Western Civilization II / Unit 6 WC2 0505 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Reading Public, the Novel, and the Vernaculars
Captions available
The idea
Urban literate classes grew: the bourgeoisie, and artisans and petty merchants schooling their sons. A book market, official and pirated, fed them; the novel became the century's fiction; newspapers and cheap print made a public sphere; and state vernaculars spread far from the capitals.
In practice
By the seventeen eighties a generation argued politics in official French.
Where people slip
Literacy rose but stayed a minority.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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