Havelock, Eric. -The Greek Legacy.H In David Crowley and Paul Heyer, Communication in History:. Technology Culture, Society. Third Edition. New York: Longman, 1999, pp. 54-60.
THE GREEK LEGACY Eric Havelock
Eric Havelock (1903-1989) was professor of classics at Yale University. A one-time colleague of Harold Innis, Havelock wrote extensively on the impact ofliteracy on the history of the West, especially with reference to the legacy ofGreek alphabetization.
he introduction of the Greek letters into in all human impediments to their realization could Tscription somewhere about 700 B.C. was to be removed, in order to place the invention in its alter the character ofhuman culture, placing a gulf proper historical perspective. between all alphabetic societies and their precur It democratized literacy, or rather made de sors. The Greeks did not just invent an alphabet, mocratization possible. This point is often made, they invented literacy and the literate basis of but in simplistic terms, as though it were merely a modern thought. Under modern conditions there matter oflearning a limited number ofletters, that , seems to be only a short time lag between the in is, learning to write them. Hence even the Semitic vention of a device and its full social or industrial system has often been erroneously credited with application, and we have got used to this idea as a this advantage. If Semitic societies in antiquity fact of technology. This was not true of the alpha showed democratic tendencies, this was not because bet. The letter shapes and values had to pass they were literate. On the contrary, to the extent through a period oflocalization before being stan that their democracy was modified by theocracy, I dardized throughout Greece. Even after the tech with considerable prestige and power vested in nology was standardized or relatively so--there priesthoods, they exhibited all the symptoms of were always two competing versions, the Eastern craft literacy. The Greek system by its superior and the Western-its effects were registered slowly analysis of sound placed the skill of reading theo I in Greece, were then partly cancelled during the retically within the reach of children at the stage I European Middle Ages, and have been fully real where they are still learning the sounds of their ized only since the further invention of the print oral vocabulary. If acquired in childhood, the skill ing press. But it is useful here and now to set forth was convertible into an automatic reflex and thus the full theoretic possibilities that would accrue distributable over a majority ofa given population from the use ofthe Greek alphabet, supposing that provided it was applied to the spoken vernacular. 54 Part II • The Tradition ofWestern Literacy
But this meant that democratization would de original Semitic were names of common objects pend not only upon the invention but also upon like "house" and "camel" and so on. Uncritical stu the organization and maintenance of school in dents of the history of writing will even make it a struction in reading at the elementary level. This reproach against the Greek system that the names second requirement is social rather than techno became "meaningless" in Greek. The reproach is logical. It was not met in Greece for perhaps three very foolish. A true alphabet, the sole basis of fu hundred years after the technological problem was ture literacy, could only become operative when solved, and was abandoned again in Europe for a its components were robbed of any independent long period after the fall of Rome. When opera meaning whatever, in order to become convertible tive, it rendered the role of the scribe or the clerk into a mechanical mnemonic device. obsolete, and removed the elitist status of literacy The fluency of reading that could result de characteristic ofcraft-literate epochs. pended upon fluency of recognition and this in Have the outward social and political effects turn as we have seen upon the removal so far as of full literacy really been as important and pro possible of all choices upon the part ofthe reader, found as is sometimes claimed? Our later exami all ambiguities. Such an automatic system brought nation of oral cultures and the way they function within reach the capacity to transcribe the com may throw some doubt on this. What the new plete vernacular of any given language, anything script may have done in the long run was to whatever that could be said in the language, with a change somewhat the content ofthe human mind. guarantee that the reader would recognize the This is a conclusion which will not be argued fully unique acoustic values of the signs, and so the here. But this much should be said at once. The unique statements conveyed thereby, whatever acoustic efficiency ofthe script had a result which they happened to be. The need for authorized ver was psychological: once it was learned you did not sions restricted to statements ofa familiar and ac have to think about it. Though a visible thing, a se cepted nature was removed. Moreover the new ries of marks, it created to interpose itself as an system could identify the phonemes of any lan object of thought between the reader and his rec guage with accuracy. Thus the possibility arose of ollection of the spoken tongue. The script there placing two or several languages within the same fore came to resemble an electric current commu type of script and so greatly accelerating the nicating a recollection ofthe sounds ofthe spoken process ofcross-translation between them. This is word directly to the brain so that the meaning re the technological secret which made possible the sounded as it were in the consciousness without construction of a Roman literature upon Greek reference to the properties of the letters used. The models-the first such enterprise in the history of script was reduced to a gimmick; it had no intrin mankind. For the most part, however, this advan sic value in itself as a script and this marked it off tage of interchange between written communica from all previous systems. It was characteristic of tions has accrued to the later alphabetic cultures of the alphabet that the names of the Greek letters, Europe. By way of contrast, the historian Thucy borrowed from the Phoenician, for the first time dides in the Greek period records an episode became meaningless: alpha, beta, gamma, etc. con where the documents ofa captured Persian emis stitutes simply a nursery chant designed to im sary had to be "translated" into Greek. That is how print the mechanical sounds of the letters, by the word is interpreted by the commentators who using what is called the acrophonic principle, in a explain this passage. But Thucydides does not say fixed series on the child's brain, while simultane "translated." What the would-be translators had ously tightly correlating them with his vision of a first to do was to "change the letters" of the origi fixed series ofshapes which he looks at as he pro nal syllabic script into the Greek alphabet. How nounces the acoustic values. These names in the could they have done this? I suggest that it was 7 • The Greek Legacy SS done only with the previous assistance of the spo fluent prose, but this would be misleading, since ken tongue, not the written. That is, an orally obviously the larger component of oral discourse bilingual Persian who was also craft-literate in the even in an oral culture is prosaic. What is effec Persian sense, that is, knew his cuneiform, would ~ tively brought into being was prose recorded and read aloud what the document said, translating as preserved in quantity. To interpret this innovation he went into spoken Greek. His opposite number as merely stylistic would be to miss the point of a would then transcribe from his dictation into the profound change occurring in the character ofthe Greek alphabet, unless there was a Persian available content of what could be preserved. A revolution who could use both cuneiform and alphabet. Then was underway both psychological and epistemo the Persian dispatch, now in Greek alphabetic logical. The important and influential statement form, could be carried to Athens and read there. In in any culture is the one that is preserved. Under the United Nations today some such procedure is conditions of non-literacy in Greece, and of craft still required for cross-communication between literacy in pre-Greek cultures, the conditions for the alphabetic cultures and the non-alphabetic preservation were mnemonic, and this involved ones like the Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese, lead the use of verbal and musical rhythm, for any ing as it often does to ambiguities and even mis statement that was to be remembered and re understandings of a special sort that do not arise peated. The alphabet, making available a visual between the alphabetic cultures, misunderstand ized record which was complete, in place of an ings which can even have political consequences. acoustic one, abolished the need for memoriza These effects, to repeat, were theoretically at tion and hence for rhythm. Rhythm had hitherto tainable. For reasons to be explained later, the full placed severe limitations upon the verbal arrange vernacular was not in fact the first thing to be ment of what might be said, or thought. More transcribed. The alphabet was not originally put at than that, the need to remember had used up a de the service of ordinary human conversation. gree of brain-power-of psychic energy-which Rather it was first used to record a progressively now was no longer needed. The statement need complete version ofthe "oral literature" ofGreece, not be memorized. lt could lie around as an arti if the paradox may be permitted, which had been fact, to be read when needed; no penalty for for nourished in the non-literate period and which getting-that is, so far as preservation was con indeed had sustained the identity of the previous cerned. The mental energies thus released, by this oral culture of Greece. Although today we "read" economy of memory, have probably been exten our Homer, our Pindar, or our Euripides, a great sive, contributing to an immense expansion of deal of what we are "listening to" is a fairly accu knowledge available to the human mind. rate acoustic transcription of all the contrived These theoretic possibilities were exploited forms in which oral speech had hitherto been pre only cautiously in Graeco-Roman antiquity, and served. This phenomenon as it occurs in the for are being fully realized only today. If I stress them mation of what we call Greek literature has been here in their twofold significance, namely, that all imperfectly understood and will be explored in possible discourse became translatable into script, depth when the Greeks are at last allowed, as they and that simultaneously the burden of memoriza will be, to take over the course and direction of tion was lifted from the mind, it is to bring out the this history. further fact that the alphabet therewith made And yet, though fluent transcription of the possible the production of novel or unexpected oral record became the primary use to which the statement, previously unfamiliar and even "un alphabet was put, the secondary purpose which it thought." The advance ofknowledge, both humane caple to serve was historically more important. I and scientific, depends upon the human ability to could say that it made possible the invention of think about something unexpected-a"new idea:' 56 Part II • The Tradition ofWestern Literacy as we loosely but conveniently say. Such novel counter. For literacy is not built upon a fund of be take] thought only achieves completed existence when it inscriptions. In Greece, where stone and baked more c< becomes novel statement, and a novel statement clay initially provide our earliest testimony to the ally are cannot realize its potential until it can be preserved use of the alphabet, what we would like to know ApologJ for further use. Previous transcription, because of more about is the availability of those perishable Anaxag the ambiguities of the script, discouraged attempts surfaces which could perform the casual and copi drachm to record novel statements. This indirectly dis ous services now supplied by the paper which we (gemei) couraged the attempt to frame them even orally, moderns so thoughtlessly consume and throw tion ha for what use were they likely to be, or what influ away. Herodotus reports that the earliest material not. Tl ence were they likely to have, if confined within ofthis nature in use was parchment, that is, animal nounce the ephemeral range of casual vernacular conver skins, obviously a very limited resource, quantita still sur sation? The alphabet, by encouraging the produc tively speaking, though qualitatively superior as which v tion ofunfamiliar statement, stimulated the think later antiquity was to realize. The other basic sur pher. Tl ing of novel thought, which could lie around in face was that of the papyrus sheet available in ular ant inscribed form, be recognized, be read and re Egypt. How soon did Greece import papyrus in the phi read, and so spread its influence among readers. It quantity? The texts of Homer, so we were told by ment tc is no accident that the pre-alphabetic cultures of late tradition, received a recension ofsome sort in inscribt the world were also in a large sense the pre-scien the period when Pisistratus ruled Athens about papyru: tific cultures, pre-philosophical and pre-literary. the middle ofthe sixth century. In what form were a good The power of novel statement is not restricted to these texts available? Were they inscribed on pa scribin! the arrangement ofscientific observation. Itcovers pyrus? Certainly the first half of the fifth century period the gamut of the human experience. There were saw the increasing use of papyrus in Athens, and acywhi new inventible ways ofspeaking about human life, also of the waxed tablet for making notes on. Ref lation" and therefore of thinking about it, which became erences in the plays ofAeschylus make this certain. Th slowly possible for man only when they became But it is possible to deduce that the references are achieve inscribed and preservable and extendable in the there because the use of such items was novel turybe alphabetic literatures of Europe.... rather than familiar. The words "biblos" or "byb general los" are translatable as either "papyrus" the mater the hal ial, or as the object consisting ofpapyrus on which tomed READERSHIP BEFORE writing is placed. The common translation "book" compel THE PRINTING PRESS is misleading. Individual sheets of papyrus, as is plemen well known, could be gummed together at the tation There were limits set to classical literacy by the edges in series, thus forming a continuously ex fourth character of the materials and the methods em tended surface which could be rolled up. To find shelves ployed to manufacture the written word. The al the place you had to unroll until you came to it. most a phabet did not fully come into its own until West "Biblion," the diminutive, meant neither book nor cannot ern Europe had learned to copy the letter shapes in roll but a simple folded sheet or conceivably two possess movable type and until progress in industrial tech or three such, folded once over together. Such de to bast nique made possible the manufacture of cheap tails as these, coupledwith the certain scarcity of piece 0 paper. So-called book production in antiquity and material when judged by modern standards, serve his pIa) the various styles of writing employed have re to remind us that the would-be reader in ancient and hi ceived substantial scholarly attention, the results Athens encountered certain obstacles to his read Hades, of which need not be recapitulated here except as ing which we would regard as constricting. In esti into th they throw light on the material difficulties which mating the degree of literacy and the rate of its indicat any extension ofpopular literacy was bound to en- spread, how far should such material limitations a parct 7 • The Greek Legacy 57 be taken into account? Should they not make us who had turned himself into a reader and who more cautious in this matter than Hellenists usu made poetry out ofwhat he had read, in supposed ally are? To give just one example: Plato in his contrast to his antagonist who is orally oriented. Apology makes Socrates refer to the biblia of On what materials did Athenian children in Anaxagoras the philosopher, "purchasable for a elementary school learn their letters? Probably drachma at most:' which he says "are chockfull" sand and slate, rather than papyrus, both being (gemei) of such statements (logoi) as the prosecu media quantitatively copious, since they admit of tion has referred to. Are these books? Of course continual reuse through erasure. A "school scene" not. The reference is to those summary pro which predates the age of social literacy in Athens nouncements of the philosopher's doctrine which portrays an older man using a waxed tablet. Such still survive in quotation from later antiquity and waxed tablets but not paper are actually featured which we now call the "fragments" of the philoso in the plots ofa few plays ofEuripides produced in pher. They are compressed in style and even orac the last third of the century when the delivery ofa ular and, we suggest, were published as a guide to message or letter is called for. Aeschylus is aware the philosopher's system to be used as a supple only oftheir use for memoranda. In either case the ment to oral teaching. Such summaries could be material used would favor brevity ofcomposition. inscribed in installments upon separate sheets of It also could of course be reused, which again im papyrus purchasable for a drachma per sheet. But plies continual erasure ofthe written word. Docu a good deal has been made of his reference in de ments can be flourished in a comedy of Aristo scribing the supposed Athenian book trade of the phanes to back up an oral statement with the period and also in affirming a sophisticated liter implication that only shysters would use this re acy which is presupposed by the misleading trans source; the written word is still under some suspi lation "book." cion or is a little ridiculous. All in all, one concludes This is not to discount the degree of literacy that the reading of the literate Athenian was con achieved in Athens in the last third ofthe fifth cen fined within limits that we would think narrow, tury before Christ but to emphasize that however but what he did read he read deliberately and care general the management of the alphabet became, fully. Speed ofrecognition, the secret ofthe alpha the habit of rapid reading which we are accus betic invention, was still likely to be slow relative to tomed to identify as the hallmark of a verbally .modern practice, and thus likelihood bears on the competent person would be very difficult to im acknowledged attention which writers and readers plement. There was no large volume ofdocumen ofthe high classical period gave to words and their tation to practice on. If Plato's Academy in the weighing. Inscribed language was not being man fourth century B.C. had a library, how many ufactured at a rate great enough to dull the atten shelves were filled? The very term "library" is al tion or impair verbal taste. The written word car most a mistranslation, considering the modern ried the value of a commodity in limited supply. connotation, as when we are told that Euripides The literature of the period bears the hallmark of possessed the first library. This tradition appears a verbal nicety never excelled and rarely equalled to base itself upon an inference drawn from a in European practice. piece of burlesque concocted by Aristophanes in As a corollary to this verbal sophistication his play The Frogs at the poet's expense. Euripides (which was reinforced by residual habits of oral and his poetry, in a contest with Aeschylus in composition), the writers of the classical period Hades, have to be "weighed:' so he is told to get consulted each other's works and wrote what they into the scale pan, after "picking up his papyri:' had to say out of what others had written before indicating that the poet could be expected to carry them to a degree difficult for a modern author a parcel with him. He is satirized as a composer to appreciate. The world of literature, because 58 Part II • TheTradition ofWestern Literacy quantitatively so restricted, could constitute itself letter shapes was rendered impossible by the va a sort oflarge club, the members ofwhich were fa garies of personal handwriting. A degree of stan miliar with each other's words even though sepa dardization was theoretically possible and cer rated by spans of historic time. A good deal of tainly aimed at in the Graeco-Roman period. It what was written therefore called upon the reader quickly broke up thereafter. A handicraft may and to recognize echoes from other works in circula does produce a custom-made product of fine tion. If the modern scholar thinks he is able to quality, and in the case of those artifacts that we trace influences and interconnections which seem use and consume in daily living such competitive excessive by modern standards of free composi excellence becomes esteemed andvaluable. But the WRI' tion, he is not necessarily deluding himself. The production ofcustom-built products on the same ANI world of the alphabet in antiquity was like that. lines when the goal is the manufacture ofcommu Books and documentation multiplied in the nication becomes self-defeating. To the extent that PRoe Hellenistic and Roman periods. Papyrological dis the scribes formed schools or guilds, formal or coveries indicate that papyrus was in ready supply otherwise, to foster the elaboration of local hands Writil in Hellenistic Egypt, where indeed one would ex and embellish competing styles ofwriting, reader spoke pect to find it. But up to the end of antiquity and ship ofthat sort which alone furnishes the basis of whost beyond that through the medieval centuries, ex a literate culture was bound to be impaired. Cal from tending through the invention of the codex or ligraphy, as already noted above, becomes the forma book proper, so much easier to handle and con enemy of literacy and hence also of literature and it is a ( sult, the distinction between our modern paper ofscience. has e, literacy, if! may call it, and the literacy of our an Alphabetic literacy, in order to overcome Then cestors still holds. It is a distinction determined in these limitations of method and so achieve its full are qt part bythe sheer quantitative limitations placed in potential, had to await the invention of the print buta) antiquity upon the materials available for inscrip ing press. The original achievement, the Greek tion. j tion. The use of the palimpsest-the document one, had solved an empirical problem by applying etry, " hoarded and then erased and reused, sometimes abstract analysis. But the material means for max to be I twice over-is eloquent testimony to the scarcity imizing the result required the assistance of fur access and the preciousness ofthe material surfaces upon ther inventions and had to await a long time for it. ing is which alphabetic script could be written. Such necessary combination of technologies is T But scarcity ofmaterials aside, the production characteristic of scientific advance. To realize that oppor of script and hence the resources available for there is energy available when water is converted forms readership were bound to remain restricted be into steam was one thing. To harness the energy preser yond theimagination ofany modern reader as long successfully was another, requiring the parallel in thei as such production remained a handicraft. This set construction of machine tools capable of produc 550 B( a second quantitative limitation upon the creation ing fine tolerances to fit piston to cylinder, the scripti of all documentation, whether for literaryor busi manufacture of lubricants capable of sealing the the va ness purposes, as is obvious. A decree or law could fit, the parallel invention ofslide-rod mechanisms whop not be promulgated in a newspaper; copies of ac to control the periods of steam pressure, and of mittec counts could not be distributed to shareholders; crank and connecting rod to convert the thrust fied, a: an author could not commit his manuscript to a into rotation. The energy of the alphabet likewise visuaU publisher for mass manufacture and sale. had to await the assistance provided by the dawn edited But the qualitative restrictions thus imposed ing age ofscientific advance in Europe in order to with 1 were ifanything more drastic. Strict uniformityof be fully released. out ar single butw