The Odyssey

"The End of Reading Is Here"

Plain English with Derek Thompson, 28 July 2026.

Derek Thompson uses the Odyssey to illustrate Walter Ong's argument about literacy reshaping consciousness. He notes the Odyssey originated as oral poetry memorised and performed across centuries — its repeated epithets like 'swift-footed Achilles' and 'wine-dark sea' being hallmarks of that oral tradition — and contrasts it with calculus, which cannot be transmitted without writing, to argue that certain complex knowledge only becomes possible with a written medium.

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