I have a couple of thoughts to share in respect to Manguel’s “The Silent Reader,” and I’ll start by quoting him when he writes: “following the teachings of Aristotle, [Augustine] knew that letters, “invented so that we might be able to converse even with the absent”, were “signs of sounds” and these in turn were “signs of things we think.”(45) The idea of the written text as capable of conversing with its reader is quite a curious one for me; of course the text keeps alive and brings far words of its absent creator, but a text does not allow questioning and may frustrate any need of answer on the doubts its generates. So I have thought how much, back in the days of oral riding (talking about Europe), more than the necessity of questioning a text there was the necessity of performing it, at least to the general audience to whom this text would provide meanings, symbols, and a certain form of understanding.
Therefore, I’ve started thinking a little bit about performing a written text, and I’ve reflected on my very way of reading and understanding a text as a silent reader. I’ve noticed that sometimes while reading some complicate sentences not only do I read them out loud, but I accompany my reading with gestures that I would probably make while explaining what I am reading to a possible audience (I’m my audience, in that context. Not that I generally have any kind of audience, by the way) – these are gestures which generally go with oral expression, speech. I remember attending a linguistic class last year, and the professor gave us some hints in respect to gestures and speech, explaining that oral expression needs fewer words than written expression does, as it complements itself with gestures and interactions with the environment. These gestures are considered to serve as aids to the expression of thoughts, both abstract and concrete, and range from very individual to very codified ones. So, reading a sentence like “the reader had the duty to […] allow [words] to become […] verba, spoken words – spirit” (45) I’ve started wondering how much the performative act of reading out loud a text would imply a form of literacy: either from the public, in respect to codified gestures of the reader (which could help to get a certain commentary on the read material), or from the readers, who could maybe find in gestures a strategy to better remember how to read/perform a certain text written in scriptura continua. It would not come as a surprise that such an handy tool as gesture was used both for remembering ( = easily reading) and for connoting a text; it would not surprise neither that an audience could get more out of a reading if it (it? I mean the audience) could properly interpret the gestures and grimaces of the reader. If they didn’t gesture at all, this would not surprise me as well, because for instance my granddad didn’t use to gesture when he read me Collodi’s Pinocchio. But he did a lot of grimaces, changed voice, the text had spaces and capital letters, and he was holding me on his legs and the book in his arms so it would have been pretty complicated.
Therefore, I’ve started thinking a little bit about performing a written text, and I’ve reflected on my very way of reading and understanding a text as a silent reader. I’ve noticed that sometimes while reading some complicate sentences not only do I read them out loud, but I accompany my reading with gestures that I would probably make while explaining what I am reading to a possible audience (I’m my audience, in that context. Not that I generally have any kind of audience, by the way) – these are gestures which generally go with oral expression, speech. I remember attending a linguistic class last year, and the professor gave us some hints in respect to gestures and speech, explaining that oral expression needs fewer words than written expression does, as it complements itself with gestures and interactions with the environment. These gestures are considered to serve as aids to the expression of thoughts, both abstract and concrete, and range from very individual to very codified ones. So, reading a sentence like “the reader had the duty to […] allow [words] to become […] verba, spoken words – spirit” (45) I’ve started wondering how much the performative act of reading out loud a text would imply a form of literacy: either from the public, in respect to codified gestures of the reader (which could help to get a certain commentary on the read material), or from the readers, who could maybe find in gestures a strategy to better remember how to read/perform a certain text written in scriptura continua. It would not come as a surprise that such an handy tool as gesture was used both for remembering ( = easily reading) and for connoting a text; it would not surprise neither that an audience could get more out of a reading if it (it? I mean the audience) could properly interpret the gestures and grimaces of the reader. If they didn’t gesture at all, this would not surprise me as well, because for instance my granddad didn’t use to gesture when he read me Collodi’s Pinocchio. But he did a lot of grimaces, changed voice, the text had spaces and capital letters, and he was holding me on his legs and the book in his arms so it would have been pretty complicated.
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