A theory of reading/writing: from literacy to literature

Abstract

This article traces some aspects of the history of Western literacy in terms of the invention of three discrete forms or genres of writing and reading, namely: logical prose, empirical description, and subjective narrative fiction. It then attempts to explain these developments in terms of the special properties of language brought into consciousness when, through writing, expressions become permanent objects fixed in time and space and distanced conceptually from their speakers’/authors’ intentions.

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