History of Reading

Robert Darnton's History of Reading is an essay which argues that we can find a greater level of meaning in our own lives by developing a greater sense of understanding as to how readers interpreted what they read in the past, and, as readership evolved how did their interpretation of what they read change and affect their lives and cultures. The history of reading encompasses more than a chronology of changes that occurred in the history of reading. It also involves an understanding of how changing readerships interpreted shifting texts. Darnton theorizes that not only changing readerships but also changing texts themselves created different interpretations of them, thereby creating different reactions to reading in different eras, cultures and even within the same one. One example of this is when the works of Congreve underwent a typographical change which, though the text remained in tact from previous versions, changed the nature of the works and represented

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Category: History - H