Authors and their public in ancient times

by George Haven Putnam

The Egyptian literary idea has apparently been thought out in the temple, and it is from the priests that the people receive the record of the doings of its gods and of the immeasurable dynasties of monarchs selected by the gods to express their will, while it is also to the priests that the people must look for instruction concerning the duty of the present.

The Assyrian records read, on the other hand, as if they were the work of royal scribes, writing under the direct supervision of the kings themselves. The gods are described, and their varied relations to the world below are duly set forth. But the emphasis of the narrative appears to be given to the glory and the achievements of such great monarchs as Sargon and Asshurbanipal, as if a long line of scribes, writing directly for the king’s approval, had continued the chronicles from reign to reign.

The early literary and religious ideals of China took a very different form. We find here no priestly autocracy, controlling all intellectual activities and giving a revelation as to the nature of the universe, the requirements of the gods, and the obligations of men, obligations which have never failed to include the strictest obedience to the behests of the priests, the representatives of the gods. There are no court chronicles, dictated under royal supervision, and devoted not to the needs of the people, but to the glorious achievements of the monarchs. Nor is there any great epic, commemorating the deeds of heroes and demi-gods. In place of these we find what may be called a practical system of applied ethics. Confucius was evidently neither a visionary dreamer nor a poet, nor did he undertake to establish any priestly or theological authority for his teaching. He gives the impression of having been an exceptionally clear-headed and capable thinker, who devoted himself, somewhat as Socrates did a century later, to studying out the problems affecting the life of the state and of the individual. With Socrates, however, the chief thing appears to have been the intellectual interest of the problem, while with Confucius, the controlling purpose was evidently the welfare of his fellow-men. It was his aim, as he himself expressed it, through a rewriting of the wise teachings left us by our ancestors, so as to adapt them to the understanding of the present generation, to guide men to wise and wholesome lives, and to prepare them for a better future.[6]

The work of Confucius stands as the foundation-stone of the literature, the morals, and the state-craft of China. It was continued by such writers as Mencius, 350 B.C., and Tsengtze, 320 B.C.

The works of the earlier authors secured, we are told, an immediate circulation, but we have no knowledge as to the methods employed for their distribution. It seems probable that in the earlier as in the later centuries, the authors whose works found approval with the authorities received directly from the state compensation for their literary and philosophic labors.

The material used for the earliest known writings was made from bamboo fibre, and was prepared in the shape of tablets. Early in the third century B.C. (curiously enough, during the reign of Hwang-ti, the destroyer of literature), brushes were invented, with which characters could be traced upon silk. The bamboo was either scratched upon with a sharp stylus, or the characters were painted upon it with a dark varnish. Sometimes also the characters were burned into the bamboo, with a heated metal stylus. India ink was first used in the seventh century. The invention of paper took place about 100 B.C., the first material utilized for the manufacture being bark, fishing-nets, and rags. Printing from solid blocks was done as early as the first century A.D. The invention of the art of printing from movable type is credited to a blacksmith named Pi-Shing. The blacksmith’s first books were turned out towards the close of the tenth century A.D., or early in the eleventh century, more than three centuries before the presses of Gutenberg began their work in Mayence.

The movable type used by Pi-Shing were made of plastic clay. At the same time, or shortly thereafter, porcelain type were utilized. The printing from movable type never seems to have developed to such extent as to supersede block printing. The Emperor Kang-He had engraved about two hundred and fifty thousand copper type, which were used for printing the publications of the government. These type were afterwards melted for use as cash, but were replaced by his grandson with type made from lead.[7]

There is record of books being printed in Corea (at that time a province of the Empire) from movable clay type, as early as 1317 A.D.[8]

Literature has always been an honored profession in China, and seems even in the earliest times to have attracted a larger proportion of workers than, during the same period, were engaged in literary pursuits in any other countries in the world. The mass of literature was very much added to after the introduction of Buddhism into the country, which took place during the first century of the Christian era. Karpeles states that a selection of the early Chinese classics, with commentaries, undertaken under the direction of one of the emperors in the eighteenth century, would, it was calculated, comprise when completed, 163,000 volumes. By the year 1818, there had been published of the series, 78,731 volumes.[9] From this enormous mass of material a few books only stand out as possessing distinctive importance by reason of their influence on the thought and the life of many generations.

There are the five King and the four Schu, or “books.” The term “king” means literally a web, a thing woven, or fabricated. Its use in this connection recalls the ῥαπτός of the Greek rhapsodists, a term which, originally meaning a thing spun or a yarn, came also to stand for a literary production of a certain class, a “yarn” that could be recited. The five King were the “webs” or productions of wise and holy writers, but the names of these writers have not been preserved, even as a tradition. The first in order is the Y-king, already mentioned, the Book of the Developments, which is much the oldest in the series. The second is the Schu-king or Book of Chronicles, which begins its narrative with the time of Noah, and gives the record of the dynasties from 2400 to 721 B.C. In addition to the historical chronicles, the Schu-king contains, in the form of dialogues between the emperors and the councillors, the instruction in the principles of state-craft, in philosophy, in the science of war, in music, in astronomy, and in general culture. The headings of some of the chapters recall the matters treated in The Prince of Machiavelli. The following “royal maxims” do not, however, sound Machiavellian: “Virtue,” says the great councillor Yih, speaking to the emperor, “is the foundation of your realm”; “The ruler must lead his people in the paths of virtue”; “Guard yourself from false shame, and if you have committed an error, hasten to make frank acknowledgment of the same. Otherwise you will mislead your subjects.”[10]