William Caxton
William Caxton (* around 1422 in the county of Kent ; † 1491 in Westminster ) was the first English printer and at the same time worked as a publisher and translator . He is considered an important sculptor and reformer of the English language , as he knew how to develop a modern and uniform English from the various dialects in his prints and translations .
biography
Due to the sparse available sources, no reliable information can be given about Caxton's childhood and early adolescence. Even the year of his birth can only be roughly determined. The first documented evidence of his life is when he joined the London cloth merchant Robert Large as an apprentice in 1438. The master died on April 24, 1441, before Caxton had finished his commercial apprenticeship. The fact that Large gave the young Caxton generous consideration in his will speaks for a good relationship between master and apprentice. It is not known with which new teacher he finally finished his training.
What is certain is that Caxton came to Flanders in the early 1440s . In Bruges , then the center of the European cloth and wool trade , he was extremely successful as a merchant and in 1463 was elected head of the Merchant Adventurers, the foreign organization of English merchants. As Acting Governor of the English Nation beyond the Sea, he was an influential diplomatic mediator in the relationship between England and the Dukes of Burgundy ruling in Flanders, which is important for the cloth trade, but which is definitely prone to conflict . Due to Caxton's negotiating skills, the protracted trade controversy finally came to a solution, the climax of which was the marriage of the English Princess Margaret of York with Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy in 1468.
A little later, Caxton joined the new Duchess's entourage. It is very likely that he was her secretary and court librarian . This position allowed him to head the valuable library of the Burgundian dukes and gave him ample opportunity to pursue his passion for books and literature. During his time at the court, he also worked on his first book project. Raoul le Fevre's well-known French-language summary of stories about the Troy myth inspired Caxton to translate them into English. He began work on it in Bruges and, according to his own statements, finished it in Cologne in September 1471 . In fact, his presence in Cologne is documented for the years 1471/1472.
Even if nothing more is known about the original motivation for this stay, it was of decisive importance for Caxton's further life. From the records of his future successor Wynkyn de Worde it can be deduced that William Caxton learned the printing trade in Cologne . However, he set up his first own print shop with his business partner Colard Mansion in Bruges. It was there in 1474 that The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troy , the first printed book in the English language, was written. In the following year, the work, which Caxton had translated himself, was brought for publication. Due to the great similarity of the types used, it is assumed that Caxton and his partner obtained their type material from the printer Johann Veldener in Löwen .
After he had learned to print in Cologne and was able to set up his first book project in Bruges, Caxton decided in 1476 to return to England. In Westminster, which at that time was an independent district that did not belong to London, he set up the first printing works on English soil. Due to precise analyzes of the types and the paper used , incunabula research has succeeded in clarifying the previously controversial order of Caxton's prints, all of which appeared without a title page and in many cases without a date in colophon or incipit . The first printed matter produced in England was therefore a letter of indulgence . The first major work is likely to have been the Canterbury Tales by the English author Geoffrey Chaucer .
There is no doubt that the introduction of printing was of great cultural and historical importance for England. As an experienced businessman, Caxton also saw the business prospects that the innovative technology offered. Thanks to its cooling deliberative business acumen and good contacts with the social elites developed his Offizin into a prosperous enterprise. Access to the medium of the book, previously largely reserved for the nobility and clergy , has now also been made available to wealthy bourgeois circles through Caxton's work .
In the spring of 1491 the first English printer died in Westminster and was buried in St. Margaret's Church. His employee Wynkyn de Worde then took over the management of the print shop.
plant
Scope of the work
To date, 107 individual pamphlets have become known that were produced in William Caxton's workshops. Six titles are assigned to his Bruges shop. The circulation figures are likely to be to settle to 400 copies, depending on the size of the work at the 300th More than a dozen of Caxton's pamphlets reached a second edition. It should be noted that, due to the incomplete source material, it cannot be said with certainty how many incunabula Caxton's printing works actually produced. But the number of known plants already speaks for a fairly high productivity. In view of the high workload and the not inconsiderable physical requirements of the printing trade, it is assumed that William Caxton, for reasons of age, mainly left the manual business to his employees and concentrated on his talents as a publisher and translator.
Publishing program
Caxton's publishing program shows clear differences from the concepts of other printer-publishers of the incunable period. While a large part of his professional colleagues specialized in works of classical antiquity or published writings on theology and philosophy in Latin , Caxton concentrated on the needs of his English readership, which he wisely recognized. He printed 74 of his 107 known works in English. In doing so, he resorted to both the writings of English authors and translations. In over twenty cases, Caxton translated foreign-language text bases himself into his mother tongue .
However, the first English printer did not completely dispense with Latin titles. He also brought out pamphlets in the world language of scholars and clergy. For the most part, however, these were texts that served practical use in worship and community life, such as B. prayer books , psalteries , liturgical instructions and also letters of indulgence. Caxton rarely printed French-language titles.
What is striking about Caxton's publishing program, in addition to the high proportion of English-language fonts, is the diversity of the content published. In contrast to most of the other printers of his time, who focused their attention on Latin and Greek classics , William Caxton relied on a different thematic spectrum. Secular entertainment literature in English made up a large part of his program . These were mostly stories from antiquity (e.g. The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troy , History of Jason ) or chivalrous and romantic tales (e.g. Godefrey of Boloyne ). In many works, the entertaining aspects were also combined with philosophical and moral instructions, for example in the Dictes of the Philosophers or the edition of Aesop's Fables . Caxton's second book on the game of chess ( The Game and Playe of the Chesse ), which was still printed in Bruges , was a translation of a work by Jacobus de Cessolis , and cleverly combined teaching and entertainment. Caxton also printed historical and geographical writings (e.g. Chronicles of England , Mirror of the World ) and the first legal book in English, the Statutes of Henry VII . He also brought out a large number of other pamphlets with different contents, including the liturgical texts already mentioned, but also school books or instructions on court etiquette .
The English classics
William Caxton earned a great deal of attention and lasting service to the mediation of English literature by promoting the literary classics of the English Middle Ages . He printed important works by well-known local authors such as John Gower (e.g. Confessio Amantis ), John Lydgate (e.g. Life of our Lady ) or Sir Thomas Malory ( Le Morte d'Arthur ). Caxton felt a particular appreciation for the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, of which he printed a large selection and brought it to the edition (e.g. The Canterbury Tales , Troilus and Criseyde , Boethius , Book of Fame ). Caxton's admiration for this author was always clearly expressed in the prefaces and afterwords to his works. The sincerity of his enthusiasm for Chaucer's art can also be seen in the fact that after discovering that his first edition of the Canterbury Tales of 1476 was based on an erroneous text , Caxton spared no expense or effort and in 1483 a new, improved edition of it brought out significant work, which was also illustrated .
Economic conception
However, it would be a mistake to conclude from Caxton's passionate commitment to the English classics that as a printer, publisher and editor he was primarily guided by lofty idealism. Even wherever he pursued his own literary preferences, Caxton was always concerned with what was useful and expedient. His promotion of the English language and literature was not based solely on personal preferences, but was also the result of sober commercial considerations of the English market. William Caxton realized that the demand for Latin and Greek classics was already adequately met by the work of his printer colleagues and that English-language entertaining literature was much more suited to the needs of his audience. As a result, he mainly printed what his contemporaries willingly accepted and promised good sales. The works of his printing works are by no means characterized by particular beauty or splendid furnishings. Caxton, who printed his Latin scripts in Gothic types and the English-language titles in Bastarda , did not produce books for bibliophiles , but those works that met with widespread demand and promised good profits. It is precisely this commercial rationality that contributed decisively to the fact that the first English printer, unlike many of his professional colleagues, did not fail due to economic difficulties, but was successful as a businessman.
Significance for the development of the English language
William Caxton's cultural-historical importance does not arise solely from his role as a pioneer of English printing and his success as a particularly skillful printer of the incunable era. Caxton also made lasting contributions to the development of the English language. He is regarded as an important sculptor and reformer of his mother tongue, as his work as a printer and his work as a translator and editor made a decisive contribution to the development of a modern and uniform standard English language . Caxton's achievements for the English language are therefore quite comparable with the achievements that Martin Luther earned through his translation of the Bible for German and Dante Alighieri with his literary work for Italian .
The starting position for Caxton, who programmatically focused on English-language literature, was definitely problematic. In England at that time, there was an enormous variety of different local dialects, which ultimately culminated in an arbitrary language and spelling . Caxton was faced with the difficult task of revising the texts before him so that they could be understood throughout the country. He orientated himself on the most common variant of his mother tongue, namely the dialect used in London and the surrounding area.
Book printing proved to be a suitable instrument for establishing an almost uniform written English language . For the first time, Caxton produced a large number of mechanically produced and therefore completely identical fonts, which were distributed throughout the country. Thus, despite the extremely small print runs for today's standards (approx. 300–400 copies), the new technology represented a factor that should not be underestimated for the further linguistic development in England.
William Caxton's work as a translator also had a not inconsiderable influence on the development of modern English. At least 23 of the works that he brought to print and edition were translated into English by Caxton himself. These writings are therefore likely to have been significantly influenced by the subjective views of their authors with regard to vocabulary and linguistic style. With the spread of literary content, Caxton's model of a contemporary English language always found its way to the reader. Admittedly, the considerable advances that the introduction of book printing meant for the dissemination of literature and educated content could only do little to change the fact that access to the medium of books continued to be reserved for a small, particularly privileged group. However, due to their prominent social position, this exclusive group had a particularly strong influence on the development of high-quality linguistic communication and the development of written English.
The prologues and epilogues that precede and follow the works are particularly successful in terms of style . These contributions, written by Caxton himself, did not only contain the usual information of a colophon or incipit (e.g. author, date, place of printing). These were short and knowledgeable essays that presented the reader with information about the author and work and placed the text at hand in a larger context. The first English printer by no means took a neutral standpoint. The prefaces and afterwords always conveyed subjective evaluations and interpretations. He openly addressed his very personal relationship to the works he had put into print and edition and gave the readership information about the motivation and self-image of the printer, publisher and editor William Caxton. The prologues and epilogues are of particular interest for research into book studies dealing with the incunable period because they contain a variety of anecdotes and reports that can help provide a better insight into the work of a printer of the incunable period and the social circumstances surrounding him to win. Caxton's preface to Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory is rated as particularly noteworthy in terms of language and content . The editing of this work is considered to be of outstanding importance for the communication of English literature.
literature
- Norman F. Blake: William Caxton . Variorum Books, Aldershot 1996, ISBN 0-86078-556-4 .
- Norman F. Blake: William Caxton and English Literary Culture . Hambledon Press, London 1991, ISBN 1-85285-051-5 .
- Harriet Castor: William Caxton . Watts, London 2001, ISBN 0-7496-4317-X .
- Rudolf Hittmair : William Caxton. England's first printer and publisher . Wagner, Innsbruck 1931.
- Charles Knight: William Caxton. The first english printer; a biography . Thoemmes Press, Bristol 1996, ISBN 1-85506-495-2 (reprint of London 1844 edition).
- William Kuskin: William Caxton and the english canon. Print production and ideological transformation in the late 15th. century . University Press, Madison, Wis. 1997.
- George D. Painter: William Caxton. A Quincentenary Biography of England's First Printer . Chatto & Windus, London 1976, ISBN 0-7011-2198-X .
- William Salloch: William Caxton . In: Severin Corsten (ed.): Lexicon of the entire book system (LGB), Vol. 2 . 2nd, completely revised and expanded edition. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-7772-8911-6 , pp. 82-83.
- Leonhard Ennen: Caxton, William . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, p. 77.
- Helmut Wiencke: The language of Caxton. Dissertation Cologne 1929. Tauchnitz, Leipzig 1930.
Web links
- Literature by and about William Caxton in the catalog of the German National Library
- Prints by William Caxton in the complete catalog of incandescent prints
- Digital versions of Caxton's two editions of the Canterbury Tales (1476 and 1483)
- Well-prepared information on life and work (English)
- Game and Playe of the Chesse by William Caxton as an e-book at Projekt Gutenberg (English)
- Works by William Caxton in the complete catalog of incandescent prints
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Caxton, William |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | first English printer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1422 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kent county |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1491 |
| Place of death | London |