Story Resources (oral vs written)

According to the text, for much of oral literature, print has been a blessing and a curse. Plato's Phaedrus also considers the negative aspects of writing. Writing does not require us to use and exercise memory to retain the information. If we do not commit something to memory it does not become as much a part of us. Words in a book cannot defend themselves. Words in a storyteller can be flexible and respond to critique. A story in a book indiscriminately displays itself to anyone who looks whether or not it is appropriate to the reader. A storyteller can discern which story a listener would most benefit from.
The text states that no further embellishments or variations will be added to a written story and the story itself must end. The meanings of older idioms are being lost.
There is an implication that it will be more difficult for a teller to augment a story because there will be less need for creativity, people will constantly compare and judge tales according to the written version (perhaps unfairly). ((David Carr wrote an article about this idea in
Moral education at the movies: on the
cinematic treatment of morally
significant story and narrative))
It seems to me that something must be lost either way. In the oral tradition we lose the earliest or oldest or less performed versions. I would guess that the Finnish are losing the meanings of the idioms not because the stories are preserved but because they have fallen out of use. If there were no written record but only oral, we would not have the old idioms because new ones would replace the old ones. Rather than the Finnish losing contact with the older culture, they still have the contact only through the preserved written words but there are few people who understand it anymore. If left to an oral tradition we would truly have lost contact with the older generation but be ignorant about it because storytellers would constantly adapt the stories to contemporary ears.
For example, Shakespeare wrote plays for a listening audience, not a visual audience. But if we relied only on oral tradition, or memory, to preserve the plays we might gradually have lost the style of the writing which more accurately reflects the culture of that time, despite its somewhat inappropriatness for the modern visual audience.

chapter 4 Working with Audiences

The author (E) of this piece presents the thesis that audience and storyteller work together, negotiate, and achieve mutual consent to tell the story. However, E's attitude throughout the piece shows that the storyteller is really the one who does the work and has control of the story. E says that audiences don't know what is expected of them. If the storyteller must show them what to do and always maintains control (187), what is left for the audience in terms of creativity and egalitarianism? The storyteller is an authoritarian who establishes boundaries and directs the play (185). The only choice allowed the audience is whether or not they want to play. Far from being voluntary, the storyteller is coercive. The sacred circle (198) reminds me of professors who sometimes insist that people sit in semi-circles in order to facilitate discussion in classes. I have not experienced that the discussions in such classes have been any more meaningful or inclusive than other class lectures. I suspect that one reason professors do this is to have everyone looking at everyone else to increase the liklihood that people will pay attention and participate. Oddly, this does not deter people from not speaking up and it does not prevent people from having sidebar conversations that distract from the class material. Such sacred circles force people to pay attention or feign interest in items that may not ordinarily concern them. The sacred circle is not sacred just because we say it is.

E believes movies and films are lesser forms of storytelling and even dangerous.
To say that the audience cannot participate in movie construction is shortsighted. For instance, when people like a movie, the money generated convinces producers to make sequels or other similar movies. To think that movie producers do not take their audience into account displays a bias. Not only are movies inferior according to E, but so are pieces of theater. E is limiting the discussion of stories to a technical set of defining principles that are unstated and different from movies and plays. But all the elements that E does use to define storytelling, ritual bookends, sacred circles, rules and meta-rules are also found in movies and plays.