Virgil to Dante (somewhere along the road to Paradise):
Within the flames are spirits; each one here enfolds himself in what burns him.
This little meditation has been prompted by Willard McCarty's postings to the Humanist Discussion list.
I frame the question this way because I learnt how to read before I learnt how to use a digital computer. Of course, one could discover sociological evidence to the effect that habits of reading affect so-called "computer literacy". Further, one could try to insert personal biographical narrative into this very interesting question of how one reads affects how one interacts with computers. Suffice it to signal that this way of reversing the components of the reading-computing relation is a strong warning not to take what follows as an endorsement of technological or biological determinism. It is a story.
The story begins with a passage in a book of literary criticism. Alison Rieke in The Senses of Non-Sense devotes a chapter to the poet Wallace Stevens. In this chapter, there is a reference to an allusion by Stevens to Leigh Hunt's autobiography. Rieke indicates that Stevens turned to Hunt for "sonic embellishments", "an arragnement of piping sounds mimicking Latin declensions." She cites a passage from the poem "On an Old Horn"
If the stars that move together as one, disband,
Flying like insects of fire in a cavern of night
Pipperoo, pippera, pipperum ... The rest is rot.
She then places this passage along side a passage from Hunt's autobiography where he extolls "the poetic virtues of fireflies" and as Rieke comments "surprisingly" makes the point that "There is no mention of them [fireflies] in the ancient poets." Rieke continues to quote Hunt to the effect that
The earliest mention of them, with which I am acquainted, is in Dante (Inferno canto 21 [sic 26]). where he compares the spirits int he eighth circle of hell, who go about swathed in fire, to the "lucciole" in a rural vallye of an evening.
Now as a well-trained reader of scholarly apparati, I check which edition of Hunt Rieke cites. I note that it is published in 1949. The collected poems of Stevens from which Rieke cites are first published in 1954. Matters of chronology matter. What intrigues me, however, is the correction in the reference to Dante -- who is responsible for supplying the correct canto, Rieke or the editor of Hunt? I want to know if Stevens might have both 21 and 26 in mind. Checking any of this would necessitate a trip to the library where no doubt I would use a digitalized library catalogue to ascertain if the record concerning the collected poems of Stevens contains a chronology. and if the record does not indicate this information, I could check the copy on the shelf but while I am at the terminal or even remotely connected to the library catalogue I might have access to a database where I can see if there is an scholarly activity on the Hunt and Stevens link (of course I would not be satisfied that the database would be exhaustive and retrospective). If the library does not have a copy of either Stevens or of Hunt, I could with the aid of some computer-mediated communication discover the archives of a discussion list or newsgroup where a similar question may have been posed; failing the existence of answer in the extant archives, I could frame a question and send it off to a list where it may catch the attention of experts, indeed I just might be able to find and email address of Alison Rieke and begin a dialogue with the author whose surprise prompted my own interest.
The computer is not necessary for any of this activity. Nor is experience working with computers the most vital factor that permits attention to detail to become ingrained. I would be hard pressed to claim that the philological mindset affects the use of the computer as an aid to conduct research. Nothing here but correspondence with scholars and consultation of texts. The computer does facilitate the process but does it shape what is communicated?.
So far, this anecdote points to a pattern of re-enforcement of habits. Using the computer makes allows me to read in very much the same way as I have always read. It, however, does allow me to share the results of that reading more widely and more quickly. And as a corollary precipitates further acts of re-reading both collective and individual.
More of the same is not the same as a qualitative change.
The computer can help me in more ways than as a souped-up communications device. I return to the firefly. I do understand that various cultures name the various elements of their different environments differently. But surely the ancients knew about fireflies! A tour through various dictionairies and encyclopedia uncovers an entomological bit of lore. The ancients had a name for the glow-worm. Of course, Stevens may not share the lack of overlap in Hunt's semantic fields between "firefly" and "glow-worm". Indeed, Stevens may have created an elaborate joke with "Pipperoo, pippera, pipperum". [vulgar latin pippare; classical latin pipare]. Intentionally or not, a reader, sensitized by Rieke's elucidation of the red/read adamic creator thematized throughout the Steven's oeuvre, cannot not, upon rereading the latinate declension of "Pipperoo, pippera, pipperum" and thereupon detecting retrospectively an apparent agrammaticallity, but connect this little piece of devilry, in a poem entitled "On an Old Horn" and alluding to the eighth circle of a dantesque hell (where con artists of various sorts reside) with the poem's machinery and suspect it somehow invokes anagramically roots, roosts, and roosters (or rather capon). The paradigmatic terminations being "us-a-um". The wrest is writ.
Still no computer in sight. Its aid could be sought to trace the phonetic variations of the text. Quite possible with text encoding and voice synthesis software. One would be trying to organize the evidence for other overdeterminations based in the poetic manipulation of graphic and sonorous elements. By organize, I mean locate examples and collect them for presentation. The computer retains an ancillary role. For even if in the event no other examples crop up, the reader can privilege the unique moment.
But surely somehow the compter has affected the way I read. If by computer we mean more than a technological collection of hardware and software, perhaps. The computer tabulates. The computer counts. The computer relies on the notion of system. Whether, person or machine, the computer acts according to method by way of principles of procedure and classificatory regimes.
The person may have a greater range of reactions to surprise; act unpredictably in the face of the unpredictable -- even begin to compute. But the silicon circuitry, like a literary text, is a vestige of human labour, and so as all vessels of surprise, does indeed contingently affect the way I, of necessity, read.
April 2000