KQK... writes: It was? In an age with even fewer readers
than today? What was the literacy rate in 1638 compared with today?
What's with this literacy fixation? Poems are supposed to be
recited from memory, and they were recited, and the popular
ones remembered and the ones that didn't inspire popularity
forgotten, long before anyone thought to write them down.
In my grandparents' day as in Shakespeare's, one of the ways
ordinary people entertained themselves and their neighbors was
to recite speeches and poems and sing songs. Grandma had a whole
repertoire of memorized poems, and although she was shy and
didn't recite them in company, she taught them to me. Yes, plenty
of them were bad; and the majority were humorous rather than
serious.
People don't "do" poems for home entertainment any more. But
they do still gather and play piano or guitar and sing. (I do
whenever I get a chance-- at least once a week) What proportion
of the songs sung in living rooms or around campfires do you
think are learned by ear, as opposed to being learned from sheet
music? My guess is about 9 out of 10. (02/21/02)
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