What Books Taste Like

Jonathan P Lamb

doi:10.14434/tc.v14i1.32841

Abstract

This paper explores the language of book taste in early modern England to argue that a key shift occurred in Francis Bacon’s famous aphorism about eating books: “Some bookes are to bee tasted, others to bee swallowed, and some few to bee chewed and digested: That is, some bookes are to be read only in partes; others to be read, but cursorily, and some few to be read wholly and with diligence and attention.” Writers for the next century would quote and adapt this line, a process that would culminate in a shift from “taste” in the sense of sample to “taste” in the sense of discrimination and distinction.

Highlights

Today, I would like to add a red-letter date to the history of the book: 1597
If there was a print culture before 1700, it existed in the sense that books signified
Rather than a print culture, which has an uneasy metonymical relationship with the press, we might speak of a bookish culture, in which books acquired a set of durable associations

Summary

Introduction

I would like to add a red-letter date to the history of the book: 1597. The 1590s already represent a crucial turning point in what some call print culture. It’s one thing to swallow a book, but to chew on it, to read it with attention — that’s digestion. What begins as a statement about books, the grammatical subject of the sentence, becomes a statement about readers, the agents who effect the distinction between tasting, swallowing, and chewing.

Results

Conclusion