Transformations of Language
U. Penn., 1992

Readings and Topics

1/15  I.  Introduction

1/22  II.  Matter and Form:  the principal media of ancient writing, the history of their introduction and use; how written artifacts came into circulation; who consumed them and how; what kind of evidence survives to illuminate these and related questions.

F.G. Kenyon, Books and Readers in Ancient Greece and Rome
 F.W. Hall, A Companion to Classical Texts
 B. Bischoff, Latin Palaeography
 E.G. Turner, Greek Papyri:  An Introduction
 A.G. Gordon, Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy
A.K. Bowman and J.D. Thomas, Vindolanda:  The Latin Writing-Tablets (London, 1983)
 Reynolds and Wilson, Scribes and Scholars
R.J. Starr, `The Circulation of Literary Texts in the Roman World,' Classical Quarterly 37(1987), 213-23
R.J. Starr, `The Used-Book Trade in the Roman World,' Phoenix 44(1990), 148ff.

1/29  III.  Greeks Bearing Gifts:  literacy itself came earlier to the Greeks and the scholarly study of the interplay of oral and literate cultures has been far livelier in the case of the Greeks; but the Greeks were also aware that the value of writing is ambiguous.

E. Havelock, Preface to Plato
 E. Havelock, The Literate Revolution
R. Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record
T. Lentz, Orality and Literacy
B. Gentili, Poetry and its public in ancient Greece : from Homer to the fifth century
 B. Frischer, The Sculpted Word
G. Ferrari, Listening to the Cicadas (on the Phaedrus)
 On Homer especially, F.A. Wolf, Prolegomena to Homer, M. Parry, Homeric Writings, A. Lord, Singer of Tales

2/5  IV.  The persuasive word:  rhetoric.  The rise and function of the effective orator at Rome; the differences in status and function between early and later republic, early and later empire; the particular prestige of Cicero; the prestige of rhetoric itself.

 Anonymous, Rhetorica ad Herennium
 Cicero, On the Orator; The Orator; Brutus
 Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria
 Tacitus, Dialogue Concerning Orators
 Seneca the Elder, Suasoriae et Controversiae
 Kennedy, Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World
 Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors

2/12  V.  The persuasive word at a distance:  letter-writing.  Who wrote; to whom; why; difference between `private' and `public' (if any); publication of letter collections.

 Cicero, Letters
 Pliny the Younger, Letters
 J.L. White, ed., Studies in Ancient Letter Writing (= Semeia 22; Chico, Cal., 1982)

2/19  VI.  The persuasive word at a distance, from on high:  imperial edicts.  Who wrote; to whom; why; the power of the written word; the impotence of the written word.

 Augustus, Res Gestae Divi Augusti, ed. P.A. Brunt (or other editions)
 Pliny, Letters (book 10)
 C. Pharr, ed. and trans., The Theodosian Code
 A. Watson, ed. and trans., The Digest of Justinian
 F. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World

2/26  VII.  The persuasive word spread over space and time:  Jesus and Apollonius.  A particular genre (`biography') employed to give the acts and words of a charismatic figure power beyond the range of his voice; reliability of such documents; their role in shaping and motivating communities of readers.

 G. Anderson, Philostratus
 A. Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus
 J. Robinson, The New Quest for the Historical Jesus
 S. Neill, The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861-1961
P. Achtemeier, `Omne verbum sonat:  The New Testament and the Oral Environment of Late Western Antiquity', Journal of Biblical Literature 109(1990), 3-27 [Rosengarten]
 W. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel
 B. Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript
 J. Neusner, Oral Tradition in Judaism (and other titles)

3/5  VIII.  The authoritative text.  The book itself as the center of veneration; the organization and management of the community joined by sharing a common sacred text; what makes one text sacred, another not; written texts in `pagan', Jewish, and Christian religious communities.

C.H. Roberts, Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt (London, 1979)
C.H. Roberts and T. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex
 The Cambridge History of the Bible (volume 1)
3/12  VACATION

3/19  IX.  Mediators of the authoritative text.  The day-to-day mechanics of creating and maintaining the textual community of early Christianity.  The spoken word, the significant gesture, the written text, and the oral exposition of the written text.

 A. Bouley, From freedom to formula:  the evolution of the eucharistic prayer from oral improvisation to written texts (Washington, DC, 1981).
 J.A. Jungmann, The Early Liturgy
 F. van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop 277ff
 G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy

3/26  X.  Living with the authoritative text.  Monasticism as cultural movement; the place of the written `rule' and the oral authority of the teacher; the place of scriptural texts in the life of the community; the authority of venerated leaders of former generations.

 J. Leclercq, Love of Learning and Desire for God
 D.J. Chitty, The Desert a City
 J. Decarreux, Monks and Civilization
 P. Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority, and the Church
 D. Knowles, Christian Monasticism
 J. Cassian, Institutes and Conferences
 The Rule of the Master
 Gregory the Great, Dialogues, book 2 (life of Benedict)

4/2  XI.  Word and text at the margins of culture.  Penetration of the culture of the written word into geographical and social milieux removed, and even alienated, from the dominant oligarchies and central regions of the Mediterranean world.  Readings here can range the most widely.

 R. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians
 G. W. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity
 Sebastian Brock, Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity, chapter II, `Greek into Syriac and Syriac into Greek'; supplement with J.B. Segal, Edessa, the Blessed City
 Egeria's Travels (ed. Wilkinson)
 The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity
E.J. Champlin, Final Judgments (not yet published?  about Romans writing their wills)

What about Diogenes of Oenoanda, who carved the teachings of Epicurus magnificently in stone for the edification and instruction of his townsmen?  What about the treatise in Greek on hieroglyphics and their meaning by Horapollon?  What about the stenographic transcript of the debate at Carthage in 411 between the schismatic Donatists and the imperially-supported Catholics?  What about the elaborately illustrated manuscript of treatises on surveying preserved at the great German library of Wolfenbüttel?  What about the story in Bede's Ecclesiastical History about the illiterate bard Caedmon?

4/9  XII.  Modes of reception.  This week, I will do (almost) all the work.  There will be no special reading assignments.  There may be slides to watch.  A somewhat different approach to the main issues of the course.  (Student reports continue).

4/16  XIII.  The view from the scriptorium.  After antiquity; the culture of the `successor kingdoms'; the `island of saints and scholars'?; the `Carolingian Renaissance'.

 P. Riché, Education and Culture in the Barbarian West
 E. Auerbach, Literary Language and Its Public in Late Antiquity and the Latin Middle Ages
 L. Bieler, Ireland:  Harbinger of the Middle Ages
 M. and L. DePaor, Early Christian Ireland
 B. Bischoff, Latin Palaeography
 C. De Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts
 J.J. O'Donnell, Cassiodorus
 R. Wright, Late Latin and Early Romance

4/23  XIV.  Theoretical reflections.  So what?  Is it possible to abstract from a study of this sort general principles that can help in the interpretation of other cultural phenomena?  Is technology determinism?  Is the human mind an unchanging constant merely taking various different guises from time to time?

 M. McLuhan, Understanding Media
 I. Illich, ABC:  The Alphabetization of the Popular Mind
 J. Goody, Literacy in Traditional Societies (and other titles by him)
 W. Ong, Orality and Literacy
 H. Innis, Empire and Communications
 E.A. Havelock, Origins of Western Literacy

Additional bibliography (ancient mainly):

A.A. Barrett, `Knowledge of the Literary Classics in Roman Britain,' Britannia 9(1978), 307-13
R. Browning, `Literacy in the Byzantine world', in his History, Language and Literacy in the Byzantine World
G.W. Clarke, `An Illiterate Lector,' Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 57(1984), 106-22
R.I. Curtis, `Product Identification and Advertising on Roman Commercial Amphorae', Ancient Society 15-17(1984-6), 209-28
A. Dalzell, `C. Asinius Pollio and the Early History of the Public Recitation at Rome,' Hermathena 86(1955), 20-8
R.W. Daniel, `Liberal Education and Semiliteracy in Petronius', Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 40(1980), 153-59
A.C. Dionisotti, `From Ausonius' Schooldays?', Journal of Roman Studies 72(1982), 83-125
P.E. Easterling, `Books and Readers in the Greek World:  2, The Hellenistic and Imperial Periods,' Cambridge History of Classical Literature (Cambridge 1985) 1.16-41
S. Flory, `Who Read Herodotus' Histories?' American Journal of Philology 101(1980), 12-28
J.L. Franklin, Pompeii:  The Electoral Programmata, Campaigns and Politics, A.D. 71-79
B. Frier, Libri Annales Pontificum Maximorum:  The Origins of the Annalistic Tradition
T. Honoré, `The Making of the Theodosian Code,' Zeitschrift d. Savigny-Stiftung 103(1986), 133-222
R.A. Kaster, `Notes on ``Primary'' and ``Secondary'' Schools in Late Antiquity', Transactions of the American Philological Association 113(1983), 323-46
R.A. Kaster, Guardians of Language (about Roman grammarians)
B.M.W. Knox, `Silent Reading in Antiquity,' Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 9(1968) 421-35
Paul Saenger, Space between Words:  The Origins of Silent Reading
R. MacMullen, `Provincial Languages in the Roman Empire', American Journal of Philology 87(1966), 1-14
A.F. Norman, `The Book Trade in Fourth-Century Antioch', Journal of Hellenic Studies 80(1960), 122-126.
R.M. Ogilvie, The Library of Lactantius
R.A. Pack, The Greek and Latin Literary Texts from Greco-Roman Egypt
P. Petitmengin and B. Flusin, `Le livre antique et la dictée.  Nouvelles recherches', in Mémorial André-Jean Festugière (Geneva 1984), 247-62
E.C. Polomé, `The Linguistic Situation in the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire,' Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt 2.29.2(1983), 509-53
R. Reed, Ancient Skins, Parchments and Leathers
A. Scobie, `Storytellers, Storytelling and the Novel in Graeco-Roman Antiquity,' Rheinisches Museum 122(1979), 229-59
T.C. Skeat, `The Use of Dictation in Ancient Book Production', Proceedings of the British Academy 42(1956), 179-208
T.C. Skeat, `Early Christian Book-Production:  Papyri and Manuscripts,' Cambridge History of the Bible 2.54-79
T.C. Skeat, `The Length of the Standard Papyrus Roll and the Cost-Advantage of the Codex,' Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 45(1982), 169-75
C.C. Smith, `Vulgar Latin in Roman Britain:  Epigraphic and Other Evidence,' Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt 2.29.2 (1983), 893-948
H.H. Tanzer, The Common People of Pompeii:  A Study of the Graffiti
E.G. Turner, Athenian Books in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.
E.G. Turner, `Oxyrhynchus and Rome', Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 79(1975) 1-24
E.G. Turner, The Typology of the Early Codex
E.O. Wingo, Latin Punctuation in the Classical Age