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II:9. The metaphors of instantiation or embodiment are too rich, too redolent of notions
of (historical) originality, novelty, incarnation. If hypertextuality is the signal of a paradigm shift in
verbal culture, then better ways of representing its significance may be found in analyses of the
previous shift from orality to literacy. Here, Ong’s notion of the ‘internalization’
of literacy is useful. [INTERNAL] It was not that codexspace (especially books and
printing) embodied or instantiated a latent literacy in verbal cultures which had acquired writing
technologies, rather, they allowed the internalization of literacy, its elevation to the invisible,
all-pervasive “ground” of verbal culture, such that today, to take two examples, in high
critical discussion, papers are read out loud in an pseudo-oration which has little, sometimes nothing,
to do with orality, or, in the performance of poetry, where the reading of hyper-literate production is a
norm (even amongst many poets for whom spontaneous “voiced” expression is an ideal).
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