Talk to text : ancient origins of western prose and the rransition from oral to written culture

Author/Creator:

Robinson, Gwen Groves, author

Publication/Creation:

New York : Peter Lang, [2020]

Resource Type:

Book

More Details

Additional/Related Title Information

Full Title:

Talk to text : ancient origins of western prose and the rransition from oral to written culture / Gwen Groves Robinson

Subjects/Genre

Subjects:

Writing--History
Written communication--History

Description/Summary

Table of Contents:

What are we talking about? -- Literacy begins -- Orality : its characteristics -- In the clinging embrace of orality -- Prose claims acceptance -- The other lobe -- Fifth-century historians give a fillip to prose -- Moving towards perfection -- On matters of style -- Alexandria becomes the hub of Greek culture -- Early years -- The development of literary polish -- Relaxing the rule -- Latin picks up steam -- Winding up in the ancient world -- Christian influences on Latin literature -- Sunblink in the dusk -- Diving into pitch -- In the lands of mist -- England bestirs itself -- Northern achievements influence the continent -- A review of the writing arts today -- Termination.

Summary:

"If talking and hearing are 'natural' modes of human communication, how then, did the artificial art of writing come to substitute so satisfyingly for them? and with such deft and commanding authority? Talk to Text: On the Ancient Origins of the Writing Craft examines the history of the writing skills that we now practice so casually. They were never a human entitlement. Our literary ancestors worked for them, starting from crude scratches on bone, stone, and pottery shards. Over centuries of corrective nitpicking, the Greeks, the classical and papal Romans, the sixth- to eighth-century Irish and Anglo-Saxons, and the Franco-Germanic peoples of the Carolingian renaissance all helped to make writing a flexible and powerful means of communication. Out of speech for the voice and the ear, they invented this secondary route for the transfer of thought--and that route was through the eye. The impact of this spectacular shift and its eventual, even thrilling, development as an art form are the twin topics of this book"--

Language:

English

Physical Type/Description:

xxiv, 486 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Additional Identifiers

Catalog ID (MMSID):

9937000712502486

ISBN:

9781433161513
1433161516

OCLC Number:

1089278671

Barcode:

010003153352