Written Texts And The Rise Of Literate Culture In Ancient Greece

Author : Harvey Yunis
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139437836
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Written Texts and the Rise of Literate Culture in Ancient Greece written by Harvey Yunis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-02-06 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the sixth through the fourth centuries BCE, the landmark developments of Greek culture and the critical works of Greek thought and literature were accompanied by an explosive growth in the use of written texts. By the close of the classical period, a new culture of literacy and textuality had come into existence alongside the traditional practices of live oral discourse. New avenues for human activity and creativity arose in this period. The very creation of the 'classical' and the perennial use of Greece by later European civilizations as a source of knowledge and inspiration would not have taken place without the textual innovations of the classical period. This book considers how writing, reading and disseminating texts led to new ways of thinking and new forms of expression and behaviour. The individual chapters cover a range of phenomena, including poetry, science, religions, philosophy, history, law and learning.

Author : Eric Alfred Havelock
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691196583
Total Pages : 378 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Literate Revolution in Greece and its Cultural Consequences written by Eric Alfred Havelock and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together studies by a distinguished classical scholar that address specific problems associated with the development of literacy in ancient Greece. The articles were written over a twenty-year period and published individually in various journals and books. They deal with Greece's technological and intellectual transition from a preliterate to a literate culture, showing the effects registered by the introduction of the alphabet as the written word came to replace its oral counterpart in the literature of Greece and of Europe. Eric A. Havelock is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Classics at Yale University. His numerous publications include The Liberal Temper in Greek Politics (Yale), Preface to Plato (Harvard), and The Greek Concept of Justice (Harvard). Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Author : William A Johnson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199887667
Total Pages : 448 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ancient Literacies written by William A Johnson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-05 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Classicists have been slow to take advantage of the important advances in the way that literacy is viewed in other disciplines (including in particular cognitive psychology, socio-linguistics, and socio-anthropology). On the other hand, historians of literacy continue to rely on outdated work by classicists (mostly from the 1960's and 1970's) and have little access to the current reexamination of the ancient evidence. This timely volume attempts to formulate new interesting ways of talking about the entire concept of literacy in the ancient world--literacy not in the sense of whether 10% or 30% of people in the ancient world could read or write, but in the sense of text-oriented events embedded in a particular socio-cultural context. The volume is intended as a forum in which selected leading scholars rethink from the ground up how students of classical antiquity might best approach the question of literacy in the past, and how that investigation might materially intersect with changes in the way that literacy is now viewed in other disciplines. The result will give readers new ways of thinking about specific elements of "literacy" in antiquity, such as the nature of personal libraries, or what it means to be a bookseller in antiquity; new constructionist questions, such as what constitutes reading communities and how they fashion themselves; new takes on the public sphere, such as how literacy intersects with commercialism, or with the use of public spaces, or with the construction of civic identity; new essentialist questions, such as what "book" and "reading" signify in antiquity, why literate cultures develop, or why literate cultures matter. The book derives from a conference (a Semple Symposium held in Cincinnati in April 2006) and includes new work from the most outstanding scholars of literacy in antiquity (e.g., Simon Goldhill, Joseph Farrell, Peter White, and Rosalind Thomas).

Author : Rosalind Thomas
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521377423
Total Pages : 222 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece written by Rosalind Thomas and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-09-25 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the role of written and oral communication in Greece.

Author : Kevin Robb
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0195363167
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Literacy and Paideia in Ancient Greece written by Kevin Robb and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1994-08-11 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the progress of literacy in ancient Greece from its origins in the eighth century to the fourth century B.C.E., when the major cultural institutions of Athens became totally dependent on alphabetic literacy. By introducing new evidence and re-evaluating the older evidence, Robb demonstrates that early Greek literacy can be understood only in terms of the rich oral culture that immediately preceded it, one that was dominated by the oral performance of epical verse, or "Homer." Only gradually did literate practices supersede oral habits and the oral way of life, forging alliances which now seem both bizarre and fascinating, but which were eminently successful, contributing to the "miracle" of Greece. In this book new light is brought to early Greek ethics, the rise of written law, the emergence of philosophy, and the final dominance of the Athenian philosophical schools in higher education.

Author : Rosalind Thomas
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 0521350255
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens written by Rosalind Thomas and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989-03-09 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite its written literature, ancient Greece was in many ways an oral society. The first significant attempt to study the implications of this view stresses the coexistence of literacy and oral tradition and examines their character and interaction.

Author : Craig Cooper
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 904740808X
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Politics of Orality written by Craig Cooper and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2006-12-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume represents the sixth in the series on Orality and Literacy in Ancient Greece and Rome. The present work comprises a collection of essays that explore the tensions and controversies that arise as society moves from an oral to literate culture.

Author : Anne Mackay
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 904743384X
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Orality, Literacy, Memory in the Ancient Greek and Roman World written by Anne Mackay and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2008-08-31 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume represents the seventh in the series on Orality and Literacy in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds. It comprises a collection of essays on the significance and working of memory in ancient texts and visual documentation, from contexts both oral (or oral-derived) and literate. The authors discuss a variety of interpretations of ‘memory’ in Homeric epic, lyric poetry, tragedy, historical inscriptions, oratory, and philosophy, as well as in the replication of ancient artworks, and in Greek vase inscriptions. They present therefore a wide-ranging analysis of memory as a fundamental faculty underlying the production and reception of texts and material documentation in a society that gradually moved from an essentially oral to an essentially literate culture.

Author : William V. HARRIS
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674038371
Total Pages : 406 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ancient Literacy written by William V. HARRIS and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How many people could read and write in the ancient world of the Greeks and Romans? No one has previously tried to give a systematic answer to this question. Most historians who have considered the problem at all have given optimistic assessments, since they have been impressed by large bodies of ancient written material such as the graffiti at Pompeii. They have also been influenced by a tendency to idealize the Greek and Roman world and its educational system. In Ancient Literacy W. V. Harris provides the first thorough exploration of the levels, types, and functions of literacy in the classical world, from the invention of the Greek alphabet about 800 B.C. down to the fifth century A.D. Investigations of other societies show that literacy ceases to be the accomplishment of a small elite only in specific circumstances. Harris argues that the social and technological conditions of the ancient world were such as to make mass literacy unthinkable. Noting that a society on the verge of mass literacy always possesses an elaborate school system, Harris stresses the limitations of Greek and Roman schooling, pointing out the meagerness of funding for elementary education. Neither the Greeks nor the Romans came anywhere near to completing the transition to a modern kind of written culture. They relied more heavily on oral communication than has generally been imagined. Harris examines the partial transition to written culture, taking into consideration the economic sphere and everyday life, as well as law, politics, administration, and religion. He has much to say also about the circulation of literary texts throughout classical antiquity. The limited spread of literacy in the classical world had diverse effects. It gave some stimulus to critical thought and assisted the accumulation of knowledge, and the minority that did learn to read and write was to some extent able to assert itself politically. The written word was also an instrument of power, and its use was indispensable for the construction and maintenance of empires. Most intriguing is the role of writing in the new religious culture of the late Roman Empire, in which it was more and more revered but less and less practiced. Harris explores these and related themes in this highly original work of social and cultural history. Ancient Literacy is important reading for anyone interested in the classical world, the problem of literacy, or the history of the written word.

Author : Ian Worthington
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004329838
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Voice into Text written by Ian Worthington and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume deals with orality and literacy in ancient Greece and what consideration of these areas yields for that society, its literature, traditions and practices. Individual chapters focus on art, comedy, historiography, oratory, religion, rhetoric, philosophy, poetry, tragedy, and on orality in contemporary cultures (Greek and South African), which have a bearing on the ancient world. By considering such factors as oral elements in various genres and practices and how these have shaped the texts we have today, as well as the extent of literacy and the impact of literacy on oral traditions and on singers/writers, the book presents another insight into ancient Greek society and its people.