Kelly Cooke - Spell of the Sensuous Reflection

Spell of the Sensuous Reflection
Kelly Cooke

In class discussions, we’ve talked about the ways that oral cultures often differ from literate cultures. On
page 97 of ‘The Spell of the Sensuous,’ Abrams states, “The efficacy of these pictorially derived systems
necessarily entails a shift of sensory participation away from the voices and gestures of the surrounding
landscape towards our own human-made images. However, the glyphs which constitute the bulk of thee
ancient scripts continually remind the reading body of its inherence in a more-than-human field of
meanings. As signatures not only of the human form, but of other animals, trees, sun, moon, and
landforms, they continually refer our senses beyond the strictly human sphere.” I believe this quote
shows that the further communities shift away from oral communication, the further they shift away
from nature. Abram’s discusses how early writing involved pictorials that represented the surrounding
environment. The use of the alphabet brings a new form of written communication that is more
man-made than ever and can disconnect someone from their surrounding environment even further.

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