Our First Meeting

To begin, Kory/Kori/Corey/Cory (?? spelling is not necessary in primary oral cultures) Winslow did a spectacular job in her introduction to the course. I think it really helps that she has taken the class before and gave us the "most important information"...Dog, Grapefruit, Bottle of Wine, Toothpaste, Left Shoe, Eyebrow.

One of the things that Miss Winslow brought up in her talk that I thought was really interesting was in her distinction between the artist/storyteller in the typographic (and chirographic as well, but mostly typographic) culture versus the artist of the oral culture. In a primary oral society, the artist is never a solitary isolated genius unto himself. He is always a part of a line of other storytellers that have come before and taught him and those that will learn from him and carry on his knowledge and stories. This is a wholly different concept of the artist as we are used to thinking about it/him/her. We tend to imagine A Tale of Two Cities as a text written by Charles Dickens: one man who created a world where Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette exist as people in the midst of the French Revolution in his version of late 18th century France. This all takes imagination and the book is attributed to Dickens's imagination alone. The idea that I have in my head of an artist is a person sitting alone in the corner of a coffee shop with a laptop writing away, then going home alone to write some more. This is, I think, a pretty common stereotype even going back to the romantics sitting alone in a wood for inspiration. However, I think that it is interesting to ponder the degree to which any of these supposedly "solitary" artists are really solitary. All writers exist in a tradition much like the oral cultures. They use bits and pieces of other texts within their own, follow the stylistic elements of predecessors, and rely on the readers' knowledge of pre-established theories/themes/ideas in order to make their texts effective. I think that the idea of copyright, perhaps, rather than writing, has caused the idea of author to be come singular.

On the website http://www.copyrighthistory.com it is explained that the first copyright "law" in the world was in 1710 with the "Statute of Anne". If you are interested in reading it here it is...

Anno OctavoAnnæ Reginæ.
An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vest-ing the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors orPurchasers of such Copies, during the Times thereinmentioned.
Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and otherPersons, have of late frequently takenthe Liberty of Printing, Reprinting,and Publishing, or causing to be Print-ed, Reprinted, and Published Books,and other Writings, without the Con-sent of the Authors or Proprietors ofsuch Books and Writings, to theirvery great Detriment, and too oftento the Ruin of them and their Fami-lies: For Preventing therefore suchPractices for the future, and for theEncouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write use-ful Books; May it please Your Majesty, that it may be En-acted, and be it Enacted by the Queens most Excellent Majesty,by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual andTemporal, and Commons in this present Parliament Assembled,and by the Authority of the same, That from and after theTenth Day of April, One thousand seven hundred and ten, theAuthor of any Book or Books already Printed, who hath notTransferred to any other the Copy or Copies of such Book orBooks, Share or Shares thereof, or the Bookseller or Book-sellers, Printer or Printers, or other Person or Persons, whohath or have Purchased or Acquired the Copy or Copies of anyBook or Books, in order to Print or Reprint the same, shallhave the sole Right and Liberty of Printing such Book andBooks for the Term of One and twenty Years, to Commencefrom the said Tenth Day of April, and no longer; and thatthe Author of any Book or Books already Composed and notPrinted and Published, or that shall hereafter be Composed, andhis Assignee, or Assigns, shall have the sole Liberty of Printingand Reprinting such Book and Books.

Anyhow, I guess that I'm just skeptical of the idea of artist as solitary even in "literate" society.
It seems that the open sharing of ideas and knowledge is actually hindered in some ways by the copyright laws which have restrictions even on how much of a text a teacher can teach without buying 30 copies of the book.

Just in case you missed it, here is the information on Mnemosyne and her daughters that I was previously oblivious to...
Mnemosyne was the mother of the Muses and her name means memory. Her nine daughters were named the following:
1. Calliope 5. Melpomene
2. Clio 6. Polyhymnia
3. Erato 7. Terpsidchore
4. Enterpe 8. Thalia
9. Urania
Good to know for future literary experiences, I'm sure.

I also thought that the information that we were given regarding the relationship between the storyteller and the audience was interesting. It makes sense that a bard would not tell a tale that was in anyway removed from the community in which he was performing. Ideas are, therefore, not terribly abstract and very relative to the people's lives. I learned a new word: Homeostatic which Kory/Kori/Cory/Corey described as the practice by which unuseful information gets left out. What's the use of irrelevant or obvious knowledge. I think what is most interesting though is that these storytellers were the possessors of all the cultural knowledge for a group of people. That's quite the job description. I'm not sure that I would want to take that on. Thankfully though, someone did. That's how we got to where we are, right?