In this volume, the author argues that literacy is a complex combination of various skills, not just the ability to read and write: the technology of writing, the encoding and decoding of text symbols, the interpretation of meaning, the retrieval and display systems which organize how meaning is stored and memory. The book explores the relationship between literacy, orality and memory in classical antiquity, not only from the point of view of antiquity, but also from that of modern cognitive psychology. It examines the contemporary as well as the ancient debate about how the writing tools we possess interact and affect the product, why they should do so and how the tasks required of memory change and develop with literacy's increasing output and evoking technologies.

In this volume, Jocelyn Small argues that literacy is a complex combination of various skills not just the ability to read and write: the technology of writing, the encoding and decoding of text symbols, the interpretation of meaning, the retrieval and display systems which organise how meaning is stored and memory.
Wax Tablets of the Mind explores the relationship between literacy, orality and memory in classical antiquity, not only from the point of view of antiquity, but also from that of modern cognitive psychology. Jocelyn Small examines the contemporary as well as the ancient debate about how the writing tools we possess interact and affect the product, why they should do so and how the tasks required of memory change and develop with literacy's increasing output and evoking technologies.


eBook available with sample pages: 0203441605

This book discusses how Greek and South Italian vase paintings of the musical contest between Apollo and Marsyas became the model for Etruscan representations of Cacus ambushed by the Vibennae brothers, two Etruscan heroes of the sixth century B.C. The study demonstrates that the Etruscans knowingly adapted Greek iconographic forms to represent their own legends.

Originally published in 1982.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Considering the relationship between artists and texts throughout classical antiquity, this study systematically applies new and objective criteria to judge the fidelity between picture and text. It becomes clear that artists illustrate stories, not texts, and Jocelyn Penny Small argues that artistic transmissions follow the model of oral, not textual, transmission where the variant rules and there is no original. Pictures on vases, she demonstrates, should not be used to reconstruct lost literary works.

This book discusses how Greek and South Italian vase paintings of the musical contest between Apollo and Marsyas became the model for Etruscan representations of Cacus ambushed by the Vibennae brothers, two Etruscan heroes of the sixth century B.C. The study demonstrates that the Etruscans knowingly adapted Greek iconographic forms to represent their own legends. Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.