Print Culture in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

At the beginning of XIXth century, "literature" referred broadly to almost any written printed text. Since the end of the century, it points out precisely to an esthetic fact, produced by an author, and which has distinctive well-known features. This change is one of the most outstanding signs of the transformations brought on by printed and typographic culture. In Argentina, as in many urban centers along the Americas, periodical press led that transformation. Thus, it was because of the book, but because of the "periodic device" and its most remarkable relatives and byproducts -newspapers, leaflets, pamphlets, illustrated weeklies, massive and high-culture magazines- that literature reached its readers. Periodical press was not only the main support for literature in all its genres, but also a very efficient delivery system for making a national literature. Even more important, it became a powerful way to shape a literary imagination and all its written products while appealing to a growing reading public, and training it with specific abilities. Hence, through some particular material, formal and discursive traits, and with some specific textual types -such as serial essays and literary reviews- press both started and boosted the essential processes for literary modernization in Argentina. Literary autonomy, the professional status of literary writers and the rising of massive reading audience cannot be understood without considering first the role of the press in them.This essay seeks to outline all this phenomena and to highlight certain cases that show how the developments and the drifts of print culture framed some of the most significant works of Argentinean literature.