Hello, Brandon Mitchell.
Thanks for your question.
I've personally heard this attributed to several people myself, but I
don't give the stories much credence. However, I have heard this
unique accomplishment most frequently attributed to John Milton, and
my money would be on him for several reasons, outlined below.
In order to have read all published books up to a given point, someone
would not only have to have access to all published works, but they
would have to be fluent in all languages in which books had been
published.
Obviously, this person would have to have lived before printing
presses were widely available, because this would keep the sheer
volume of individual books down to a manageable number. The Gutenberg
Press was invented in the 1400s, so conservatively, the availability
of printing presses and the attendant increase in the number of books
available would be around 1600 or thereabouts. See this page for more
information about the history of the printing press:
www.digitalcentury.com/encyclo/update/print.html
And here's a discussion of your question specifically:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-16915,00.html
Some of the possibilities mentioned here are:
Francis Bacon
http://www.orst.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/bacon.html
Samuel Johnson
http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/20.html
G K Chesterton
http://www.chesterton.org/discover/who.html
Immanuel Kant
http://www.knuten.liu.se/~bjoch509/philosophers/kan.html
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
http://www.incompetech.com/authors/coleridge/
John Milton
http://www.incompetech.com/authors/milton/
Now, based on this, Coleridge, Kant, Chesterson, and probably Johnson
are disqualified simply because they were born too late. This leaves
Milton and Bacon.
Both lived during the appropriate time period, and both lived to
respectable ages (dying in their 60s), providing them with the time
necessary to accomplish such a task. Either would be an excellent
candidate, as both were well-read and educated, and seem the type to
hold such an honor.
The reason that the scales tip toward Milton, though, is that he was
known to be fluent in a number of different languages, and even served
in Oliver Cromwell's government as Secretary of Foreign Languages. (I
cannot substantiate this via a web search right now, but I was told by
one of my college professors that he was learning Navajo at the time
of his death.) He was born in the right timeframe, had access to
reading materials, and was capable of reading books in any language he
might have come across.
This page cites several of Milton's languages:
http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/paradiselost/context.html
From this page:
"Milton became fluent in many foreign and classical languages,
including Italian, Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew, French, Spanish,
Anglo-Saxon, and some Dutch."
A search on - "francis bacon" fluent languages - does provide various
references to his fluency in language, but only broadly speaking,
without much substantiation.
I realize that this is not a definitive answer to your question, but
this has been said about many different people at many different
times, and the information is very difficult to substantiate.
However, I do feel pretty confident that, if Milton wasn't in fact the
last person to have read every book published at the time, he is
probably the person most people say that about.
I hope this answer is what you're looking for. If you'd like any more
detail on the information here, please feel free to ask for a
clarification, and I'll see what else I can dig up for you.
Thanks,
Lisa. |
Clarification of Answer by
lisarea-ga
on
22 Aug 2002 15:02 PDT
I hate to do this, Brandon, but I'm afraid I have to ask for a
clarification of your clarification request.
This sounds like some sort of a 'trick' question, as I'm sure this
information is not available in the sense that I originally understood
the question.
Is your school a religious one? If so, the answer could be "God."
Alternately, according to this page, Moses was the first scribe, so if
your teacher is looking for a human with a name, maybe that's it:
http://www.ottmall.com/torah/torah.htm
"Begun in 1990, the painstaking work on this Torah scroll is finally
coming to a close now in 1997, or 5757 years from the Days of
Creation, and 3,309 years since the first Torah scroll was penned at
the dictation of G-d by the first scribe in history, Moses."
If this is a religious school (for Old Testament based religions,
obviously), this could be the answer he's looking for. Or he may be
looking for some Tower of Babel related thing--that is, under the
premise that it was possible for someone to read everything published
prior to the onset of individual languages. So, if these answers are
not correct, and the answer is likely to be religion-based, I'll see
what I can find for you there.
Barring the religious angle, the scribe theory might still be the way
to go. If he is not looking for a name, maybe something like "the
first scribe" would suffice for him.
If you could clarify this further, I'll see what else I can find for
you, but at this point, I'm thinking the question is not what it seems
on the surface.
Thanks,
Lisa.
|
Clarification of Answer by
lisarea-ga
on
22 Aug 2002 15:54 PDT
More possible answers, depending on your history teacher's angle.
Thanks to webadept-ga, a true gentleman and a scholar, for the
approach that the answer could be found in the roots of the written
language. (And to Bethc, a gentlewoman and a scholar.)
By all accounts, written records first appeared in Sumer and Egypt
around 3000 B.C.(E.). See this page for details:
http://www.artifacts.com/03entities.html
And see this page for further detail on Mesopotamian society:
http://www.rickriordan.com/Notes_Mesopotamia.htm
From this page:
"What did they invent?
<...>
cuneiform (wedge-shaped) writing – first kind of written language, on
clay tablets..."
and
"Who were some famous Mesopotamians?
Biography
Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, inspired the first known written story in
human history
Sargon the Mighty, of Akkad, took over all of Mesopotamia. First great
military ruler in history. His empire gradually fell apart after he
died.
Hammurabi, first Babylonian empire, made code of laws
Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria – good warrior and scholar, collected
clay tablets
Nebuchadnezzar II, second Babylonian empire, built the Hanging Gardens
of Babylon, destroyed Jerusalem (recorded in the Bible)"
Now, this doesn't narrow it down to a name. Assuming that the number
of published books were limited, it might be assumed that many
Mesopotamians had the opportunity to read all of the available
documents, so the last Mesopotamian was likely also the last person to
have read all available books at the time. This assumes a definition
of 'books published' that doesn't include things such as records of
debts and other mundane writings.
If your teacher's premise is that no one Mesopotamian had the
opportunity to read all of their published works, then he may be
looking for the first author, who would arguably be the anonymous
author who wrote "The Epic of Gilgamesh" in about 2700 BCE.
See also this page for a timeline:
http://www.literatureclassics.com/ancientpaths/worldlit.html
Good luck. I hope something here is what he's looking for.
Lisa.
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