Greenblatt The Swerve Analysis

There has been a long tradition in manuscript and print culture, and that tradition is associated with the act of writing, transferring the product of the human intellect and imagination on a tangible that will carry it to distant places and distant times. The book as we know it extends past the life of its author the life of its language, it was written, and the style of art of its content. An Analyses of Greenblatt’s the swerve argues that the defiance of religion is what leads to the change from manuscript culture to print culture. The printing press allowed for the world to develop from manuscript culture to print culture but this change would have happened regardless of the technological advances due to the protestant reformation. In …show more content…
This poem itself goes against the church, Therefore it should have never been archived in the monastery, for a manuscript of its contents to be surrounded by other manuscripts should be compared to keeping a criminal who has been convicted of unlawful actions to be left in regular society. The discovery that Poggio had in the monastery should be categorized a swerve in which it definitely was the moment in history when the world began to change to become the modern world we now live in. Greenblatt discusses how the concentration of intellect and education was centered on the printing presses and cities that have invested interest in any sort of print. The spread of print was associated to the creation of the printing press, but this was not the main driver in the change from …show more content…
Greenblatt indicates throughout the story the revolution of consciousness caused by the poem leads us to the modernity we now live in. Though Greenblatt argues the curiosity that inhabited the mind of Poggio led to the spread of print culture I believe it was the studious personality and obsession with learning is what Poggio spread which in fat then began to spread. The poem of Lucretius let out that pleasure could be found in reading text. The technology that was advancing during their time was a smaller influences for the change in the culture around them. The friends of Poggio spread the text of Lucretius but what they were really spreading was the beginning stages of having a hobby, and this hobby happened to be reading text. Poggio becomes the protagonist who breaks the barrier in the transition period, the medieval manner states that curiosity is banned by the roman church, but Poggio transitioned the curiosity to the desire for intellect acquired by books. Greenblatt highlights the monastery where the church had monks creating manuscripts and archiving of intelligence was the foundation entirely for the continuous creating of text