Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/08505_Field_TCGG T270.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 974b | 16 lines

Again he writes: “Take breath and read it with the ears, as I
always wish to be read, and my verse comes all right.” And
Joyce never tired of explaining how in Finnegans Wake  “the
words the reader sees are not the words that he will hear.” As
with Hopkins, the language of Joyce only comes alive when read
aloud, creating a synesthesia or interplay of the senses.

     But if reading aloud favors synesthesia and tactility, so
did the ancient and medieval manuscript. We have already seen
an example of a recent attempt to create an oral typography
for modern English readers. Naturally, such a script presents
the highly textural and tactile mode of an old manuscript.
“Textura,” the name for Gothic lettering in its own time, meant
“tapestry.” But the Romans had developed a much less textural
and more highly visual lettering which is called “Roman” and
which is the lettering we find in ordinary print, as on this page.