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08241_Field_TCGG T6.txt
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1996-04-10
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a moment of interplay of contrasted cultures, and The
Gutenberg Galaxy is intended to trace the ways in which the
forms of experience and of mental outlook and expression have
been modified, first by the phonetic alphabet and then by
printing. The enterprise which Milman Parry undertook with
reference to the contrasted forms of oral and written poetry is
here extended to the forms of thought and the organization of
experience in society and politics. That such a study of the
divergent nature of oral and written social organization has not
been carried out by historians long ago is rather hard to
explain. Perhaps the reason for the omission is simply that the
job could only be done when the two conflicting forms of
written and oral experience were once again co-existent as they
are today. Professor Harry Levin indicates as much in his
preface to Professor Lord’s The Singer of Tales (p. xiii):