La parola disincarnata: dal corpo alla scrittura

Abstract

No linear correspondence can be drawn between the oral word, bound to sound, and the written one, bound to vision. Sound flows, vision is standing; sounds vibrate inside us, seen things appear externally in front of us. When passing from one dimension to the other, the word becomes abstract and disembodied. We analyze here in these terms different forms of textuality, and the historical path along which the word has detached itself from the body. Poetry is still nowadays the kind of writing that holds the strongest binds with the oral dimension: in poetry, actually, rhythmic and ritual dimensions, naturally close to the sound world, still play a central role. In prose the separation has been stronger, but a long process has anyway been necessary, having its crucial moment in the triumph of the rationality of Scholastic Philosophy. In the passage from the aloud reading of the ancient world to the silent, interior reading, the written word parts itself radically form the oral one, definitely imposing its own power of abstraction.