Princeton Professor Addresses Reading for Friendship

 

On April 4, aspiring classics majors and other reading aficionados gathered in Axinn Center at Starr to hear from Princeton University’s Andrew Flemming West Professor of Classics, Emeritus, W. Robert Connor. The hour-long lecture and subsequent discussion session surveyed the practice of reading from the perspective of the ancient world. Connor’s lecture, entitled “Reading: Then and Now,” sought for the audience to “rethink our own notions and practices relative to this art of reading.”

According to Pavlos Sfyroeras, associate professor of classics who introduced the speaker, Connor is well known for his “field-changing” work in classical scholarship, which has “altered the way we imagine” antiquity, as well as the liberal arts in general. But as Connor took the floor, his friendly, informal demeanor ruled out any notions of academic dryness or pedantry. The lecture was as engaging as it was informative. Connor began by describing the tap code system invented by American prisoners-of-war in Vietnam, and how soldiers such as John Borling, who served in Vietnam, wrote poetry to keep themselves sane in the depths of terrible suffering. As an example of an unconventional system of non-verbal discourse, this story showed the fundamental importance of reading in human life, the thread that tied the rest of the lecture together.

Connor also described the ancient equivalents of modern “books” – papyrus scrolls with narrow text columns, all in capital letters, with no punctuation, spaces or paragraphs. In addition to the inherent inefficiencies of the text itself, these volumes were incredibly time-consuming to produce and expensive to purchase, all conditions that are anathema to our modern conception of reading.

To further illustrate the obstacles that stood in the way of what we might think of as “reading comprehension,” Connor called up a student who presented the results of an experiment undertaken by students in three classes that were taught in the classics department. Specifically in preparation for this lecture, students had each taken a text or passage in English, Latin or ancient Greek and transcribed it by hand in the papyrus style. With only 15 to 25 characters allowed per line, the process was laborious. Students’ average numbers of lines per hour generally fell between 60 and 120, with one transcriber clocking it at a mere 34. The effect on the reader was equally profound. As Michael Russo ’16 wrote in an email, “Even in English, the language of the work I transcribed, I had trouble differentiating one word from another.”

However, Connor pointed out that since the Greeks were an incredibly innovative people, this outwardly obtuse system of communication was not for nothing: “they must have liked it!”

In fact, the benefits were numerous. As a result of the built-in difficulty, reading progressed in stages. First, the reader would read to figure out word divisions. Then, he or she would have to reread for comprehension, probably multiple times. Connor described this method, attributed to the Greeks, as “go-and-stop reading.” By forcing the reader to pause to decipher the text itself, reading was made slower and more contemplative, in contrast to the “skim, scan and search” style we tend to use today. The more time we spend reading, the more we truly come to understand a given text.

Furthermore, the sheer unavailability of books perhaps contributed to a more vibrant social context for reading. Instead of circulating among friends or from libraries, people actually had to meet in person and read in groups if they wanted to hear what the latest literary figure had to say. Reading from historical accounts of group reading, Connor illustrated how “the social act of reading” could constitute its own type of communicative process, which he termed “friendship reading.” In addition, since books were so difficult to obtain, reading for memorization and performance became common.

By the end of the lecture, Connor had identified six types of reading: go-and-stop, staged rereading, friendship reading, performance reading, “extractive reading” and memorization. He encouraged the audience to apply these neglected methods to their own lives, to see if they could lead to a richer understanding of written material.

“Sometimes things that are so old-fashioned come back … and are revolutionary,” he said.

For his part, Russo stated, “I do plan on trying out … reading with friends and memorization. These two spoke to me the most because the former allows friendships to grow and the latter allows you to keep some of the most beautiful texts in your heart no matter what happens.”