ABSTRACT
The great German Jewish lyric poet Heinrich Heine, writing in the last century, foresaw a time when literacy would no longer be confined to a refined and elite few. He visualized literate but unappreciative shopkeepers wrapping herrings in the pages of his verses. Yet he saw this expansion of literacy as not only inevitable but desirable, even if his poetry got lost in the flood. What Heine sensed is that written language is not just the possession of teachers and poets, that it has other functions, “goods and services functions” Michael Halliday calls them, which, while less aesthetic, would become universally essential. Heine knew that literacy must be made available to everyone, with no limitations.
