In defense of the scroll vs the codex: "They constructed poetry [scrolls] without a clear linear narrative linking the individual poems, but relied on the scroll to force readers to make interpretive sense…since they had to proceed through the poetry book in that manner."
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From McCutcheon, "Silent Reading in Antiquity and the Future History of the Book": andymatuschak.org/files/papers/M
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Vandendorpe's "against regression" argument about hypertext-as-scroll runs as you would expect. It mirrors an argument I've made elsewhere—which I now should reconsider!
(this excerpt from "From Papyrus to Hypertext", 123-124)
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Going back even further, oral traditions relied on poetry/rhyme to help pass on knowledge faithfully. Reading history forwards, perhaps the scroll format was simply a consequence of needing to pass on linear poetic interpretations without the extra abstractions we would use today
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