Paul Ricoeur says in Interpretation Theory, p26:
The most obvious change from speaking to writing concerns the relation between the message and its medium or channel. At first glance, it concerns only this relation, but upon closer examination, the first alteration irradiates in every direction, affecting in a diverse manner all the factors and functions. Our task, therefore, will be to proceed from this central change toward its various peripheral effects….
The inscription, substituted for the immediate vocal, physiognomic, or gestural expression, is in itself a tremendous cultural achievement. The human fact disappears. Now material “marks” convey the message.
Posts
4 comments:
Yes, although I'm not sure it was quite like that when writing first began. The syllabic cuneiform texts and even early alphabetic texts like Ugaritic and Hebrew don't attempt to convey the whole of a message. They're more like mnemonics for a message which requires a skilled scribe to reactualise it for new hearers.
No one could have looked at an inscription and thought 'that says such and such', rather they'd have looked at it and remembered 'that person said such and such'.
Remember that silent reading was unheard of (boom, boom) and that 'reading' was more like recitation with a few memory notes to make sure it didn't deviate too far from the original communication. The Ugaritic letters we studied last term are carefully constructed with instructions for the scribe who will read the letter out before the greetings to the recipients. The text itself is not the communication, but the scribe's reading of the text is.
Thank you, Ros.
Very interesting and illuminating, as ever.
Hebrew (without the vowels) as a kind of shorthand.
But do you really buy it that its meant to be a reminder of an oral message preserved in an oral tradition? That's not quite how we usually use it, is it?
What about ancient letters or texts intended for different communities with no oral connection to the author?
Just because it's not how we use it now, doesn't mean it's not how it was when it was first written. My point isn't precisely an argument against Ricoeur, because I do think that the way we read texts (and think about writing) involves a distancing process. Rather it was just his thing about the 'great moment' - which wasn't really a moment, but a much longer process of development, not to be identified with the first 'written' word.
And I don't think there were ancient texts written for communities with no oral link to the author - that's precisely what the scribe's role was - to provide an oral link.
Oh and on the transmission of the Hebrew text, I completely buy that the consonantal text was merely intended as a reminder of the oral message. While only the consonantal text existed in written form, it could only be transmitted in conjunction with the oral message - which was the 'whole' text. As time went on, vowel letters and later vowel pointing were added, so that the written text alone could serve. But 'reading the bible' was a very late development for most of the community (who wouldn't have had access to the scrolls, even if they could read them) - the bible was a spoken document, passed on orally from generation to generation, with the consonantal text as one way of guarding that transmission.
Post a Comment