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VII:32.  Strangely, in the performance of “purely oral” language art (as Ong makes clear) there is room for indeterminacy and true listener (“reader”) interaction. The bard never (or only in the most exceptional circumstances) performs the same work in the same words; the bard is always responsive to the mood and demands of the audience, to a degree which is typically far greater than that offered by the reading poet. This is strange, because the sound of the work is all there is — it is a transient shape as language in time and space which, instantaneously, returns to absolute physical nothingness the moment the performer’s voice ceases (unlike this essay, for example, which seems to persist because your reader’s eyes constantly, without attending to it, refresh its image in the mind and because you may return to it in a different time and place). There is no “text” or recording in pure orality from which to to recover the shape of the work. Moreover, when that shape is realized again, by the same or by another performer, it is significantly different. Despite these disjunctions, listeners have no difficulty in identifying and distinguishing particular works.

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