Orality...who'd've thought

I was thinking about what has made this class so fun compared to most other classes I have taken in my four years at MSU. The wild epithets, the class atmosphere and participation, the brilliance of Dr. Sexson, everyone’s extremely unique final projects…all of this comes to mind. But where I really think we need to delve, in order to understand the success of this class, is back to the beginning. And I mean, the very beginning. To the tradition of orality, upon which this class is, after all, based.   

I think we underestimate how the ‘oral tradition’ really seeps into our class. We talk about it as if it is something that exists in the past, or something that cannot exist under the designation of ‘tradition’ unless all the elements of an oral culture are present. But we engage unconsciously in the tradition of orality every day.

You think we’d be more aware of what is going on around us. But precepts of the oral tradition are so subtle they are hardly worth noticing. It’s not as if the oral cultures of the past stopped themselves one day and said “Hey, wait a minute, we’re an oral culture”. There was no designation to make; orality was culture. And still largely is. It is difficult to take notice of that which is inherent to us as humans, we associate everything that we do, think, feel, sense as us. It is only by the absence of orality that we would even recognize it had been there in the first place.

Orality is erratic, ever changing, permeating, evolving—it is hard to pin down. Those lists of things that we were set to memorize—Foer’s 15 random items, the nine muses, twelve tribes of Abraham, Ong’s nine processes of orality, Kubla Khan, everyone’s epithet, and now, Grace’s five things—may still seem random, though I think many of us understand the concept behind it, because, after all, they are no longer random. They have been integrated into the class psyche, into our individual memory palaces, and into our future associations. When anyone mentions the muses, will you be able to think of them without also thinking of this class? Without thinking of Megan Mother of the Muses? Or envisioning the palace in which you placed your muses? Which might getting you thinking about your grandmother’s house, and then perhaps the smell of that really great ravioli dish that she used to make, which would lead you to think about what you were going to have for dinner, then to thinking about your refrigerator, then maybe to Seth’s refrigerator, then to the horribly antagonistic character Jennifer of the Falling Waters modeled off of Seth for her story, then to Mikelby Sharpe, and then… what do you know…you are right back to this class.  

This is the essence of orality; the patterns of associations and relationships that weave together EVERYTHING; the underlying structure of the earth, which permeates all forms and is revealed in the psyche. Myth is the song the earth sings to itself.

We have been initiated not only into the timeless society of the mythtellers, but of the myth-listeners, too. We have become aware of the constant hum of the earth, which reverberates with all stories ending and beginning, crumbling and extending, renewing and restoring.  We have touched upon something here in class that is eternal, and that we are only a piece of, but that is all of us.

So go forth from this class, feeling refreshed in your initiation, in your understanding of the traditions which make the earth what it is. Never let the epithets die (sorry Ashley). And always remember to THINK MEMORABLE THOUGHTS.