Reading and Writing from Below: Exploring the Margins of Modernity Is Also the Title of This Volume, Co-Edited with Anna Kuismin and T

Reading and Writing from Below Exploring the Margins of Modernity Editors: Ann-Catrine Edlund, T. G. Ashplant & Anna Kuismin Ann-Catrine Edlund, T. G. Ashplant, Anna Kuismin (eds.) Reading and Writing from Below Exploring the Margins of Modernity Northern Studies Monographs 4 Vardagligt skriftbruk 4 Published by Umeå University and Royal Skyttean Society Umeå 2016 The editorial board of Vardagligt skriftbruk has selected peer reviewers for this content. © The authors, the series Northern Studies Monographs and Vardagligt skriftbruk. Department of Language Studies, Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå. Design and layout Ord & Co i Umeå AB Fonts: Berling Nova and Futura Paper: Invercote Creato 260 gr and Artic volume high white 115 gr Printed by TMG Tabergs ISBN: 978-91-88466-88-4 Contents Preface .................................................................................................................... 5 Writing Competence – Difficulties, Prejudices and Motives Anna Kuismin. Ploughing with the Pen. Metapoetic Elements in Finnish Nineteenth-Century Peasant Poetry ........................................................................ 9 Ilkka Mäkinen. “The world will be turned upside down, when even the maids are taught to write.” Prejudices Against Teaching All People to Write in Nineteenth Century Finland ................................................................................. 25 Laura Stark. Motives for Writing and Attitudes Regarding Writing Ability Among Rural Commoners in Finland 1840–1900 ....................................................41 Genres and Literacy Practices T. G. Ashplant. The Oral, the Aural and the Written. Genre and Discourse in a British Working-Class Life Narrative .................................................................. 61 Ann-Catrine Edlund. The Songbook and The Peasant Diary. As Participants in the Construction of the Modern Self ................................................................ 77 Anne Heimo. Socialist Endeavors, Fist Presses and Pen Wars. Literacy Practices of Early Finnish Migrants in Australia . 97 Emese Ilyefalvi. ”When you have read my letter, pass it on!” A Special Means of Communication by a Calvinist Minister Between the Two World Wars in Transylvania ...................................................................................................... 115 Matija Ogrin. Manuscripts of Slovenian Peasant Writers and Readers. Genres, Subjects, Reception ................................................................................. 133 Karin Strand. Street Ballads Spreading the Word. The Case of “The Two Maids Who Married Each Other” ......................................................................... 149 Orality and Literacy Marija Dalbello. Reading Immigrants. Immigration as Site and Process of Reading and Writing ............................................................................................169 Marijke van der Wal and Gisjbert Rutten. At the Crossroads. Orality and Literacy in Early and Late Modern Dutch Private Letters .....................................197 Jill Puttaert. Linguistic Hybridity in Nineteenth-Century Lower-Class Letters. A Case Study from Bruges ....................................................................... 215 Literacy and Agency Ann O´Bryan. “Sparse and Multiple Traces”. The Literacy Practices of African-American Pioneers in the Nineteenth-Century Frontier ........................ 237 Ana Rita Leitão. Documentary Evidence in Early Modern Portugal and Overseas. A Window to Literacy Practices . 251 3 Aile Möldre. An Autodidact Agent of Estonian Book Culture. The Case of Tõnu Franzdorf (1862–1940). 269 Mike Sanders. From ‘Technical’ to ‘Cultural’ Literacy. Reading and Writing within the British Chartist Movement ................................................... 285 Contributors . .301 4 Preface The articles in this volume are based on papers given at Reading and Writ- ing from Below: Exploring the Margins of Modernity, a conference held at the Finnish Literature Society and the University of Helsinki from 20 to 22 August, 2014. The main organiser of the conference, which brought together 77 scholars from 15 countries, was the Nordic research project Reading and Writing from Below: Toward a New Social History of Literacy in the Nordic Sphere during the Long Nineteenth Century (NORDCORP, 2011– 2014). The project was steered by Taru Nordlund and Anna Kuismin from the University of Helsinki, M. J. Driscoll from the University of Copen- hagen, Ann-Catrine Edlund from Umeå University and Davíð Ólafsson from University of Iceland. The conference in Helsinki was the third international conference of the Nordic project. The first one was held at Umeå University in 2012, host- ed and organised by the Nordic literacy-network Vernacular Literacies [Var- dagligt skriftbruk]. The proceeding were published in Vernacular Literacies – Past, Present and Future (edited by Ann-Catrine Edlund, Lars-Erik Edlund and Susanne Haugen, Umeå University, 2014). The second conference, The Agents and Artefacts of Vernacular Literacy Practices in Late Pre-modern Eu- rope, was organised with Lena Rohrbach at the Nordeuropa-Institut, Hum- boldt Universität zu Berlin. One of the results of the Nordic project was the collection of articles White Field, Black Seeds: Nordic Literacy Practices in the Long Nineteenth Century, edited by Anna Kuismin & M. J. Driscoll (Finnish Literature Society, 2013). Reading and Writing from Below: Exploring the Margins of Modernity is also the title of this volume, co-edited with Anna Kuismin and T. G. Ash- plant. ‘Modernity’ here is understood to have come into being any time from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, depending on the con- text. By ‘literacy’ is meant not just the ability to read and write but rather the totality of the processes and practices involved in the production, dis- semination and reception of written texts; while the perspective ‘from below’ indicates that the focus is on non-privileged people, their experiences and points of view. The volume includes sixteen articles in four sections focusing on different aspects of the processes and practices of literacy: Writing Competence – Difficulties, Prejudices and Motives; Genres and Literacy Practices; Orality and Literacy; Literacy and Agency. Disciplines that the authors represent include history, ethnology, linguistics, literature and information studies. The articles have been peer-reviewed. The editors wish to thank the ref- erees and the members of the editorial board: Olle Josephson, University of 5 Stockholm, Loftur Guttormsson, Iceland University, Martyn Lyons, UNSW Australia, and Wim Vandenbussche, Vrije University Brussels. Thanks are also due to the Royal Skyttean Society and Magnus Bergvalls stiftelse who have provided financial support for the publication. Ann-Catrine Edlund Editor-in-chief 6 Writing Competence Difficulties, Prejudices and Motives READING AND WRITING FROM BELOW – EXPLORING THE MARGINS OF MODERNITY. UMEÅ 2016. PP. 9–24 ANNA KUISMIN Ploughing with the Pen Metapoetic Elements in Finnish Nineteenth-Century Peasant Poetry ABSTRACT. For Finnish nineteenth-century peasant poets, writing was a new technology, the implications of which manifest themselves in several ways in their texts. For example, learning to write is depicted in autobiographical poems, and there are recurring motifs and formulas referring to the act and implements of writing. Apologies for poor writing and the lack in poetic skills are explicitly expressed, and the met- aphor ‘ploughing with the pen’ appears in many texts. In this article, metapoetic references are set in the material and ideological contexts in which the peasant poets practised their craft. The purpose is to il- luminate the ways the metapoetic elements reflect the ruptures of the cultural situation in which the self-taught authors found themselves in a semi-literate society: new audiences were met and social boundaries were shaken. Vernacular literacy practices of the peasant poets met the demands of dominant and institutional literacies in a society involved in the processes of nation building. KEWORDS: nineteenth-century Finland, peasant poets, metapoetic elements, vernacular literacy, nation building, literary history 9 ANNA KUISMIN Introduction “Marked by or making reference to its own artificiality or contrivance”, self-reflexivity is applied to literary works that openly reflect upon their own processes of artful composition. Both this term and metapoetry – “poetry about poetry, especially self-conscious poems that pun on objects or items associ- ated with writing or creating poetry”1 – connote erudition or bookishness, which seem a far cry from the world of Finnish nineteenth-century peasant poets who lived in a semi-literate environment, owned few books and did not always write their texts down. However, self-reflexivity comes in many forms in their texts: there are metapoetic topics, metaphors and formulas2 as well as intertextual references. For example, authors deal with the act, implements and conditions of writing as well as their poetic skills, juxtaposing them with those of the learned classes. I argue that the metapoetic elements in many ways reflect the situation in which peasant poets found themselves – new audiences were met, and social boundaries were shaken. Until the early nineteenth century, Finland had been a part of the Swed- ish kingdom. Secondary schooling was conducted in Swedish, the language of the minority, and the skill of writing was

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