[MD] words/time

[MarshaV]

Greetings,

I've been thinking about words, well, words and their relationship to time.  What might have changed when words went from an oral (hearing) tradition to a visual (books etc.) tradition?  Isn't sound immediate and more dynamic?  In the oral tradition, by the time you get to the last syllable of qual-i-ty, the sound of the first syllable is almost gone, while the word on a page does not cease to exist. The visual, written tradition, is certainly prone to be far more static.  How does the transition from an oral tradition to a written tradition figure onto the level split between the social level and the intellectual level?  Or even, does it figure into the split?  

I remember trying to read Goethe's Faust (English translation.)  I could not read silently and have it make sense.  Finally, I took it into the bath with me each night and read it out-loud, and soon emerged the most wonderful rhythm and words with all sorts of deep meaning.  And of course after that I loved Herr Goethe.  I still have a desire to experience hearing Faust in the original German, and I do not understand German.  Ahhhhh.  Anyway, what might have changed when words went from an oral tradition to a visual tradition?
 
 
Marsha