Changing History

After reading excerpts from Ong's Orality and Literacy and prompted to discuss one of the steps from orality to literacy, I found the first step to be the most interesting in terms of remediation. As a student of English, although one not fully 'studied,' Homer is given hallowed ground quite often. Right up there with Shakespeare, Plato, and a whole legion of authors, poets, and writers, Homer demands respect from high-schoolers nationwide. Unfortunately, the whole story has yet to be told.


Like beginning physicists who eventually learn to unlearn everything originally taught, it turns out that Homer was not a master of original thought or composition. His epics were in fact the result of a system of patterns enabling the poet to tell amazing tales without aid. These patterns, to me, are a great form of remediation. Since a writing system had yet to be established, knowledge was passed primarily through oral means. True, one could show another how to tend a farm or fish, but stories were by definition oral.


Creating a story would have been no easy trick. All the components, the words, were available, but setting them down would require immense foresight, or a cheat. That cheat would be to use a system. Changing words into groups of words, such as sentences, would be a first step. Ordering those sentences would be another. Homer, in effect, was like Ong described, less an artist and more a line worker.