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Ildikó Sz. Kristóf
and philosophy penetrated well into the nineteenth century with the long-lasting
translations and adaptations of the schoolbook.
Intended messages, implied readings
In order to approach the textual-visual world of Raff, let me propose another con¬
cept, and that from the research methodology of the French fcultural history of
reading” (histoire culturelle de la lecture). What are the intended messages or implied
readings of texts and images included in a printed book? As it has been proposed
by Roger Chartier, a leading figure of the French approach to reading as a specific
sociocultural practice of sense-making, those messages or readings would represent
the authors’ and/or the editors’ intentions concerning a certain kind of reception of
their products. The intended messages or readings may be hidden both in the text
and the physical form of the book, its paratexts (e.g., footnotes), and the content,
iconographical execution, and layout (arrangement, order, etc.) of its images, and
also in the particular conditions and circumstances of the publication of the work
as a whole (Chartier 1987; 1989a; 1989b and 1992).
What kind of a “visual encounter with alterity” was provided in/made possible
by Raff’s schoolbook? At whom exactly was it aimed? How old or, for that matter,
how modern were the classification of the world and the relating visual imagery
belonging to it?
Let us start with the intended readership. Aiming at children of “every kind,”
as the preface of the schoolbook says, “rich and poor, capable and incapable of
learning, diligent or idle, younger or older, five, or ten years of age or even older,”
the schoolbook was intended to be used both at elementary and higher levels of
education, and in the German territories it has become indeed one of the most well
known works on natural history for young students in the second half of the eigh¬
teenth century (Te Heesen 2002: 75, 78). As it is testified by the different transla¬
tions, this kind of intended readership did not seem to have changed considerably
through the various editions and adaptations.°
The classification of the world that Raff's schoolbook contained and the imagery
depicting it was, in many of its aspects, quite modern. As I had the opportunity to
discuss it elsewhere, it was founded on the classifications of two great scholars of
the age: that of the Swedish surgeon and botanist Carl Linnaeus, on the one hand,
whose Systema naturae had several editions and translations all over Europe from
© The subsequent German reeditions as well as the first Hungarian translation preserved this recom¬
mendation almost word for word (Raff 1799), The Dutch edition mentioned school children between
6 and 11 years of age (Raff 1789); the French edition spoke of des enfans … depuis l’âge où ils peuvent
savoir lire couramment et méme commencent a raisonner (Raff 1786: 12); and the English edition, omit¬
ting the whole original German preface (just like the Dutch and the French editors had) although not
specifying the age of its most preferred readers, aimed at “the young” and “those who need instructions
from books” (Raff 1796, vol. 1: v.). For the details of those western European editions see Sz. Kristóf
2011: 325-329.