Havelock on Greek Orality and Literacy

Abstract

For nearly thirty years Eric A. Havelock advocated the view that alphabetic literacy was chiefly, or even solely, responsible for the Greek Enlightenment and thus provided the foundations of western civilization. In this view the creation of the Greek alphabet (and it alone) was able to bring about widespread literacy, which in turn radically and permanently transformed human consciousness. Alphabetic literacy enabled thought to transcend the limitations of oral mind, represented by Homer, to become the instrument of logic, philosophy and science-an entirely new kind of consciousness, whose first great exponent was Plato. Havelock's theory first appeared in 1963 in his Preface to Plato, was developed further in The Greek Concept of Justice and in a series of papers collected in The Literate Revolution in Greece and Its Cultural Consequences and received its last compendious formulation in The Muse Learns to Write. ' Though Havelock made minor modifications, his theory has remained essentially the same and its claims ever more resolutely voiced. Havelock's work has not on the whole been very well received by his fellow classicists (a reception about which he seemed a bit rueful in his last book).2 But their objections have for the most part revolved around the history of Greek literacy-its origins, the chronology and extent of its spread, and so on. They have given hardly any attention to Havelock's claims for the cognitive effects of literacy, which are the center of his project. Elsewhere, however, Havelock's influence has been considerable. His books have been and continue to be widely read and cited (especially the seminal Preface to Plato, which has remained in print for over a quarter of a century). His influence has been greatest among students of orality and literacy-a field that has grown enormously in recent decades-who frequently acknowledge their indebtedness to his work as founda-