Vol. 71, no. 18
From papyrus to print to pixel:
Classical studies scholar explains “Why Books Survive”
Well-known Latin literature scholar (that’s veni, vidi, vici, not Central American, Latin), author, former Bryn Mawr Classical Studies professor, and former president of the American Philological Association—not to mention one of Visiting Assistant Professor of History Gordon Kelly’s old professors—Julia Haig Gaisser came to campus last Wednesday to discuss the means and motivations for the transmission of classical texts throughout the ages. Approximately 40 students and faculty attended the lecture.
“Today we have only a small fraction of the great literature of classical antiquity,” Gaisser began. Her lecture, “Why Books Survive: Technology and Taste in the Transmission of Classical Texts,” addressed the basic question of why some ancient texts survive and others have been lost, even those of high literary quality and popularity.
The reason for such a great loss, Gaisser suggested, has to do with two primary factors: popularity and taste, and also technology. Gaisser cited three examples of surviving ancient authors—Virgil (“an instant classic”), Apuleius (“half of an odd couple”) and Catullus (“a mysterious survivor”)—as three disparate but important ways in which texts managed to survive the press of time and the always-evolving means of transmission.
Papyrus rolls are the first media to which each of these three authors can be traced. Virgil was by far the most well-known. The Aeneid was known “from Britain to North Africa,” Geisser said, during his lifetime. His work was preserved in ar,t plays, school textbooks, even, curiously enough, by the handwriting practice of young Latin students, made to write lines from Virgil over and over.
Sometime during the first century, a new form of book—the codex, which more closely resembles a modern book, with two covers and pages—began to become standard practice for texts. In order to preserve books in the new format, many libraries and families hired scribes to hand-copy their papyrus rolls into a codex. But this process of copying was a time-consuming and costly process, thus ensuring that only the books considered most valuable and important at the time made the transition.
Virgil, as well-known and as popular as he was, “passed [from roll to codex] with flying colors and barely a scratch,” Gaisser said. In fact, so many people took the trouble of having Virgil’s books hand-copied from roll to codex that by 1500, over 160 widely published editions of Virgil had been printed in Europe.
This was not, however, the case for all ancient texts, which depended on their perceived literary quality and continuing popularity in order to be copied by hand into a codex. Although Virgil’s work lasted, many highly-regarded literary texts were lost, Gaisser pointed out, simply because they were not “in fashion” during the transition, and hence never properly transferred into codex.
Gaisser’s second case study, the writer Apuleius, whose literary “other half” was the much more well-known author and philosopher Augustin, survived the ages not because of his overwhelming popularity, like Virgil, but because of Augustin’s interest in his philosophical work.
Augustine’s discussion of Apuleius’ work ensured that his philosophical works and also his novel The Golden Ass would be preserved through the ages.
The works of the poet Catullus are an even more confusing and mysterious saga. There is literally no route though which to trace the writing of Catullus into the print age, save to say that at some point Catullus’ manuscripts washed up somewhere near the Mediterranean and were preserved by owners and printers from papyrus roll to codex and finally to print as it is today.
The next great transition for the transmission of texts, Gaisser said, is obviously from print to computer, and like the transitions from roll to codex and codex to print, “we have to expect losses.”
The computer, Gaisser said, is undoubtedly “the Noah’s Ark of new technology.” But what texts will make the transition? Those texts whose sustained literary quality and popularity have endured through the centuries will certainly be transcribed, scanned, or otherwise preserved in digital format. But what about all the neglected books sitting in library archives printed on acid paper, Gaisser wondered—will anyone go through the considerable trouble of transcribing them online? And, if not, what sort of resource are we depriving future generations of not only readers but researchers?
Ultimately, Gaisser suggested, what we risk at any transition between media is the loss of not only the texts themselves but their history. As many papyrus rolls were transcribed into codex, many of the papyrus roll originals were thrown away by careless printers or owners who thought they were no longer needed. The same principle goes for any transition in the preservation of texts; once there is a transition to a new format, is the old format really necessary anymore?
For researchers and curious readers, of course, the answer is yes. Take the book in which Keats supposedly hand-wrote the poem “This Living Hand.” Both the book itself and the hand-written poem could be transcribed into digital format, but the original book, complete with Keats’ handwriting, is still in itself necessary. Handwritten drafts of Emily Dickenson poems could be typed into a computer, but it’s still necessary to preserve these drafts so that some eager scholar, some day—even if hundreds of years in the future—can look back to the most original copy, in case some elusive, non-transferable Dickenson secret might be contained within.
Virgil, Apuleius, and Catullus all survived the transition from papyrus to pixel. It’s an important question to ask, Gaisser said, what texts will survive the latest transition from print to .pdf, including such overlooked “texts” as grocery receipts, to-do lists, and recipes. All of these, she argued, could be important to future readers and researchers.
“How many of these books, trash to some, treasures to history, will make the transition to the digital age?” Gaisser asked. Judging from past precedent, we must expect losses. But the imperative, Gaisser suggested, is to work as hard as possible to preserve texts, no matter how valuable or worthless they may seem, for future generations.
“Now,” she said, “I hope you go home and take care of your books.”