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08524_Field_TCGG T289.txt
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1996-04-10
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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