Gutenblog

Martin Scriblerus in his notes to The Dunciad by Alexander Pope:

"We shall next declare the occasion and the cause which moved our Poet to this particular work. He lived in those days when (after providence had permitted the Invention of Printing as a scourge for the sins of the learned) Paper also became so cheap, and printers so numerous, that a deluge of authors covered the land: Whereby not only the peasce of the honest unwriting subject was daily molested, but unmerciful demands were made of his applause, yea of his money, by such as would neither earn one, or deserve the other; At the same time, the Liberty of the Press was so unlimited, that it grew dangerous to refuse them either: For they would forthwith publish slanders unpunish’d, the authors being anonymous; nay the immediate publishers thereof lay sculking under the wings of an Act of Parliament, assuredly intended for better purposes."

It is interesting how technologies go through the same transitions over the course of history. Printing created "a deluge of authors". Are we not in a time when a new "deluge" exists?

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