| Title | Quotation in Greco-Roman contexts |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1995 |
| Journal | Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident |
| Volume | 17 |
| Pages | 141-153 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Lloyd, Geoffrey |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| The papers in this collection raise a variety of important issues and illustrate the complexity of the phenomena that "quotation" may cover. But for anyone attempting to bring to bear some of the ancient Greek and Latin data on this topic, one immediate problem must be confronted at the outset, namely the difference that different degrees of orality and literacy may make. The idea that there is a polar opposition between oral and literate societies (as a whole) has long ago been exploded (Jack Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind, Cambridge 1977). Rather, there is a wide spectrum of degrees of orality and literacy. But in the comparative absence of writing and of written texts, what passes as a quotation, and the manner in which quotations are used, may well differ very markedly from the norms and uses practiced within communities of listeners and readers who are in a position to refer to written records. The myth of the Bagre, as Goody explained, is represented by the LoDagaa themselves as invariant: it is always, they insist, the same. Yet actual performances vary widely, as Goody's own transcriptions, carried out over a period of several decades and using different methods, prove conclusively. The most recent versions of the myth have been known to incorporate references to Goody and his tape recorder themselves. The development of literacy in ancient Greece is as controversial as the question of the role of oral performance in or behind the creation of the Homeric epics. The work of Milman Parry and A. B. Lord, comparing Greek and oral Balkan epic, accepted as orthodoxy in the 1960s, is nowadays problematized as often as it is cited as authoritative. For every Greek scholar who accepts that Homeric formulae have a mnemonic function in oral performance, there is another who insists not just on the literary, but the literate, craftsmanship of the Homeric use of repetition. Again, just how literate were those who lived at Athens in the 5th or 4th centuries BCE—the male citizens, their wives, let alone their slaves? Learning to read and write was represented, often with some pride, it seems, as part of the traditional education of well-born children, but how fluent in those two skills they were expected to become, or normally became, is another matter. The institution of ostracism seemingly implies the assumption that all citizens could write the name of the person they wanted to send into exile. But not everyone "wrote" their own ostrakon, as we can tell from the archaeological record, for some were evidently "mass-produced" for others' use. Yet while these and other issues are no closer to resolution now than they were when the literacy debate began in earnest, one feature of classical Greek culture that is generally agreed upon, and that is important for our purposes, is that, even when written texts were available for consultation, the usual mode of communication was oral. In Plato's Parmenides 127c-e, when Socrates meets Parmenides and Zeno on a visit to Athens and hears that Zeno has brought his book with him, Socrates asks him not to lend him the text but to read it out. The relevance of this to quotation is twofold. First, the criteria of accuracy in quotation are affected, and secondly, following on from that, we have to question whether what may look like a report of what someone "says" is indeed that, or merely, at most, an attribution of an idea or an opinion. Thus, when we find Plato "misquoting" Homer, there may be no fewer than four (by no means all mutually exclusive) reasons for this, over and above the possibility that our text of Plato is "corrupt": (1) Plato has misremembered: he is quoting from memory, but that is at fault. (2) He is deliberately misquoting and expects his readers/listeners to spot this immediately and to catch his drift—to understand the game that he, Plato, is playing with Homer. (3) He is deliberately misquoting but does not expect that to be picked up: he does not expect to be "caught out." I shall return to this third possibility later with the example of Galen. (4) He has a different text of Homer from ours. [introduction p. 141-142] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/nlUVMDS4ArBBIez |
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But for anyone attempting to bring to bear some of the ancient Greek and Latin data on this topic, one immediate problem must be confronted at the outset, namely the difference that different degrees of orality and literacy may make.\r\n\r\nThe idea that there is a polar opposition between oral and literate societies (as a whole) has long ago been exploded (Jack Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind, Cambridge 1977). Rather, there is a wide spectrum of degrees of orality and literacy. But in the comparative absence of writing and of written texts, what passes as a quotation, and the manner in which quotations are used, may well differ very markedly from the norms and uses practiced within communities of listeners and readers who are in a position to refer to written records. The myth of the Bagre, as Goody explained, is represented by the LoDagaa themselves as invariant: it is always, they insist, the same. Yet actual performances vary widely, as Goody's own transcriptions, carried out over a period of several decades and using different methods, prove conclusively. The most recent versions of the myth have been known to incorporate references to Goody and his tape recorder themselves.\r\n\r\nThe development of literacy in ancient Greece is as controversial as the question of the role of oral performance in or behind the creation of the Homeric epics. The work of Milman Parry and A. B. Lord, comparing Greek and oral Balkan epic, accepted as orthodoxy in the 1960s, is nowadays problematized as often as it is cited as authoritative. For every Greek scholar who accepts that Homeric formulae have a mnemonic function in oral performance, there is another who insists not just on the literary, but the literate, craftsmanship of the Homeric use of repetition.\r\n\r\nAgain, just how literate were those who lived at Athens in the 5th or 4th centuries BCE\u2014the male citizens, their wives, let alone their slaves? Learning to read and write was represented, often with some pride, it seems, as part of the traditional education of well-born children, but how fluent in those two skills they were expected to become, or normally became, is another matter. The institution of ostracism seemingly implies the assumption that all citizens could write the name of the person they wanted to send into exile. But not everyone \"wrote\" their own ostrakon, as we can tell from the archaeological record, for some were evidently \"mass-produced\" for others' use.\r\n\r\nYet while these and other issues are no closer to resolution now than they were when the literacy debate began in earnest, one feature of classical Greek culture that is generally agreed upon, and that is important for our purposes, is that, even when written texts were available for consultation, the usual mode of communication was oral. In Plato's Parmenides 127c-e, when Socrates meets Parmenides and Zeno on a visit to Athens and hears that Zeno has brought his book with him, Socrates asks him not to lend him the text but to read it out.\r\n\r\nThe relevance of this to quotation is twofold. First, the criteria of accuracy in quotation are affected, and secondly, following on from that, we have to question whether what may look like a report of what someone \"says\" is indeed that, or merely, at most, an attribution of an idea or an opinion.\r\n\r\nThus, when we find Plato \"misquoting\" Homer, there may be no fewer than four (by no means all mutually exclusive) reasons for this, over and above the possibility that our text of Plato is \"corrupt\":\r\n(1) Plato has misremembered: he is quoting from memory, but that is at fault.\r\n(2) He is deliberately misquoting and expects his readers\/listeners to spot this immediately and to catch his drift\u2014to understand the game that he, Plato, is playing with Homer.\r\n(3) He is deliberately misquoting but does not expect that to be picked up: he does not expect to be \"caught out.\" I shall return to this third possibility later with the example of Galen.\r\n(4) He has a different text of Homer from ours. 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| Title | Quotation in Greco-Roman contexts |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1995 |
| Journal | Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident |
| Volume | 17 |
| Pages | 141-153 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Lloyd, Geoffrey |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
The papers in this collection raise a variety of important issues and illustrate the complexity of the phenomena that "quotation" may cover. But for anyone attempting to bring to bear some of the ancient Greek and Latin data on this topic, one immediate problem must be confronted at the outset, namely the difference that different degrees of orality and literacy may make. The idea that there is a polar opposition between oral and literate societies (as a whole) has long ago been exploded (Jack Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind, Cambridge 1977). Rather, there is a wide spectrum of degrees of orality and literacy. But in the comparative absence of writing and of written texts, what passes as a quotation, and the manner in which quotations are used, may well differ very markedly from the norms and uses practiced within communities of listeners and readers who are in a position to refer to written records. The myth of the Bagre, as Goody explained, is represented by the LoDagaa themselves as invariant: it is always, they insist, the same. Yet actual performances vary widely, as Goody's own transcriptions, carried out over a period of several decades and using different methods, prove conclusively. The most recent versions of the myth have been known to incorporate references to Goody and his tape recorder themselves. The development of literacy in ancient Greece is as controversial as the question of the role of oral performance in or behind the creation of the Homeric epics. The work of Milman Parry and A. B. Lord, comparing Greek and oral Balkan epic, accepted as orthodoxy in the 1960s, is nowadays problematized as often as it is cited as authoritative. For every Greek scholar who accepts that Homeric formulae have a mnemonic function in oral performance, there is another who insists not just on the literary, but the literate, craftsmanship of the Homeric use of repetition. Again, just how literate were those who lived at Athens in the 5th or 4th centuries BCE—the male citizens, their wives, let alone their slaves? Learning to read and write was represented, often with some pride, it seems, as part of the traditional education of well-born children, but how fluent in those two skills they were expected to become, or normally became, is another matter. The institution of ostracism seemingly implies the assumption that all citizens could write the name of the person they wanted to send into exile. But not everyone "wrote" their own ostrakon, as we can tell from the archaeological record, for some were evidently "mass-produced" for others' use. Yet while these and other issues are no closer to resolution now than they were when the literacy debate began in earnest, one feature of classical Greek culture that is generally agreed upon, and that is important for our purposes, is that, even when written texts were available for consultation, the usual mode of communication was oral. In Plato's Parmenides 127c-e, when Socrates meets Parmenides and Zeno on a visit to Athens and hears that Zeno has brought his book with him, Socrates asks him not to lend him the text but to read it out. The relevance of this to quotation is twofold. First, the criteria of accuracy in quotation are affected, and secondly, following on from that, we have to question whether what may look like a report of what someone "says" is indeed that, or merely, at most, an attribution of an idea or an opinion. Thus, when we find Plato "misquoting" Homer, there may be no fewer than four (by no means all mutually exclusive) reasons for this, over and above the possibility that our text of Plato is "corrupt": (1) Plato has misremembered: he is quoting from memory, but that is at fault. (2) He is deliberately misquoting and expects his readers/listeners to spot this immediately and to catch his drift—to understand the game that he, Plato, is playing with Homer. (3) He is deliberately misquoting but does not expect that to be picked up: he does not expect to be "caught out." I shall return to this third possibility later with the example of Galen. (4) He has a different text of Homer from ours. [introduction p. 141-142] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/nlUVMDS4ArBBIez |
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Yet actual performances vary widely, as Goody's own transcriptions, carried out over a period of several decades and using different methods, prove conclusively. The most recent versions of the myth have been known to incorporate references to Goody and his tape recorder themselves.\r\n\r\nThe development of literacy in ancient Greece is as controversial as the question of the role of oral performance in or behind the creation of the Homeric epics. The work of Milman Parry and A. B. Lord, comparing Greek and oral Balkan epic, accepted as orthodoxy in the 1960s, is nowadays problematized as often as it is cited as authoritative. For every Greek scholar who accepts that Homeric formulae have a mnemonic function in oral performance, there is another who insists not just on the literary, but the literate, craftsmanship of the Homeric use of repetition.\r\n\r\nAgain, just how literate were those who lived at Athens in the 5th or 4th centuries BCE\u2014the male citizens, their wives, let alone their slaves? Learning to read and write was represented, often with some pride, it seems, as part of the traditional education of well-born children, but how fluent in those two skills they were expected to become, or normally became, is another matter. The institution of ostracism seemingly implies the assumption that all citizens could write the name of the person they wanted to send into exile. But not everyone \"wrote\" their own ostrakon, as we can tell from the archaeological record, for some were evidently \"mass-produced\" for others' use.\r\n\r\nYet while these and other issues are no closer to resolution now than they were when the literacy debate began in earnest, one feature of classical Greek culture that is generally agreed upon, and that is important for our purposes, is that, even when written texts were available for consultation, the usual mode of communication was oral. In Plato's Parmenides 127c-e, when Socrates meets Parmenides and Zeno on a visit to Athens and hears that Zeno has brought his book with him, Socrates asks him not to lend him the text but to read it out.\r\n\r\nThe relevance of this to quotation is twofold. First, the criteria of accuracy in quotation are affected, and secondly, following on from that, we have to question whether what may look like a report of what someone \"says\" is indeed that, or merely, at most, an attribution of an idea or an opinion.\r\n\r\nThus, when we find Plato \"misquoting\" Homer, there may be no fewer than four (by no means all mutually exclusive) reasons for this, over and above the possibility that our text of Plato is \"corrupt\":\r\n(1) Plato has misremembered: he is quoting from memory, but that is at fault.\r\n(2) He is deliberately misquoting and expects his readers\/listeners to spot this immediately and to catch his drift\u2014to understand the game that he, Plato, is playing with Homer.\r\n(3) He is deliberately misquoting but does not expect that to be picked up: he does not expect to be \"caught out.\" I shall return to this third possibility later with the example of Galen.\r\n(4) He has a different text of Homer from ours. 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