Talk to Text: Ancient Origins of Western Prose and the Transition from Oral to Written Culture

ISBN-13: 9781433161513 / Angielski / Twarda / 2019 / 486 str.

Gwen Groves Robinson

Opis

Talk to Text: Ancient Origins of Western Prose and the Transition from Oral to Written Culture examines the history of the writing skills that we now practice so casually, tracing their development in the Western world from classical Greece and Rome to the modern age.

Recenzje

"High-spirited and deliciously erudite, Talk to Text is a fascinating journey through what Gwen Groves Robinson calls the 'turmoiled development of prose.' She makes clear that the art of writing prose didn't just appear full blown; it had to be invented, and 'the history of prose's sluggish take-off is full of drama and conflict-and all too often sheer nuttiness.' Robinson's sly wit, clever phrasing, and vivid examples, from Greek and Latin literature and beyond, restore grammar to its long-lost etymological cousin, glamor."-Christopher Benfey, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of English, Mount Holyoke College

Spis treści

List of Figures - Chronology - Preface - Acknowledgments - What Are We Talking About? - Literacy Begins - Orality-Its Characteristics - In the Clinging Embrace of Orality - Prose Claims Acceptance - The Other Lobe - Fifth-Century Historians Give a Fillip to Prose - Moving Towards Perfection - On Matters of Style - Alexandria Becomes the Hub of Greek Culture - Early Years - The Development of Literary Polish - Relaxing the Rule - Latin Picks Up Steam - Winding Up in the Ancient World - Christian Influences on Latin Literature - Sunblink in the Dusk - Diving Into Pitch - In the Lands of Mist - England Bestirs Itself - Northern Achievements Influence the Continent - A Quick Review of the Writing Arts Today - Termination - Index.

O autorze

Gwen Groves Robinson is a wide-ranging, world-traveling scholar of language, with a BA in Greek from Bryn Mawr and an MA in English from Houston University. A former academic journal editor, she has authored a book on Tokyo, four novels, and ten articles on punctuation.