On the Invention of Writing

 

 

 

Tell me what Genius did the Art invent

The lively image of the Voice to paint

Who first the secret how to color sound

And to give Shape to Reason wisely found

With bodies how to cloath Ideas taught,

And how to draw the picture of a thought:

Which taught the Hand to Speak the Eye to hear

A silent language roving farr and near 

Whose softest notes outstrip loud thunders sound

And spread its accents through the worlds vast round

Yet with kind secrecy securely rowl

Whisperings of absent loves from Pole to  Pole.

A voice heard by the Deaf, spoke by the Dumb,

Whos Eccho reaches long long time to come

Which Dead Men speak as well as those alive

 Tell me what Genius did this Art contrive.

 

 

(Poema anónimo manuscrito, hallado en un ejemplar de la Historia de la Escritura atribuida a Daniel Defoe):

_____. [Anonymous] An Essay upon Literature: or, An Enquiry into the Antiquity and Original of Letters; Proving That the Two Tables, Written by the Finger of God in Mount Sinai, was the first Writing in the World; and that all other Alphabets derive from the Hebrew. With a short View of the Methods made use of by the antients to supply the want of Letters before, and improve the use of them, after they were known. London: Printed for Tho. Bowles, Printseller, next to the Chapter-House, St. Paul's Church-Yard; John Clark, Bookseller, under the Piazzas, Royal-Exchange, and John Bowles, Printseller, over-against Stocks Market, M.DCC.XXVI. 1726.

          https://archive.org/details/essayuponliterat00defo

          2016

_______

More on:

Stephens, Walter. How Writing Made Us Human, 3,000 BCE till Now. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2023.

         https://bookshop.org/p/books/how-writing-made-us-human-3000-bce-to-now-walter-stephens/19780340

         2023

_____. "The History of Writing Is the History of Humanity." Literary Hub 10 Nov. 2023.*

         https://lithub.com/the-history-of-writing-is-the-history-of-humanity/

         2023

Teletrabajando

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