English 3: Western literature 2
Lesson 1: Introduction
Fact: movable metal type was invented in Korea at least a century before Gutenberg invented it. Wikipedia reports:
The world’s first movable type printing press technology for printing paper books was made of porcelain materials and was invented around AD 1040 in China during the Northern Song Dynasty by the inventor Bi Sheng (990–1051). Subsequently in 1377, the world’s oldest extant movable metal print book, Jikji, was printed in Korea during the Goryeo dynasty. Because of this, the diffusion of both movable-type systems was, to some degree, limited to primarily East Asia, although various sporadic reports of movable type technology were brought back to Europe by Christian missionaries, traders and business people who were returning to Europe after having worked in China for several years and influenced the development of printing technology in Europe. Some of these medieval European accounts are still preserved in the library archives of the Vatican and Oxford University among many others.
But because Korea had ideographic writing, while the West had an alphabet, movable metal type spread rapidly in the West.
Reading assignment: Gutenberg.
This video goes into details on the press.