Print capitalism shifted literary production from artisan-peasant life to the leisured classes

Evidence

With the arrival of the printing presses, however,

‘literary’ has come to mean that which we see in printed form, and because of chis privileging of print in a predominantly non-literate society, the social weight in the very process of literary production has shifted towards rhe leisured class and the professional petty bourgeoisie, away from the alrernarive modes of preservation and transmission which do not involve print and are then involved also in modes of evaluation rather different from those of the print culture.

— Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 1127

Categorization

• XREF: This economic-materialist causality (print shifts class locus of cultural production) echoes Ahmad’s central charge that discourse-determinism obscures material/class structure. — connects to: Print capitalism shifted literary authority away from artisanate and peasantry toward elites — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 502; Early printers shifted book production from commission to speculation — Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile History, 171; Realism took root in Indian literature because it matched bourgeois class upheaval — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 1183

Broader Connections

• Print capitalism shifted literary authority away from artisanate and peasantry toward elites #corroborates (1.00) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 502
• Early printers shifted book production from commission to speculation #exemplifies (0.75) — Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile History, 171