Introduction to 'Writing Orality'

The articles collected in this themed issue present varied methodological approaches to the identification of oral traces in written texts situated widely both in space, from northern Europe to East Asia, and in time, from the eighteenth century BC to the seventeenth century AD. Several of the articles are explicitly comparative in approach, whilst others offer insights into prevalent modes of thinking about orality in different specialisms, which may be applied fruitfully to other cultures and text corpora. Working from their diverse perspectives, the contributions challenge a tenacious separation in scholarship between orality and literacy. The authors highlight that oral and literary phases of composition, transmission, and reception of literary texts were to a considerable extent intertwined in many cultures that developed largely independently of one another.