria of value and of conduct to the writers of medieval
books which have originated in our minds under totally
different modern conditions. (p. 89)
Not only was private authorship in the later print