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08242_Field_TCGG T7.txt
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1996-04-10
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990b
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16 lines
The term “literature,” presupposing the use of
letters, assumes that verbal works of imagination are
transmitted by means of writing and reading. The
expression “oral literature” is obviously a contradiction in
terms. Yet we live at a time when literacy itself has
become so diluted that it can scarcely be invoked as an
aesthetic criterion. The Word as spoken or sung, together
with a visual image of the speaker or singer, has
meanwhile been regaining its hold through electrical
engineering. A culture based upon the printed book, which
has prevailed from the Renaissance until lately, has
bequeathed to us—along with its immeasurable riches—
snobberies which ought to be cast aside. We ought to
take a fresh look at tradition, considered not as the inert
acceptance of a fossilized corpus of themes and
conventions, but as an organic habit of re-creating what