Language and Oral Tradition

In David Abram's book Spell of the Sensuous, he presents language as an example of the separation that todays world has from nature. He explains that with the "advent of the aleph-beth, a new distance opens between human culture and the rest of nature” (100).  He is discussing the shift from oral tradition to writing for storytelling, which he elucidates with Homer's the Iliad and Odyssey.  Homer's writing deeply connects to the nature world, as it is nature, Gods, Goddesses, and a sorceress that so greatly impact the travels and life of Odysseus.  When I read both of these books, I was drawn into the stories because of the deeply descriptive language, much of which is based on nature.  In these epics, Gods and Goddesses can control nature and create natural events that push forward the story.  Abram describes the past oral traditions of these stories as an "oral tapestry".  With the rhythmic nature of phrases increasing the ability to memorize, these epics must have been amazing to listen too.  I cannot imagine the difference in hearing the traditional oral telling of these epics would be, sounding out the words and phrases, releasing them back into nature, rather than reading them on a white page.  Abram argues, "under the slowly spreading influence of the alphabetic technology, that “language” was beginning to separate itself  from the animate flux of the world” (107). I think his discussion is fascinating, because today we are pushing even further away from the traditions of language in the past with ebooks, typing everything, and computers in general.