Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/08242_Field_TCGG T7.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 990b | 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