Reading alone was regarded as a dangerous pastime
Woman Reading by Felix Vallotton, from Biblioklept, which has many pictures of people reading.
Reading in bed was controversial partly because it was unprecedented: In the past, reading had been a communal and oral practice. Silent reading was so rare that in the Confessions, Augustine remarks with astonishment when he sees St. Ambrose glean meaning from a text simply by moving his eyes across the page, even while “his voice was silent and his tongue was still.”
Until the 17th and 18th centuries, bringing a book to bed was a rare privilege reserved for those who knew how to read, had access to books, and had the means to be alone. The invention of the printing press transformed silent reading into a common practice—and a practice bound up with emerging conceptions of privacy. Solitary reading was so common by the 17th century, books were often stored in the bedroom instead of the parlor or the study.
“People feared that solitary reading…fostered a private, fantasy life that would threaten the collective.”
Read The Dangers of Reading in Bed in The Atlantic.
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May 25th, 2017 at 03:29
Woman Reading reminds me of Alicia Vikander’s painting of Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl.