In light of Ong's keen interest in commonplaces, it is not surprising that he responded enthusiastically to Albert B. Lord's landmark 1960 book The Singer of Tales (Harvard University Press) and then equally enthusiastically to Eric A. Havelock's landmark 1963 book Preface to Plato (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). Indeed, Ong never tired of referring to these two landmark studies of thought and expression in primary oral cultures. But also see John Miles Foley's 1999 book Homer's Traditional Art (Pennsylvania State University Press).
Now, like Ong, Litwa is interested in ancient discursive practices. For example, he mentions ancient grammarians in passing (pages 2, 3, 5, and 79; also see the references to Robert A. Kaster, pages 224, note 6, and 236, note 20). And Litwa refers the famous ancient Roman orator Cicero frequently (pages 5, 6, 9, 68, 82, 96-97, 99, 109, 188-190, and 288) and to the famous ancient Roman teacher of rhetoric Quintilian (pages 2, 3, and 295-296) and to Aristotle's Rhetoric (page 238, note 7). Litwa even cites a secondary source by the distinguished historian of rhetoric George A. Kennedy (page 225, note 10).
Nevertheless, in Litwa's extensive discussion of ancient discursive practices, he does not happen to advert explicitly to the composing practices involving what Ong refers to as commonplaces -- or to the oral composing practices involving what Lord refers to as formulas and themes (i.e., somewhat larger formulaic structures). What Lord refers to as formulas and formulaic elements would be examples of what refer refers to as cumulative commonplaces, and what Lord refers to as themes would be examples of what Ong refers to as analytic commonplace.
However, for Ong, cumulative commonplaces would include proverbs, including short narrative proverbs, such as the collections of proverb in the book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible; sayings such as the sayings attributed to Jesus in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, and the sayings of Jesus in the three synoptic gospels (which critical biblical scholars came from a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus in the source they refers to as Q) and the "I am" sayings in the Fourth Gospel. In my estimate, short narratives attributed to Jesus known as parables in the four canonical gospels would also be examples of what Ong refers to as cumulative commonplaces in effect, they are short narrative proverbs.
For Ong, analytic commonplaces would include the two genealogies of Jesus in Matthew (1:1-17) and Luke (3:23-38) and the cosmic genealogy of Jesus in the prologue to the Fourth Gospel (1:1-18). In my estimate, virtually all of the parallels to certain gospel passages that Litwa finds in other ancient texts could be categorized as what Ong refers to as analytic commonplaces and what Lord refers to as themes. But Litwa does not refer explicitly to Ong or to Lord.
But what Lord refers to as themes in oral discursive patterns of thought and expression, and what Ong refers to as analytic commonplaces, undoubtedly carried over into written traditions of thought in Western culture.
However, unlike Litwa, the biblical scholar Dennis R. MacDonald does list Lord's landmark 1960 book in the bibliography of his 2000 book The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark (Yale University Press), a book Litwa singles out for severe critique (pages 47-49; 226, note 22; 234, notes 2 and 3; 235, notes 4, 7, 9, 12, and 13). Please don't misunderstand me here. I am not necessarily disagreeing with Litwa's critiques of MacDonald. But I am giving MacDonald credit where credit is due for at least familiarizing himself with Lord's landmark 1960 book and I cannot give Litwa credit for being familiar with Lord's 1960 book. However, I admit that Litwa may have studied Lord's 1960 book, Havelock's 1963 book, and Ong's 1967 book, even though he does not happen to advert to them explicitly in his 2019 book.
Nevertheless, in light of Litwa's explicit interest in discursive practices as he defines and explains these, I am criticizing him here for NOT explicitly referring to the composing practices that Lord delineates in his landmark 1960 book, which Havelock further delineates in his landmark 1963 book, and which Ong further delineates in his landmark 1967 book.
In my estimate, MacDonald is concerned with what Lord refers to as formulas and formulaic elements, and with what Ong refers to as cumulative commonplaces, in the following six books:
(1) The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark (Yale University Press, 2000), mentioned above;
(2) Does the New Testament Imitate Homer: Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles (Yale University Press, 2003);
(3) The Gospels and Homer: Imitation of Greek Epics in Mark and Luke-Acts (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015);
(4) Luke and Vergil: Imitation of Classical Greek Literature (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015);
(5) Mythologizing Jesus: From Jewish Teacher to Epic Hero (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015);
(6) The Dionysian Gospel: The Fourth Gospel and Euripides (Fortress Press, 2017).
Simply stated, if the historical Jesus (or any other oral prophet) wanted his auditors to remember whatever he had to say, he would have contoured his thought and expression to their living memories, so that they could subsequently recall what he had said. As late as the Lincoln-Douglas debates in the nineteenth-century United States, public speakers had to contour their thought and expression to their auditors' living memories. However, the advent of sound-amplification systems changed the demands on public speakers to frame their oral presentations to include what Ong refers to as cumulative commonplaces.
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