Features of a Literature Culture

Features of a Literature Culture Daniel Berg, Caitlyn McGehee, Miguel Pearson, Mason Slack, Jim Stapleton

Introduction • McLuhan’s 4 Stages (1962) • Brief History • Change of Style • Literate Mind & Oral Mind • Impact on Society and Civilization • Effect Internet and Technology

McLuhan’s 4 Stages (1962) • Oral Tribe • Manuscript • Gutenberg Galaxy • Electronic Age

Brief History • Out of the tens of thousands of languages spoken over history, only around 106 have been committed to writing to a degree sufficient enough to have produced literature. • The history of writing is a story of adaptation and trans-cultural diffusion, starting from early pictograph writing systems centered in Egypt and Mesopotamia, which then spread across the world, and eventually progressed into alphabets, of which we use today. • Writing is powerful: it permits people to generate ideas, store them, and retrieve them as needed across time in a highly efficient and accurate way. The absence of this technology in oral societies limits the development of complex ideas and the institutions that depend on them.

STYLE

The Mabinogi • “I Request that you get for me Olwen daughter of Ysbaddaden Chief-giant. And I invoke his gift from him in the name of Cei and Bedwyr, and GreidawlGalldonyd, and Gwythyr the son of Greidawl, and Greid the son of Eri, and KynddeligKyvarwydd, and TathalTwyllGoleu, and Maelwys the son of Baeddan, and Crychwr the son of Nes, and Cubert the son of Daere, and Percos the son of Poch, and LluberBeuthach, and CorvilBervach,

The Mabinogi • and Gwynn the son of Nudd, and Edeyrn the son of Nudd, and Gadwy the son of Geraint, and Prince FflewddurFflam, and RuawnPebyr the son of Dorath, and Bradwen the son of MorenMynawc, and MorenMynawc himself, and Dalldav the son of KiminCôv, and the son of AlunDyved, and the son of Saidi, and the son of Gwryon, and UchtrydArdywadKad, and KynwasCurvagyl, and GwrhyrGwarthegvras, and IsperyrEwingath, and GallcoytGovynynat, and Duach, and Grathach, and Nerthach, the sons of GwawrddurKyrvach (these men came forth from the confines of hell), and KilyddCanhastyr, and CanastyrKanllaw, and Cors Cant-Ewin, and EsgeirGulhwchGovynkawn, and DrustwrnHayarn, and GlewlwydGavaelvawr, and LlochLlawwynnyawc, and AunwasAdeiniawc, and Sinnoch the son of Seithved, and Gwennwynwyn the son of Naw, and Bedyw the son of Seithved, and Gobrwy the son of EchelVorddwyttwll, and EchelVorddwyttwll himself, and Mael the son of Roycol, and DadweirDallpenn, and Garwyli the son of GwythawcGwyr, and GwythawcGwyr himself, and Gormant the son of Ricca, and Menw the son of Teirgwaedd, and Digon the son of Alar, and Selyf the son of Smoit, and Gusg the son of Atheu, and Nerth the son of Kedarn, and Drudwas the son of Tryffin, and Twrch the son of Perif, and Twrch the son of Annwas, and Iona king of France, and Sel the son of Selgi, and Teregud the son of Iaen, and Sulyen the son of Iaen, and Bradwen the son of Iaen, and Moren the son of Iaen, and Siawn the son of Iaen, and Cradawc the son of Iaen. (They were men of Caerdathal, of Arthur's kindred on his father's side.) Dirmyg the son of Kaw, and Justic the son of Kaw, and Etmic the son of Kaw, and Anghawd the son of Kaw, and Ovan the son of Kaw, and Kelin the son of Kaw, and Connyn the son of Kaw, and Mabsant the son of Kaw, and Gwyngad the son of Kaw, and Llwybyr the son of Kaw, and Coth the son of Kaw, and Meilic the son of Kaw, and Kynwas the son of Kaw, and Ardwyad the son of Kaw, and Ergyryad the son of Kaw, and Neb the son of Kaw, and Gilda the son of Kaw, and Calcas the son of Kaw, and Hueil the son of Kaw (he never yet made a request at the hand of any Lord). And Samson Vinsych, and Taliesin the chief of the bards, and Manawyddan the son of Llyr, and

Mabinogi cont. • Llary the son of Prince Kasnar, and Ysperni the son of Fflergant king of Armorica, and Saranhon, the son of Glythwyr, and LlawrEilerw, and Annyanniawc the son of Menw the son of Teirgwaedd, and Gwynn the son of Nwyvre, and Fflam the son of Nwyvre, and Geraint the son of Erbin, and Ermid the son of Erbin, and Dyvel the son of Erbin, and Gwynn the son of Ermid, and Kyndrwyn the son of Ermid, and HyveiddUnllenn, and EiddonVawrVrydic, and ReidwnArwy, and Gormant the son of Ricca (Arthur's brother by his mother's side; the Penhynev of Cornwall was his father), and LlawnroddedVarvawc, and NodawlVaryf Twrch, and Berth the son of Kado, and Rheidwn the son of Beli, and IscovanHael, and Iscawin the son of Panon, and Morvran the son of Tegid (no one struck him in the battle of Camlan by reason of his ugliness; all thought he was an auxiliary devil. Hair had he upon him like the hair of a stag). And SanddeBryd Angel (no one touched him with a spear in the battle of Camlan because of his beauty; all thought he was a ministering angel). And KynwylSant (the third man that escaped from the battle of Camlan, and he was the last who parted from Arthur on Hengroen his horse). And Uchtryd the son of Erim, and Eus the son of Erim, and HenwasAdeinawg the son of Erim, and Henbedestyr the son of Erim, and SgiltiYscawndroed the son of Erim. (Unto these three men belonged these three qualities,-- With Henbedestyr there was not any one who could keep pace, either on horseback or on foot; with HenwasAdeinawg, no four-footed beast could run the distance of an acre, much less could it go beyond it; and as to SgiltiYscawndroed, when he intended to go upon a message for his Lord, he never sought to find a path, but knowing whither he was to go, if his way lay through a wood he went along the tops of the trees. During his whole life, a blade of reed grass bent not beneath his feet, much less did one ever break, so lightly did he tread.) TeithiHên the son of Gwynhan (his dominions were swallowed up by the sea, and he himself hardly escaped, and he came to Arthur; and his knife had this peculiarity, that from the time that he came there no haft would ever remain upon it, and owing to this a sickness came over him, and he pined away during the remainder of his life, and of this he died). And Carneddyr the son of GovynyonHên, and Gwenwynwyn the son of NavGyssevin, Arthur's champion, and

Mabinogi cont. • LlysgadruddEmys, and GwrbothuHên, (uncles unto Arthur were they, his mother's brothers). Kulvanawyd the son of Goryon, and LlenlleawgWyddel from the headland of Ganion, and DyvynwalMoel, and Dunard king of the North, TeirnonTwryfBliant, and TegvanGloff, and TegyrTalgellawg, Gwrdinal the son of Ebrei, and MorgantHael, Gwystyl the son of Rhun the son of Nwython, and Llwyddeu the son of Nwython, and Gwydre the son of Llwyddeu (Gwenabwy the daughter of [Kaw] was his mother, Hueil his uncle stabbed him, and hatred was between Hueil and Arthur because of the wound). Drem the son of Dremidyd (when the gnat arose in the morning with the sun, he could see it from GelliWic in Cornwall, as far off as Pen Blathaon in North Britain.) And Eidyol the son of Ner, and GlywyddnSaer (who constructed Ehangwen, Arthur's Hall). KynyrKeinvarvawc (when he was told he had a son born he said to his wife, 'Damsel, if thy son be mine, his heart will be always cold, and there will be no warmth in his hands; and he will have another peculiarity, if he is my son he will always be stubborn; and he will have another peculiarity, when he carries a burden, whether it be large or small, no one will be able to see it, either before him or at his back; and he will have another peculiarity, no one will be able to resist fire and water so well as he will; and he will have another peculiarity, there will never be a servant or an officer equal. to him'). Henwas, and Henwyneb (an old companion to Arthur). Gwallgoyc (another; when he came to a town, though there were three hundred houses in it, if he wanted anything, he would not let sleep come to the eyes of any one whilst he remained there). Berwyn, the son of Gerenhir, and Paris king of France, and OslaGyllellvawr (who bore a short broad dagger. When Arthur and his hosts came before a torrent, they would seek for a narrow place where they might pass the water, and would lay the sheathed dagger across the torrent, and it would form a bridge sufficient for the armies of the three Islands of Britain, and of the three islands adjacent, with their spoil). Gwyddawg the son of Menestyr (who slew Kai, and whom Arthur slew, together with his brothers, to revenge Kai). Garanwyn the son of Kai, and Amren the son of Bedwyr, and Ely Amyr, and RheuRhwydDyrys, and RhunRhudwern, and Eli, and Trachmyr (Arthur's chief huntsmen).

Mabinogi cont. • And Llwyddeu the son of Kelcoed, and Hunabwy the son of Gwryon, and Gwynn Godyvron, and GweirDatharwenniddawg, and Gweir the son of Cadell the son of Talaryant, and GweirGwrhydEnnwir, and GweirPaladyrHir (the uncles of Arthur, the brothers of his mother). The sons of LlwchLlawwynnyawg (from beyond the raging sea). LlenlleawgWyddel, and ArdderchawgPrydain. Cas the son of Saidi, GwrvanGwalltAvwyn, and Gwyllennhin the king of France, and Gwittart the son of Oedd king of Ireland, GarselitWyddel, Panawr Pen Bagad, and Ffleudor the son of Nav, Gwynnhyvar mayor of Cornwall and Devon (the ninth man that rallied the battle of Camlan). Keli and Kueli, and GillaCoesHydd (he would clear three hundred acres at one bound: the chief leaper of Ireland was he). Sol, and GwadynOssol, and GawdynOdyeith. (Sol could stand all day upon one foot . GwadynOssol, if he stood upon the top of the highest mountain in the world, it would become a level plain under his feet. GwadynOdyeith, the soles of his feet emitted sparks of fire when they struck upon things hard, like the heated mass when drawn out of the forge. He cleared the way for Arthur when he came to any stoppage.) Hirerwm and Hiratrwm. (The day they went on a visit three Cantrevs provided for their entertainment, and they feasted until noon and drank until night, when they went to sleep. And then they devoured the heads of the vermin through hunger, as if they had never eaten anything. When they made a visit they left neither the fat nor the lean, neither the hot nor the cold, the sour nor the sweet, the fresh nor the salt, the boiled nor the raw.) Huarwar the son of Aflawn (who asked Arthur such a boon as would satisfy him. It was the third great plague of Cornwall when he received it. None could get a smile from him but when he was satisfied.) GwareGwalltEuryn. The two cubs of GastRhymi, Gwyddrud and GwyddneuAstrus. Sugyn the son of Sugnedydd (who would suck up the sea on which were three hundred ships, so as to leave nothing but a dry strand. He was broad-chested). Rhacymwri, the attendant of Arthur (whatever barn he was shown, were there the produce of thirty ploughs within it, he would strike it with an iron flail until the rafters, the beams, and the boards were no better than the small oats in the mow upon the floor of the barn). Dygyflwng, and AnoethVeidawg. And HirEiddyl, and HirAmreu (they

The Mabinogi • were two attendants of Arthur). And Gwevyl the son of Gwestad (on the day that he was sad, he would let one of his lips drop below his waist, while he turned upon the other like a cap upon his head). UchtrydVaryf Draws (who spread his red untrimmed beard over the eight-and-forty rafters which were in Arthur's Hall). ElidyrGyvarwydd. Yskyrdav, the Yscudydd (two attendants of Gwenhywyvar were they. Their feet were swift as their thoughts when bearing a message). Brys the son of Bryssethach (from the Hill of the Black Fernbrake in North Britain). And GrudlwynGorr. Bwlch, and Kyfwlch, and Sefwlch, the sons of CleddyfKyfwlch, the grandsons of CleddyfDifwlch. (Their three shields were three gleaming glitterers; their three spears were three pointed piercers; their three swords were three gridinggashers; Glas, Glessic, and Gleisad. Their three dogs, Call, Cuall, and Cavall. Their three horses, Hwyrdyddwd, and Drwgdyddwd, and Llwyrdyddwg. Their three wives, Och, and Garym, and Diaspad. Their three grandchildren, Lluched, and Neved, and Eissiwed. Their three daughters, Drwg, and Gwaeth, and GwaethavOll. Their three handmaids, Eheubryd the daughter of Kyfwlch, Gorascwrn the daughter of Nerth, Ewaedan the daughter of KynvelynKeudawdPwyll the half-man). DwnnDiessicUnbenn, Eiladyr the son of Pen Llarcau, KynedyrWyllt the son of HettwnTalaryant, Sawyl Ben Uchel, Gwalchmai the son of Gwyar, Gwalhaved the son of Gwyar, GwrhyrGwastawdIeithoedd (to whom all tongues were known), and Kethcrwm the Priest. Clust the son of Clustveinad (though he were buried seven cubits beneath the earth, he would hear the ant fifty miles off rise from her nest in the morning). Medyr the son of Methredydd (from GelliWic he could, in a twinkling, shoot the wren through the two legs upon EsgeirOervel in Ireland). GwiawnLlygadCath (who could cut a haw from the eye of the gnat without hurting him). Ol the son of Olwydd (seven years before he was born his father's swine were carried off, and when he grew up a man he tracked the swine, and brought them back in seven herds). Bedwini the Bishop (who blessed Arthur's meat and drink). For the sake of the golden-chained daughters of this island. For the sake of Gwenhwyvar its chief lady, and Gwennhwyach her sister, and Rathtyeu the only daughter of Clemenhill, and Rhelemon the daughter of Kai, and Tannwen the daughter of GweirDatharwenîddawg. Gwenn Alarch the daughter of KynwylCanbwch. Eurneid the daughter of ClydnoEiddin. Eneuawc the daughter of Bedwyr. Enrydreg the daughter of Tudvathar. Gwennwledyr the daughter of GwaledyrKyrvach. Erddudnid the daughter of Tryffin. Eurolwen the daughter of GwdolwynGorr. Teleri the daughter of Peul. Indeg the daughter of GarwyHir. Morvudd the daughter of UrienRheged. Gwenllian Deg the majestic maiden. Creiddylad the daughter of LluddLlawEreint. (She was the most splendid maiden in the three Islands of the mighty, and in the three Islands adjacent, and for her Gwythyr the son of Greidawl and Gwynn the son of Nudd fight every first of May until the day of doom.) Ellylw the daughter of NeolKynn-Crog (she lived three ages). EssylltVinwen, and EssylltVingul." And all these did Kilhwch son of Kilydd adjure to obtain his boon.

The 1001 Nights (Nights 24-32) • The Story of the Humpback • The Story Told by the Christian Broker • The Story Told by the Sultan’s Steward • The Story Told by the Jewish Physician • The Story Told by the Tailor • The Barber’s Story of Himself • The Barber’s Story of His First Brother • The Barber’s Story of His Second Brother • The Barber’s Story of His Third Brother • The Barber’s Story of His Fourth Brother • The Barber’s Fifth Brother • The Barber’s Story of His Sixth Brother • The Story of the Humpback

Contracrostipunctus Achilles: Heavens, you certainly have an admirable boomerang collection! Tortoise: Oh, pshaw. No better than that of any other tortoise. And now would you like to step into the parlor? Achilles: Fine. (Walks to the corner of the room) I see you also have a large collection of records. What sort of music do you enjoy? Tortoise: Sebastian Bach isn’t so bad, in my opinion. But these days, I must say, I am developing more and more of an interest in a rather specialized sort of music. Achilles: Tell me, what kind of music is that? Tortoise: A type of music which you are most unlikely to have heard of. I call it “music to break phonographs by”.

Contracrostipunctus • Hofstadter’s contracrostipunctus acrostically backwards spells ’J. S. Bach’

Comparisons of Oral and Writing Culture • Importance of semantics in literature • Evolution of the story teller (Entertainer  Academic) • Cyclic effect of style & culture • Linear thought vs. circular • Tradition vs. modernity (Time, Nature)

ORAL MIND vs. LITERATE MIND

Psychodynamics of orality Points 1- 3 • Ong provides a list of the characteristics of the way people of a primary oral culture think and express themselves. • The characteristics of thought and expression are as follows: • 1. Expression is additive rather than subordinative. • Already covered in class (and...and...and...and..) • 2. It is aggregative rather than analytic. • Already covered in class. Use of formulaic constructions like "beautiful princess", "brave soldier", "sturdy oak". We can see it in Beowulf in terms like "great-shafted spear", "boar-shaped helmets", "decorated pitcher", etc. • 3. It tends to be redundant." • "The oral utterance has vanished as soon as it is uttered. Redundancy or repetition of the just-said keeps both the speaker and hearer on the track."

Psychodynamics cont. Points 4-6 • 4. There is a tendency for it to be conservative. • Oral societies must invest great energy in saying over and over again what has been learned through the ages. This establishes a highly traditionalist set of mind. Knowledge is hard to come by and precious, and society prizes those who are capable of preserving it by telling the stories of the days of old. • 5. Thought is conceptualized and then expressed with relatively close reference to the human world. • Trades were learned by apprenticeship - there were no how-to-do-it manuals. Also, an oral culture has no neutral list. There is always some human action associated with lists in oral cultures. For example the cataloge of ships in the Iliad or the "begat" list in the Old Testament. • 6. Expression is agnostically toned. • Orality situates knowledge within a contest of struggle. Larger that life characters, violence, virtue and vice, villains and heroes, good and evil are all grist for the oral tales.

Psychodynamics cont. Points 7-9 • 7. It is empathetic and participatory rather than objectively distanced. • For an oral culture learning means achieving close, empathetic, communal identification with the known. Writing separates the knower from the known and sets up conditions for "objectivity" in the sense of personal disengagement or distancing. For this reason, Plato rejected the poets from his Republic. • 8. It is Homeostatic. • That is to say, oral societies live very much in the present which keeps itself in equilibrium or homeostasis by sloughing off memories which no longer have present relevance. • 9. It is situational rather than abstract. • Oral cultures tend to use concepts in frames of reference that are minimally abstract in the sense that they remain close to the human world. The question "what is a tree?" is confusing to a person from an oral culture. • All of the above characteristics enhance the memorability of an utterance. Ong explains that this would be especially important to those trying to memorize a poem or a tale because, whereas people from a literate society can always refer back to a written text, those from an oral society must be able to process and memorize bits of spoken, otherwise irretrievable information quickly. Utterances which fit the above descriptions would tend to leave a strong impression on the hearer and facilitate recollection.

Writing restructures consciousness • One of the most important effects Ong discusses is the way that writing distances the originator of a thought from the receiver. • Writing does this by enabling the existence of discourse "which cannot be directly questioned or contested as oral speech can be because written discourse is detached from the writer." • In addition, the further entrenched writing becomes as a mode of expression, the more we move from an oral sensory world to one where vision reigns supreme. This shift promotes the interiorization of thought and allows for precision, detail and the development of an extensive vocabulary.

Literate Mind vs Oral Mind • Quantity vs. Quality of literature • Memorizing few stories well or limitless books • “Literate culture doesn’t have to remember everything it knows” • Gutenberg Galaxy

Minds cont. • Long Division  Calculator • Written music • Tommy • Gradient of Learning • Daniel Dennet, Consciousness Explained

SOCIETY AND CIVILIZATION

Proto-Writing • The early writing systems of the late 7th millennium B.C. were based on ancient traditions of symbol systems called proto-writing. • Ideographic & Mnemonic symbols emerged as early as the Neolithic Period • Vinca Signs known as the Old European Script are a set of symbols found on prehistoric artifacts in southeastern Europe • Similar other proto-writing systems have been found from artifacts in India (Indus Valley), China, and the Sumerian and Egyptian Cultures of the Near East. • Proto-writing is shrouded in mystery

Early Writing Systems • Original Mesopotamia writing systems and the need of Accounting, • By 3500 B.C., Mesopotamian writing had evolved into using a triangular-shaped stylus pressed into soft clay otherwise known as “Cuneiform” writing, which started as a system of clay tokens used to represent commodities. • Logographic, based on pictographic and ideographic elements. • Trans-cultural diffusion • Ancient Egyptians influenced by Mesopotamia through trading, developed their own writing system, Hieroglyphs, started in 3200 B.C.

Early Alphabet • Originated in Ancient Egypt by Semitic workers who derived it from the alphabetic principles of the hieroglyphics. They successfully mapped out single symbols to single phonemes. • Every western alphabet descended from Egypt • The Phoenician and Aramaic alphabets, like their Egyptian prototype, represented only consonants, in a system called an abjad. • The Aramaic alphabet, which evolved from the Phoenician in the 7th century BC as the official script of the Persian Empire, appears to be the ancestor of nearly all the modern alphabets of Asia. • Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Georgian, Indian, Chinese alphabets

Transmission to Greece • By at least the 8th century BC the Greeks borrowed the Phoenician alphabet and adapted it to their own language. • The letters of the Greek alphabet are the same as those of the Phoenician alphabet, and both alphabets are arranged in the same order. However, whereas separate letters for vowels would have actually hindered the legibility of Egyptian, Phoenician, or Hebrew, their absence was problematic for Greek, where vowels played a much more important role. The Greeks adapted those Phoenician letters for consonants they couldn't pronounce to write vowels. • Greek is in turn the source for all the modern scripts of Europe. The alphabet of the early western Greek dialects, where the letter eta remained an h, gave rise to the Old Italic and Roman Alphabets. • The Roman Alphabet is the closest to the English alphabet today, missing only a few letters.

Impact of Early Writing on Society • The Phoenician letters that were adopted and expanded by the Greeks gave the writer the ability to predict the spelling of a word given its pronunciation, and a speaker could predict the pronunciation of a word given its spelling. In the western world this universalized writing and made it possible for a variety of languages to adopt early alphabets. • The advent of history • Writing was a tool to store knowledge • The dissemination of knowledge • The importance of trade and accounting

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Internet and Technology • Last part of McLuhan – synthesis • Anti-social, fake interaction • Videogames, text messaging, facebook, instant messenger, chat rooms (fake interaction) • Conversation has moved into strictly literate • Must be literate to compete/take part in changing • Secondary primary orality

Features of a Literature Culture