page in a few swift glances. Nor is anything more alien to 
     modernity than the capacious medieval memory which, 
     untrammelled by the associations of print, could learn a 
     strange language with ease and by the methods of a 
     child, and could retain in memory and reproduce lengthy 
     epic and elaborate lyric poems. Two points, therefore, 
     must be emphasized at the outset. The medieval reader, 
     with few exceptions, did not read as we do; he was in the 
     stage of our muttering childhood learner; each word was 
     for him a separate entity and at times a problem which he 
     whispered to himself when he had found the solution; this 
     fact is a matter of interest to those who edit the writings 
     which he produced. Further, as readers were few and 
     hearers numerous, literature in its early days was 
     produced very largely for public recitation; hence, it was 
     rhetorical rather than literary in character, and rules of