Walter J. Ong's truly groundbreaking Orality & Literary examines the ways in which society, literature, and knowledge have changed with the rise of literacy and, ultimately, print. This examination is especially pertinent to EN 201 because a number of our readings (Gilgamesh, the Iliad, the Odyssey, Beowulf) began as tales told by storytellers. In fact, Homer, the author of the Iliad & the Odyssey, may have been more than one person, and we do not have a specific author for Beowulf. Up until almost the end of the period that EN 201 covers, works were available in manuscripts; that is, they were individual, handwritten copies, often with abbreviations (to save the scribe's time) and variations from the original. Orality & Literacy is also pertinent to EN 202 as we move onto the unit on tales & folktales, for many of our readings were tales told and then transcribed once folk literature became interesting to the elite. orWe will not be reading Plato's work in this class, but Father Ong (he was a Jesuit priest) points out that this philosopher was very much a product of the rise of literacy in his precise approach to philosophy and his banning of the poets from his Republic.
These poets, on the other hand, epitomized oral culture with their reliance on performance, set phrases, and copia [fullness of expression]. Performance is more than simply reciting a poem aloud, though. Instead, it involves responding to one's audience and relying on set phrases instead of repeating a set text word for word, for, despite, what we are often told, storytellers and ancient bards did *not* remember their works word for word. In fact, as Orality & Literacy discloses, memory in an oral culture is remarkably pragmatic, changing to suit the needs of the present time. (Father Ong includes an anecdote of an African performing an oral epic for transcription and, in the voice of the epic's hero, spurring the scribe on to "march.") Later poets such as the Romantics are very much products of print culture, for they are concerned with interiority [individual consciousness]. By contrast, characters from oral literature are what Father Ong calls "heavy," individuals who do great deeds but do not have a true interior life. Hmm...I wonder what Christa Wolf would make of this as she has argued that heroic characters are a product of patriarchal society.
Orality & Literacy is also important for what it tells us about genre. As you can imagine, epic is grounded in orality. Even when a highly literature individual like Virgil, Edmund Spenser, or John Milton sat down to write an epic, their work followed conventions that reflected orality (the work's beginning "in media res" or in the middle of things, heroic characters, a reliance on episodes rather than plot). Father Ong notes that Sir Philip Sidney may have revised his Arcadia so that it would flow more smoothly when it was read aloud. And then, with the rise of literacy and print culture, the epic became harder and harder to write. (Hmmm...what did Father Ong make of a modern-day epic like the original Star Wars trilogy? And he *might* have seen it as he lived from 1912 to 2003. In fact, he later wrote on the impact of the internet.) In place of the epic came the novel, a genre whose tighter plotting and "rounder," more individual characters were supported by print and the reader's ability to reread text. Novels written by and for women also reflected the differences between upper-class men's classical education and middle-class individuals' vernacular education. As I have noted, poetry changed as well, becoming more specific and more concerned with individual experience as well. The ballad with its characters and storyline was more of a transitional form. Interestingly, the drama may have always been grounded in literacy as, even in ancient Greece, plays were written down before they were performed. (I'm not sure about Greek actors, but later actors in England were *not* literate, so this topic may bear investigating.)
Orality & Literacy is a difficult book, in part because it touches on so many different aspects of culture and language. It is not limited to English-language or even Western culture as Father Ong brings in examples from South America and Africa, but I found his discussion of Homer's epics to be especially useful. It may be too soon for you to read Orality & Literacy, but I would recommend your reading it if you plan to continue your literary studies or to become a teacher. I wish that I had read this book *before* finishing my dissertation!!
This photo from Syracuse Stage's 2007 production of August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean is very striking, but I thought I'd put up some words this evening to go with it. Also, I'd like to find a few good pictures as well.
However, as Gem of the Ocean contains much magic realism, a museum-quality set might be inappropriate. After all, Citizen Barlow travels to the City of Bones in a paper boat made from Aunt Ester's bill of sale, and the play's most prosaic character, Caesar, is clearly an interloper.
I should be grading my papers from EN 101A, and in class we are moving on beyond drama to...film, but I thought that I would post a quick blog entry on the play that we have just read, The Love Suicides at Amijima. The picture above is from a 1997 English-language version performed at NYC's LaMama Theater. For more information about this production, see this link below:
