Re:C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books
by ArtWomb on Monday December 03, 2018 @06:27PM
(#18594248)
And yet, due to a myriad confluence of historical accidents, there are innumerable texts which become "de-canonized" with the centuries. And are eagerly awaiting a new audience to once again gain reverence.
Consider Caxton's Polycronicon printed at the dawn of movable type, circa 1490. An encyclopedia of universal history, it deserves no less a place on the bookshelf than Gawain, Beowulf or the Mabinogian. But few will make reference to it today. Nor the thousands of other lost texts of the period known as the incunabula, the first half-century of transmission via printing press. A time in history that saw an explosion in literacy and design experimentation.
Consider Caxton's Polycronicon printed at the dawn of movable type, circa 1490. An encyclopedia of universal history, it deserves no less a place on the bookshelf than Gawain, Beowulf or the Mabinogian. But few will make reference to it today. Nor the thousands of other lost texts of the period known as the incunabula, the first half-century of transmission via printing press. A time in history that saw an explosion in literacy and design experimentation.
http://www.psymon.com/