Pre-literacy and Modern Vestiges Essays -- Literature Epic Poetry Poem

Pre-literacy and young VestigesFor many years, the conventions and existence of epic poetry from the pre-literate age were explained as repositories for information. A well-known story, usu eachy involving a hero that embodied the virtues of the society who told the story, engages in battles, quests, etc. As the epic is spoken to an auditory sense, the heros actions and the look they are described impart the audience with information and teachings. The information the numbereners received is thought by some to be analogous to a modern daylight textbook lesson, in which students learn mathematics, grammar, and law, all by the written word. So is the contention of Homeric scholar Eric A. Havelock. As Hobart and Schiffman state in Orality and the Problem of Memory, all over he looked in Homer, Havelock saw a wealth of instruction. For instance, the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon at the beginning of the Iliad embodies for him a wide range of sublimina l teachings. It lays out the rules for electric pig of captives, the etiquette of making and receiving ransom requests, the reverence overdue to priests, the respect accorded to kings by powerful warriors, and the symbols of public authority(19).Havelock believed the character of the epic was to verbally hand down a type of classical social contract, so that society could remain stable based upon the information that the speakers gave audiences of the Iliad. Integral to the audiences reaction of these teachings was a willingness to become participatory in the communication of the epic. According to Havelock, this is not a choice, but a necessity for a pre-literate listener. Havelock contends that a pre-literate soci... ...ring a list of words and definitions. What is important in Hobart and Schiffmans essay is the idea that the purpose of oral epics is radically different than what has been traditionally thought. Our modern concept of memory is a ver y personal experience, as is for the approximately part our learning styles. Books are intimate and stress the individual interpreter of them their pages are filled with information that in the readers hands magnate be hundreds of years removed from the time they were written. Yet with spoken epics, the only way to experience them was in the flesh, earreach in a group to the speaker. It was a nominally individual process, but did include information as a print culture knows it. In the prove day, perhaps the immediacy of the performance nature of pre-literate work is overlooked when so many written words flash before our eyes on pages. Pre-literacy and Modern Vestiges Essays -- Literature Epic Poetry PoemPre-literacy and Modern VestigesFor many years, the conventions and existence of epic poetry from the pre-literate age were explained as repositories for information. A well-known story, usually involving a hero that embodied the virtues of the society who to ld the story, engages in battles, quests, etc. As the epic is spoken to an audience, the heros actions and the way they are described impart the audience with information and teachings. The information the listeners received is thought by some to be analogous to a modern day textbook lesson, in which students learn mathematics, grammar, and law, all by the written word. So is the contention of Homeric scholar Eric A. Havelock. As Hobart and Schiffman state in Orality and the Problem of Memory, Everywhere he looked in Homer, Havelock saw a wealth of instruction. For instance, the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon at the beginning of the Iliad embodies for him a wide range of subliminal teachings. It lays out the rules for disposition of captives, the etiquette of making and receiving ransom requests, the reverence due to priests, the respect accorded to kings by powerful warriors, and the symbols of public authority(19).Havelock bel ieved the nature of the epic was to verbally hand down a type of classical social contract, so that society could remain stable based upon the information that the speakers gave audiences of the Iliad. Integral to the audiences reception of these teachings was a willingness to become participatory in the communication of the epic. According to Havelock, this is not a choice, but a necessity for a pre-literate listener. Havelock contends that a pre-literate soci... ...ring a list of words and definitions. What is important in Hobart and Schiffmans essay is the idea that the purpose of oral epics is radically different than what has been traditionally thought. Our modern concept of memory is a very personal experience, as is for the most part our learning styles. Books are intimate and stress the individual interpreter of them their pages are filled with information that in the readers hands might be hundreds of years removed from the time they were written. Yet with spoken ep ics, the only way to experience them was in the flesh, listening in a group to the speaker. It was a nominally individual process, but did include information as a print culture knows it. In the present day, perhaps the immediacy of the performance nature of pre-literate work is overlooked when so many written words flash before our eyes on pages.