Haun Saussy is University Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago.

• Preface Introduction: Weighing Hearsay 1. Poetry Without Poems or Poets "Two or Three Hundred Rhythmic Formulae Festivals of Rhythm The Oral Style Formula as System Langue, Parole, and Constraint 2. Writing as One Form of Notation The Epic Cyborg "Word for Word" Stitches in Time 3. Autography The Inscribing Ear "Speech is a Movement" The Patois of Parnassus A Difference of Fifteen Cycles 4. The Human Gramophone "Errores Modernistarum" The Gospel of Movement A Bone Gallery "Four Obscure Jews" Gallo-Galilean Civilization 5. Embodiment and Inscription Materials Science Techniques of the Body Notes Bibliography Index

"Only Haun Saussy-with his historical range, theoretical breadth, and fine close-reading-could have pulled off this brilliant comparative history of 'the perturbation caused by the idea of oral literature.' The disciplinary range of this dazzling scholarly performance takes us from linguistics and philology to ethnography and religious studies, from physiology and psychiatry to the history of graphic and sound technologies. Be prepared to marvel-and learn." -- -Linda Hutcheon University Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto