Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousnes and Culture

353 Pages·1977·47.333 MB·English

by  Walter J. Ong

Interfaces of the Word
STUDIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF
CONSCIOUSNESS AND CULTURE
Also by Walter}. Ong, S.}.
Frontiers in American Catholicism (1957)
Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue (1958)
Ramus and Talon Inventory (1958)
American Catholic Crossroads (1959)
Darwin's Vision and Christian Perspectives (1960)
(Editor and Contributor)
The Barbarian Within (1962)
In the Human Grain (1967)
The Presence of the Word (1967)
Knowledge and the Future of Man (1968)
(Editor and Contributor)
Petrus Ramus and Audomarus Talaeus, Collectaneae
praefationes, epistolae, orationes (1969) (Editor)
Petrus Ramus, Scholae in liberales artes (1970) (Editor)
Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology (1971)
Why Talk? (1973)
Interfaces of the Word
STUDIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF
CONSCIOUSNESS AND CULTURE
Walter ]. Ong, S.].
Cornell University Press
ITHACA AND LONDON
Copyright © 1977 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this
book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without
permission in writing from the publisher. For information address
Cornell University Press, 124 Roberts Place, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 1977 by Cornell University Press.
Published in the United Kingdom by Cornell University Press Ltd.,
2-4 Brook Street, London W1Y 1AA.
International Standard Book Number 0-8014-1105-X
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 77-3124
Printed in the United States of America by York Composition Co., Inc.
Librarians: Library of Congress cataloging information
appears on the last page of the book.
To the memory of
William Kurtz Wimsatt, Jr.,
who once told me, ((1 am a space man,
you are a time man,"
and of
Alexander Wimsatt
and for Margaret and James
Quoniam Deus creavit hominem inexterminabilem
et ad imaginem similitudinis suae fecit illum.
Iustorum autem animae in manu Dei sunt,
et non tang et illos tormentum mortis.
-Lib. Sap. 2: 23, 3: 1

Contents
Preface 9
I. CLEAVAGE AND GROWTH
1. Transformations of the Word and Alienation 17
II. THE SEQUESTRATION OF VOICE
2. The Writer's Audience Is Always a Fiction 53
3. Media Transformation: The Talked Book 82
4. African Talking Drums and Oral Noetics 92
5. "I See What You Say": Sense Analogues for Intellect 121
III. CLOS URE AND PRINT
6. Typographic Rhapsody: Ravisius Textor, Zwinger, and
Shakespeare 147
7. From Epithet to Logic: Miltonic Epic and the
Closure of Existence 189
8. The Poem as a Closed Field: The Once New Criticism
and the Nature of Literature 213
9. M aranatha: Death and Life in the Text of the Book 230
10. From Mimesis to Irony: Writing and Print as
Integuments of Voice 272
IV. PRESENT AND FUTURE
11. Voice and the Opening of Closed Systems 305
Index 343

Preface
The present volume carries forward work in two earlier vol
umes by the same author, The Presence of the Word (1967) and
Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology (1971). The first of these
describes and interprets the evolution of modes of thought and
verbal expression from primary oral culture, before the invention
of script, through the subsequent technological transformations of
the word-through writing, print, and the electronic devices of
recent times (the so-called media) -and the resulting evolu
tion of consciousness, of man's sense of presence in the human
lifeworld, including the physical world and what man senses be
yond. The second undertakes to show how the history of rhetoric
in the West has mirrored the evolution of society, variously order
ing knowledge, guiding thought, focusing perception, and shaping
culture for over two thousand years until the ancient rhetorical
economy of thought and expression was finally swamped by the
effects of print and the advent of the Age of Romanticism.
The thesis of these two earlier works is sweeping, but it is not
reductionist, as reviewers and commentators, so far as I know,
have all generously recognized: the works do not maintain that
the evolution from primary orality through writing and print to
an electronic culture, which produces secondary orality, causes
or explains everything in human culture and consciousness.
Rather, the thesis is relationist: major developments, and very
likely even all major developments, in culture and consciousness
are related, often in unexpected intimacy, to the evolution of the