Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography
Listing 283 results for authors beginning with jkl
Alan A. Jabbour. "Memorial Transmission in Old English Poetry." Chaucer Review, 3:174-90.
Argues that the British ballad, a primarily memorial oral tradition, is a better analog for OE oral poetry than SC epic, a primarily improvisational tradition. Proposes a "transitional text" transmitted in memorized form and examines a group of shorter OE poems (Soul and Body, Daniel and Azarias, The Dream of the Rood, etc.) for evidence of memorization. Concludes that this model provides a bridge between oral-formulaic and literary theories.Area: OE, SC, FB, BR, CP
Bruce Jackson, coll. and ed. Wake Up Dead Man: Afro-American Worksongs from Texas Prisons. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
An anthology of worksongs with texts and melodies recorded between 1964 and 1969. Provides detailed information on their oral performance, with a 14-page introductory essay.Area: AA, US, MU
Bruce Jackson. "Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me": Narrative Poetry from Black Oral Tradition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
In the section on "Telling and Learning Toasts" (pp. 3-12), he mentions formulas in the ritual insult genre and notes that acquiring the ability to perform these traditional poems "is not unlike the learning process undergone by the Serbian singers of heroic narratives described by Albert Lord in The Singer of Tales" (p. 5). The greater part of the volume is devoted to the toasts themselves, with commentary.Area: AA, US, CP
Michael Jackson. Allegories for the Wilderness: Ethics and Ambiguity in Kuranko Narratives. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Based upon 230 narratives collected by the author in 1969-70, 1972, and 1979, this work discusses the function of oral narrative among the Kuranko society of Sierra Leone as a means of coping with everyday ethical problems and illustrates its importance as "a technique for investigating problems of correct action and moral discernment" (p. 24), emphasizing the nature of the particular storytelling event as a measn to establish and maintain the norms of the Kuranko society at large.Area: AF
Renate Jacobi. Studien zur Poetik der altarabischen Qaide. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner.
Using primarily the Ahlwardt (London 1870) edition, The Divans of the Six Ancient Arabic Poets Ennabiga, cAnfara, Tharafa, Zuhair, cAlqama and Imruulqais, as the basis for investigation, Jacobi conducts a detailed analysis of the works of these poets. Includes a discussion of Bildersprache (metaphorical language) from a syntactic point of view, of general style, and of the qaide as a genre.Area: AR
Melville Jacobs. The Content and Style of an Oral Literature: Clackamas Chinook Myths and Tales. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 3rd pr. 1971.
Although not directly related to Parry-Lord investigation, this presentation and analysis of oral tales offers a great deal of evidence of multiformity typical of traditional oral tale-telling in other cultures (see espec. "Stylized Devices and Motifs," pp. 220-65).Area: AI
Melville Jacobs. "A Look Ahead in Oral Literature Research." Journal of American Folklore, 79:413-27.
After a brief description of folkloristic pursuits since the mid-nineteenth century, he calls for a new systematic discipline of folklore based on the stylistic features of expressive content rather than on the content itself. Also contends that any collecting, taxonomy, or analysis must be founded in fieldwork.Area: FK, TH
V. Jagic. "Die südslavische Volksepik vor Jahrhunderten." Archiv für slavische Philologie, 4:192-242.
Surveys the prosody, phraseology, and verse melody of SC epic, including a section on what amounts to formulaic variation.Area: SC, MU
Elaine Jahner. "The Novel and Oral Tradition: An Interview with Leslie Marmon Silko." Book Forum: An International Transcisciplinary Quarterly, 5:383-88.
Presents an interview in which Silko discusses the role of oral traditional storytelling in the construction of her novels and pronounces film "a way of seeing very like the oral tradition" (385).Area: AI
Roman Jakobson. "Studies in Comparative Slavic Metrics." Oxford Slavonic Papers, 3:21-66. Rpt. as "Slavic Epic Verse: Studies in Comparative Slavic Metrics." In Roman Jakobson: Selected Writings, vol. 4: Slavic Epic Studies. The Hague: Mouton, 1966, pp. 414-63.
On the basis of South, West, and East Slavic witnesses, he posits a Common Slavic oral epic line, the most obvious traces of which are found in the SC deseterac, and relates the parent meter to the IE line described by others (espec. Meillet 1923). Metrical evolution is of course understood to be an oral process, and the samples adduced are taken from various areas of oral tradition.Area: SC, RU, AG, PO, CZ, UK, IE, CP
Roman Jakobson. "The Kernel of Comparative Slavic Literature," Harvard Slavic Studies, 1 (1953), 1-71.
In "The Common Slavic Oral Tradition" (24-36), he compares folk-meters from various Slavic languages, deriving common ancestors and discussing directions of development.Area: SC, RU, CP
Roman Jakobson. "Grammatical Parallelism and its Russian Facet." Language, 42:99-429.
Includes a discussion of Russian oral folk poetry, "the only living oral tradition in the Indo-European world which uses grammatical parallelism as its basic mode of concatenating successive verses" (405). Discards, however, the idea that such a constraint is universally a characteristic of oral style (in tradition-dependent form).Area: RU, BI, CP
Martin Jamison. "The Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative at Texas Tech University." Texas Libraries, 43:51-53.
Brief description of a twenty-year project on Turkish oral narrative: the collection process, ongoing transcription and edition, and preliminary archival taxonomy.Area: TK
Ewald Jammers. "Der musikalische Vortrag des altdeutschen Epos." Der Deutschunterricht, 11:98-116. Rpt. in Oral Poetry: Das Problem der Mündlichkeit mittelalterlicher epischer Dichtung. Ed. Norbert Voorwinden and Max de Haan. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1979. pp. 127-49.
Argues that a consideration of the musical execution of medieval German epic can shed light on verse and strophe structure, method of presentation, and meaning. Includes comments on OHG and MHG texts as well as "epische Formeln."Area: OHG, MGH, MU, CP
Richard Janko. "Equivalent Formulae in the Greek Epos." Mnemosyne, 34:251-64.
Building largely on the work of Parry, attempts an explanation of Hainsworth's observation that particular formulae tend to recur within short stretches of the Iliad. Concludes that such a distribution supports no artistic scheme of analysis, but only the fact that memory of a previous choice of formulaic epithet influenced the poet's choice between equivalent formulae.Area: AG
Richard Janko. Homer, Hesiod, and the Hymns: Diachronic Development in Epic Diction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Attempts a quantification of language and phraseology with respect to archaism and innovation, based upon the frequency of occurrence of the digamma, alternative morphs, and regional linguistic developments, in order to ascertain approximate relative dates and sequences of composition for the Homeric and Hesiodic canons. Arguing that "consistent treatement of several features" in a work is a "chronological indicator," he suggests that the texts in question "were fixed at the time when each was composed" (191).Area: AG
Dennis Jarrett. "The Singer and the Bluesman: Formulations of Personality in the Lyrics of the Blues." Southern Folklore Quarterly, 42:31-37.
Contends that "the creation of a bigger-than-life personality is essentially formulaic, that the bluesman is encoded in lexical and psychological traditions which contribute to the genre" (32). Concentrates specifically on how the bluesman uses rhetoric to express his personality.Area: BL, MU
Heda Jason. "A Multidimensional Approach to Oral Literature." Current Anthropology, 10:413-26.
Confers on oral literature the status of an artistic work in its literary form and social function and advocates a generally synchronic approach to its study, based on existing research.Area: CP, TH
Heda Jason. "Precursors of Propp: Formalist Theories of Narrative in Early Russian Ethnopoetics." Poetics and the Theory of Literature, 16:471-516.
Reviews the works of Russian "ethnopoeticians" through the 1930's and provides an overview of the methodologies of Rybnikov, Veselovskij, Eleonskaja, Shklovskij, Skaftymov, Volkov, and Nikiforov. Contains a summary of concepts introduced by these scholars and a brief discussion of the reasons behind structural research in ethnopoetics.Area: RU
Heda Jason. Ethnopoetry: Form, Content, and Function. Forum Theologiae Linguisticae. Interdisziplinäre Schriftenreihe für Theologie und Linguistik, 11. Bonn-Rottgen: Linguistica Biblica.
Treats a wide variety of oral traditions and genres, concentrating on patterns of form and content and describing the social function of "ethnopoetry." Depends on a good deal of Parry-Lord Theory, taken as presented in Lord 1960 with frequent references to the SCHS series.Area: CP, SC, TH
Heda Jason. "A Model for Narrative Structure in Oral Literature." In Patterns in Oral Literature. Ed. Heda Jason and Dimitri Segal. The Hague and Paris: Mouton. pp. 99-139.
A narrative syntax based on Proppian formalism.Area: CP, TH
Heda Jason. "Content Analysis of Oral Literature: A Discussion." In Patterns in Oral Literature. Ed. Heda Jason and Dimitri Segal. The Hague and Paris: Mouton. pp. 261-98. "Comments," pp. 298-310.
Considers the usefulness and validity of content analysis as a heuristic tool in interpreting oral literature. Includes an extensive bibliography and critical discussion.Area: CP, TH
Heda Jason and Dimitri Segal, eds. Patterns in Oral Literature. The Hague and Paris: Mouton.
A collection of essays on various oral literatures, mostly from a structuralist point of view. Separately annotated are Güttgemanns 1977 and Jason 1977b, c.Area: CP, TH
Michael J. Jeffreys. "Formulas in the Chronicle of the Morea." Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 27:163-95.
A computer-assisted analysis of the BG Chronicle versus its certainly written and learned contemporary Alexander reveals a relatively high density of repeated phrases for the probably oral poem. This thorough examination presents much evidence, proceeds from some 15,000 lines of material, offers a critique of earlier investigations and their results, and suggests a variety of applications for the conclusions of the present study. Reinstates the Chronicle as a work of Greek literature rather than a translation, confirms its oral sources, describes its diction as a traditional patois or Kunstsprache (after Parry 1932), and illuminates procedures in textual criticism.Area: BG
Michael J. Jeffreys. "The Nature and Origins of the Political Verse." Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 28:141-95.
Posits the twelfth-century vernacular political verse "as a major medium of expression for the illiterate and half-literate members of Greek society_verse written, spoken, and sung by them and for them" (161). The verse form was also used for instruction via memorization, exploiting a medium "usually employed for oral entertainment" (175) for pedagogical purposes. The religious poems are to be traced to the same vernacular source, while the court poems are far removed from oral tradition. Notes that his comments apply only to events that took place in the urban environment of Constantinople and that "there seems to be no other tradition of oral poetry and folk song whose meter came into existence for a restricted purpose within an urban environment" (195).Area: BG
Michael J. Jeffreys. "Digenes Akrites Manuscript Z." Dodone, 4:163-201. Rpt. in Popular Literature in Late Byzantium, V. Ed. by E. Jeffreys and M. Jeffreys. London: Variorum Reprints, 1983.
Area: BG
Michael J. Jeffreys. "The Literary Emergence of Vernacular Greek." Mosaic, 8, iv:171-93.
On the analogy of Homeric poetry and medieval literature such as Beowulf and the Chanson de Roland, and specifically in relation to their formulaic density, meter, and traditional diction, he posits that twelfth-century Demotic Greek literature emerged from an oral tradition. This assumption of an oral phraseology solves the problem of linguistic vacillation between katharevousa and demotike: the poetic language "permitted the combination of incompatible linguistic levels, and kept the texts free from dialect forms" (193).Area: BG, CP
Elisabeth M. Jeffreys. "The Later Greek Verse Romances: A Survey." In Byzantine Papers: Proceedings of the First Australian Byzantine Studies Conference, Canberra, 17-19 May 1978. Ed. by Elizabeth M. Jeffreys and Ann Moffatt. Canberra: Humanities Research Centre, pp. 116-27.
After a review of approaches to these texts and comparative research into the traditions, she suggests that "examination of the vernacular romances and other works in early demotic in terms of an oral-formulaic style promises to bring helpful insights into the genesis of both the language and the literature" (124). Cautions, however, that one must avoid generalizations and pay careful attention to the idiosyncratic nature of the Byzantine romances and to the manuscripts in which they are found.Area: BG
Elisabeth M. Jeffreys. "The Popular Byzantine Verse Romances of Chivalry: Work Since 1971." Mantatofovro 14:20-34.
Starting from the observed morphology of the language of the romances over a variety of manuscripts, she surveys scholarship on relevant bibliography, the nature of the style (citing Lord 1960, Trypanis 1963, E. Jeffreys and M. Jeffreys 1971 and 1979, etc.), sources, and editing procedures.Area: BG
Michael J. Jeffreys. "Byzantine Metrics: Non-Literary Strata." Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik, 31:313-34.
A history of the development of Byzantine metrics that takes account of the oral roots of many of the surviving texts, with emphasis on the artificial oral Kunstsprache employed in verse composition. Understands the oral tradition as existing in the "non-literary strata of Byzantium" before "inspiring learned experiments in the twelfth century and appearing in its own right in the fourteenth" (333). Concludes that "within the decaying antique forms we shall be able to observe the birth and development of new metres which, after a period of preservation among the non-literary strata of Byzantine society, came into literature in the last centuries of Byzantium and served as the basis of all Greek poetry, until the displacement of stichic metres at the beginning of this century" (334).Area: BG
Elisabeth M. Jeffreys and Michael J. Jeffreys. "Imberios and Margarona: The Manuscripts, Sources, and Edition of a Byzantine Verse Romance." Byzantion, 41:122-60.
A discussion of the difficulties of editing Byzantine Greek verse romances, including a section warning against assuming direct influence of one manuscript version on another without possible attribution of shared phraseology to the domain of oral tradition. Comparing the results of their formulaic analysis of Imberios and Margarona (143-48) with those of Baugh on ME romances (1959 and 1967), they postulate for the BG texts a formulaic and memorial tradition of translation rather than composition in performance. Explanation of the profound bearing such a hypothesis has on the readings that an editor establishes.Area: BG, CP
Elisabeth M. Jeffreys and Michael J. Jeffreys. "The Traditional Style of Early Demotic Verse." Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 5:115-39.
Studies primarily the early Demotic Greek War of Troy as an exemplar of contemporary poetic tradition (cp. M. Jeffreys 1973), arguing that it "is a transitional text between oral and literary composition. The poet has adopted a formulaic style and many of the formulas themselves form a tradition of oral poetry; at the same time he seems to have added clichés of his own and to have used all his formulas in a literate manner in making a long translation from a French manuscript." (138). A meticulous exposition that finds 35% formulaic density in the BG poem and attempts cautiously to reconcile this traditional phraseology with the almost certainly literate composition.Area: BG, CP
Elisabeth M. Jeffreys and Michael J. Jeffreys. "The Style of Byzantine Popular Poetry: Recent Work." In Okeanos: Essays Presented to Ihor
Confronts three problems that affect the study of Byzantine vernacular poetry: (1) repetitious phraseology, (2) relations between and among different manuscript versions, and (3) the mixed language (dialectal forms and anachronisms) used by the poets. After a review of the various avenues of research, they recommend that attention "be concentrated away from the individual Byzantine vernacular poems, and on the oral tradition which must lie behind them_its metre, its language, its subjects, its formulaic techniques, its social position and function" (334).Area: BG
Elisabeth M. Jeffreys and Michael J. Jeffreys. Popular Literature in Late Byzantium. London: Variorum Reprints.
A collection of reprinted articles on various aspects of the Byzantine language and literature. Of special interest and separately annotated are M. Jeffreys 1973, 1974, 1975 and E. and M. Jeffreys 1971, 1979.Area: BG
Elisabeth M. Jeffreys and Ann Moffatt, eds. Byzantine Papers: Proceedings of the First Australian Byzantine Studies Conference, Canberra, 17-19 May 1978. Canberra: Humanities Research Centre.
A collection of chiefly historical accounts. Separately annotated is E. Jeffreys 1978, q.v.Area: BG
Minna S. Jensen. "Tradition and Individuality in Hesiod's Works and Days." Classica et Mediaevalia, 27:1-27.
Attempts to specify the context and structure of the Works and Days as an oral traditional poem with certain unusual qualities, including the frequent use of "I/you" in narration and Hesiod's apparent composition of the poem for a single performance.Area: AG
Minna S. Jensen. The Homeric Question and the Oral-Formulaic Theory. Opuscula Graeco-Latina. Supplementa Musei Tusculani, vol. 20. Copenhagen: Museum Tuscularum Press.
Argues that "the Iliad and the Odyssey were orally composed, and that their composition took place in the sixth century B.C. on the initiative of Pisistratus" (p. 9). Considers the comparative methodology, the case against orality on the bases of quantity and quality, and the questions of oral poetics and oral dictated texts. Also describes the evidence for sixth-century Athens as the possible time and place for composition, arriving at 650 B.C. as the terminus post quem. Many comparative references to SC and AF oral tradition, especially on ethnographic points.Area: AG, SC, AF, CP
Minna S. Jensen. "A Note on Homer's Use of the Word kranaós." Classica et Mediaevalie, 33:5-8.
Sees the Homeric use of kranaós ("rocky, rugged") in connection with Ithaca as evidence of the Pisistratean recension of Homer: "by applying the adjective proper to Athens to precisely Ithaca [an expert Homerid] established allusive connections between the home country of the clever hero of the Trojan return story and that of the clever hero of the contemporary Athenian return story."Area: AG
Minna S. Jensen. "Studimi krahasues i epikës: dise konsiderata." Kultura popullore, 2:117-22.
Against the background of the Iliad and Odyssey, she compares seven versions of an Albanian epic in order to illustrate the narrative morphology typical of oral-formulaic composition.Area: AB, AG, CP
James D. Johnson. "The `Hero on the Beach' in the Alliterative Morte Arthure." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 76:271-81.
Discovers an occurrence of Crowne's (1960) "Hero on the Beach" theme at lines 3724-31 of the Alliterative Morte Arthure. Noting that this typical scene is found throughout OE poetry (see, e.g. Fry 1966, 1967a), he concludes that the ME poet must have learned the traditional pattern from oral tradition.Area: ME, OE, CP
Lemuel A. Johnson. "Response" [to Aspel 1976]. In Oral Literature and the Formula. Ed. Benjamin A. Stolz and Richard S. Shannon. Ann Arbor: Center for the Coordination of Ancient and Modern Studies, University of Michigan. pp. 203-4.
Questions the extent of Arabic influence on Aspel's examples of Fulani formulas. Also queries her portrait of the poet, based on formulaic and ethnographic description.Area: AR, FU, CP
James D. Johnson. "Formulaic Thrift in the Alliterative Morte Arthure." Medium AEvum, 47:255-61.
Contends that thrift, while absent from OE formulaic poetry, is found in some of the formulaic systems of the Alliterative M.A. Argues that the poet's substitution of elements was limited not only by the required alliteration of the line but also by the number of words that the poet could associate rapidly with the rest of the system.Area: ME, OE, CP
John W. Johnson, coll., trans., ed. with the assistance of Cheick Omar Mara et al. The Epic of Sun-Jata According to Magan Sisoko, 2 vols. FPC Monograph Series, no. 5. Bloomington: Indiana University Folklore Publications Group.
A transcription in English translation of a text recorded on magnetic tape in western Mali on the evening of April 19, 1974. Includes data on the bard, the language and transcription, the assistants, the circumstances of performance, together with a résumé of the plot and notes, genealogy charts, and selections from a post-performance interview with the bard.Area: AF
John W. Johnson. "Yes, Virginia, There Is an Epic in Africa." Review of African Literatures, 11:308-26.
Disagrees with Finnegan (1970a) and demonstrates that there is indeed an oral epic in Africa, specifically among the Mandekan speakers in West Africa. Offers as typical features four primary (poetic, narrative, heroic, and legendary) and four secondary characteristics (length, multi-functionality, cultural/traditional transmission, and multigeneric qualities). His narrative feature includes the theme as described by Lord (e.g. 1960).Area: AF
John W. Johnson. "Recent Contributions by Somalis and Somalists to the Study of Oral Literature." In Somalia and the World: Proceedings of the International Symposium, vol. 1 (held in Mogadishu, on the Tenth Anniversary of the Somali Revolution, October 15-21, 1979). Ed. Hussein M. Adam. Mogadishu: Halgan. pp. 117-31.
In the process of discussing Somali scansion, he contends that while the Parry-Lord theory may have explained a great deal about ancient Greek epic, "the oral-formulaic method is decidedly not the system employed in Somalia" (p. 125). Reports that composition within the tight scansion rules of Somali poetry proceeds in private, and that recitation_by either the composer or someone else_proceeds separately. Verbatim memorization has been shown to be the vehicle for transmission. Believes that "Lord's error is in equating `oral' with the formulaic method alone" (p. 126).Area: AF
James D. Johnson. "A Note on the Substitution of Door' for Beach' in a Formulaic Theme." Neophilologus, 67:596-98.
Offers support for Renoir (1964) that the threshold of a door often functions in the formulaic theme of the "Hero on the Beach" as "a symbolic boundary between the lands of the living and the dead" (597).Area: OE
John Willian Johnson. The Epic of Son-Yara: A West African Tradition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
A study of the Manding oral traditional epic providing a text and translation of a performance by the griot Fa-Digi Sisoko in Kita, Western Mali, with complete data on the collection and discussion of the generic and poetic characteristics of the performance.Area: AF
F.W. Jones. "The Formulation of the Revenge Motif in the Odyssey." Transactions of the American Philological Association, 72:195-202.
In the course of proposing a triadic structure to the revenge sequence, he connects word-choice with formulaic diction. Feels that the artistic function of formulas can be appreciated only by discerning their contextual meaning, for "the choice and variation of formulaic phrases was guided by a superb sense of structure, not by mathematical formalism, or a simplisme of superfluous repetition, or merely the exigencies of meter" (202).Area: AG
James H. Jones. "Commonplace and Memorization in the Oral Tradition of the English and Scottish Popular Ballads." Journal of American Folklore, 74:97-112.
In an attempt to illustrate the technique of oral composition in the ballad form from the point of view of the singer's needs, he applies Parry-Lord theory to ballad structure, renouncing rote memorization as the primary vehicle of transmission. Sections on (1) the work of Parry and Lord, (2) the descriptive inadequacy of the Sharp-Gerould approach to oral tradition, (3) the commonplace, (4) the theme, and (5) the illustration of these principles in an example ballad, "Johnie Scot." See further the reply by Friedman (1961).Area: BR, FB, CP
G.I. Jones. "Time and Oral Tradition with Special Reference to E. Nigeria." Journal of African History, 6:153-60.
Argues that this oral tradition treats time structurally by dividing the past into categories of "recent" and "remote." Events either fall into one of these categories or are forgotten.Area: AF
Alison G. Jones. "Daniel and Azarias as Evidence for the Oral-Formulaic Character of Old English Poetry." Medium AEvum, 35:95-102.
Considers the formulaic phraseology shared by these two OE texts, concluding that they represent two versions of the same original poem.Area: OE
Alison G. Jones. "The Old English Soul and Body as an Example of Oral Transmission." Medium AEvum, 38:239-44.
Attributes the differences between the two texts of Soul and Body to oral transmission, interpreting the additions, omissions, and changes as the result of the singer's "lapses of memory" (244).Area: OE
A.M. Jones and Hazel Carter. "The Style of a Tonga Historical Narrative." African Language Studies, 8:93-126.
This presentation of an oral autobiography of one Sikwaazwa, as told to Fr. A.M. Jones in 1936, includes mention of typical repetitive features of oral story-telling such as stem-reduplication, repetition of a word or word-complex, and recurrent phrases or sentences (espec. 118-19).Area: AF
Frank P. Jones and Florence E. Gray. "Hexameter Patterns, Statistical Inference, and the Homeric Question: An Analysis of the La Roche Data." Transactions of the American Philological Association, 103:187-209.
Putting aside the question of the relationship between formulaic phraseology and orality, they analyze the metrics of AG texts in an effort to answer the problem of authorship. They find a marked similarity between the Iliad and Odyssey, and also between the Hesiodic corpus and the Homeric Hymns. Based on J. La Roche's reports in Zeitschrift für klassische Philologie, 20 (1898), 1-90.Area: AG
A.C. Jordan. Towards an African Literature: The Emergence of Literary Form in Xhosa. Rpt. Berkeley: University of California, 1973.
A brief discussion of the oral traditional genres among the Xhosa is included, treating lyric and dramatic verse, praise poems, riddles, and proverbs. Also describes the effect of incipient literacy and the written tradition that resulted.Area: AF
Marcel Jousse. Le Style oral rhythmique et mnemotéchnique chez les Verbo-moteurs, APh, 2. Cahier IV, 1-240. Rpt. Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne, 1925.
Among the many examples of oral composition, some by literates and some by preliterates, he examines the rhythmical basis of the oral style (pp. 108-18, mentioning the SC guslar), oral composers (pp. 133-55), a fieldwork experiment conducted by Krauss in Yugoslavia (p. 163), the Iliad and Odyssey as oral compositions only later set down in writing (pp. 177-78), and various parallel structures within oral texts (pp. 191-232). Appends an eclectic bibliography of ethnographic, linguistic, and scientific sources. An important influence on Parry's crucial modulation from traditional structure to an oral Homer.Area: AG, SC, CP
Erich Köhler. "Der mündliche Charakter der Chanson de Geste." Romanistisches Jahrbuch, 8:246-50. Rpt. in Europäische Heldendichtung. Ed. Klaus von See. Wege der Forschung, Band 500. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1978. pp. 272-80.
A review article on Rychner 1955, explaining the latter's position in the context of other critical approaches and understanding the individual singer as one possible mode of composition for the chanson de geste.Area: OF
G. Kahl-Furthmann. Wann lebte Homer? Eine verschollene Menschheit tritt ans Licht. Meisenheim am Glan: Hain.
A two-part treatment of the Homeric era and critical examination of Homeric poetry. In the second part he includes a brief discussion of oral poetry and formulaic composition.Area: AG
Charles H. Kahn. "Philosophy and the Written Word." In Language and Thought in Early Greek Philosophy. Ed. by Kevin Robb. La Salle, IL: Monist Library of Philosophy/The Hegeler Institute, pp. 110-24.
Reviews the evidence for understanding sixth-century figures, especially Heraclitus, as having a "special role in developing a new type of prose literature" (111), as possessing "a body of technical literature" (114). Citing such passages as Diogenes IX.6 et al., disagrees with the view that Heraclitus' work was non-literary and implies that he would have understood that prose was the true medium for recording, preserving, and changing the world.Area: AG
Johannes Kail. "Über die Parallelstellen in der angelsächsischen Poesie." Anglia: Zeitschrift für englische Philologie, 12:21-40.
Suggests that correspondences in diction among different poems are not an author's identifying feature (as most of the practitioners of the Higher Criticism assumed), but rather a general feature of epic style. Postulates a Phrasenvorrat which developed over time and which was available to poets working within the poetic tradition. A reply to Sarrazin 1888 and an important contribution to the evolution of formulaic theory in OE.Area: OE
K. Kailasapathy. Tamil Heroic Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Attempts (1) to apply the comparative method to a study of early Tamil poetry and (2) to compare Tamil with Homeric poetry in terms of the idea of a heroic age. Discusses and illustrates formulaic composition (pp. 135-86) and thematic structure (pp. 187-228) in Tamil. Also treats the portrait of the bard in various poetries (pp. 55-93) and the taxonomy of singers in Tamil (pp. 94-134). A very thorough philological examination, close in methodology to the Parry-Lord orthodoxy.Area: IN, AG, CP
Johannes T. Kakridis. Homeric Researches. Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup.
A good example of Neoanalysis. Uses "poetic contradictions" to search out the sources and models behind Homer and to study the poet's art in combining his own genius and the inherited tradition. Resists the Parry-Lord hypothesis by maintaining that Homer often avoids repetition and that this avoidance is proof of his originality.Area: AG
Johannes T. Kakridis. "Achilleus' Rustung." Hermes, 89:288-97.
A study of Achilles' armor that attempts to shed some light on the changes made by Homer in the Achilles material that he inherited. Argues that Homer blends two different strains of the armor motif for poetic purposes, downplaying magical and supernatural elements because they would be unsuitable for the character he wishes to portray.Area: AG
Johannes T. Kakridis. Homer Revisited. Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup.
A continuation of Kakridis 1949. States (1) that oral theory is not applicable to Neoanalysis and (2) that the Homeric poems are written works. Proceeds from these assumptions to the same kind of episodic analysis he conducted earlier.Area: AG
Marianne E. Kalinke. "Sigurthar saga Jórsalafara: The Fictionalization of Fact in Morkinskinna." Scandinavian Studies, 56:152-67.
Addresses the function of narrative intrusion in the saga, which she sees as a "conflation of history and fiction" (153) concluding that "the anonymous author transmits not only historical incident but also, and especially, an interpretation of historical incident. Moreover, the author creates pseudo-historical incident in order to make historical incident more vivid and hence more memorable" (165).Area: ON
Majorie H. Kalter. "Oral Literature and Metaphorical Translation." Language and Style, 13:55-63.
Stresses the need not only for appreciating the cultural context of an oral utterance, but also for understanding the modes of listening and perception required for its interpretation. Using as examples Fulani and Yoruba proverbs, she illustrates the stages of logic through which the listener must pass and contends that we must examine the linguistic process involved in order to approach the question of genre.Area: AF, FU
J.C. Kamerbeek. "Remarques sur l'Hymne à Aphrodite." Mnemosyne, 20:385-95.
Regardless of whether we consider the Homeric poems oral or written, a question he leaves unanswered, he claims the author of the Hymn to Aphrodite cannot be identified with the poet of the Iliad or Odyssey on the basis of diction.Area: AG
Ann Kaniku. "Milne Bay women." In Oral Tradition in Melanesia. Ed. by Donald Denoon. Port Moresby, New Guinea: University of Papua, New Guinea and Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. pp. 188-206.
Discusses the value of the oral tradition in recovering the histories of Melanesian women converts to Christianity who have been neglected in written accounts,Area: ML
Gyorgy Kara. Chants d'un barde mongol. Bibliotheca Orientalis Hungarica, 12. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.
A selective presentation and linguistic investigation of Jarut oral texts sung by the bard Pajai. Includes texts, translations into French, and phonetic, morphological, and syntactic analyses, with an extensive bibliography on the poetic tradition and its sociocultural context.Area: MN
S. Laszlo Karoly. "`Jaj nekem, szomoru eletem!' (A szövegformulák f[[radical]]bb típusai siratóénekeinkben." Népi kultúra_Népi társadalom, 9:307-28. With English summary, 326.
In this study of the major types of textual formulas, he presents the most characteristic kinds of rhythmic and grammatical parallelism in a standard corpus of wailing songs.Area: HY
Harry E. Kavros. "Swefan æfter Symble: The Feast-Sleep Theme in Beowulf." Neophilologus 65:120-28.
Arguing that "themes in oral-formulaic poetry are traditional but not necessary" (120), he studies the aesthetic impact of the "feasting-sleeping" theme in Beowulf and other Old English poems.Area: OE
Werner H. Kelber. "Mark and Oral Tradition," Semeia, 16:7-55.
Although fully acknowledging a pre-Markan synoptic oral tradition, he takes as his central thesis that "the gospel is to be perceived not as the natural outcome of oral developments, but as a critical alternative to the powers of orality" (46). Thus he disagrees with Bultmann's (1957) hypothesis of a smooth, organic transition from orality to writing and posits instead a shift from collectivity to individual authorship and a "crisis" of oral transmission brought on by the retreat of Jesus' oral presence into a necessarily textual history. Notes the oral traditional features of Mark's gospel (formulaic and thematic patterning, variants with other gospels, modulation in the order of events with relation to other sources) and the fact that Mark's chirographic enterprise went on in a milieu that included a contemporary synoptic oral tradition. An imaginative and stimulating article that takes account of current research on oral literature.Area: BI
Werner H. Kelber. The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul, and Q. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
Continuing along paths blazed by Ong outside the field of Biblical studies, he aims to illustrate the importance of the oral roots of Biblical texts and to liberate those texts from the cultural bias toward the authority of print: "We treat words primarily as records in need of interpretation, neglecting all too often a rather different hermeneutic, deeply rooted in biblical language that proclaims words as an act inviting participation" (p. xvi). Chapter 1 ("The Pre-Canonical Synoptic Transmission," pp. 1-43) reviews the theories of Bultmann and Gerhardsson and seeks to integrate the contemporary oral literature research of Parry and Lord, Ong, and others; it is concerned with establishing the phenomenology of speaking. Further chapters treat the oral legacy and textuality of Mark and Paul. Argues that "the decisive break in the synoptic tradition did thus not come, as Bultmann thought, with Easter, but when the written medium took full control, transforming Jesus the speaker of kingdom parables into the parable of the kingdom of God" (p. 220). Contains a sizable bibliography of oral literature studies and apposite Biblical research (pp. 227-47).Area: BI
Robert L. Kellogg. "The South Germanic Oral Tradition." In Franciplegius: Medieval and Linguistics Studies in Honor of Francis P. Magoun, Jr. Ed. Jess B. Bessinger, Jr. and Robert P. Creed. New York: New York University Press. pp. 66-74.
Based on the evidence of common formulaic phraseology from the Old Saxon Heliand, the OE poetic corpus, and Old High German poetry, he postulates a South Germanic oral tradition. Also finds cognate formulas in Eddic poetry and concludes "that the many poetic elements common to Anglo-Saxon, Old Icelandic, Old Saxon, and Old High German alliterative poetry reflect the common usage of a more or less unified and indisputably oral tradition stretching back in time to the early centuries of the Christian era, and perhaps much further" (p. 72).Area: OE, OHG, OSX, ON, GM, CP
Robert L. Kellogg. "Oral Literature." New Literary History, 5:55-66.
Understands the performer in an oral tradition as a kind of "reader" of the whole, unexpressed tradition (itself the "author" and the performed version the "work"). Advocates reading medieval works such as the Song of Roland, Beowulf, the Nibelungenlied, and Njals Saga as versions of ideal works which existed in oral tradition and were later put in final form. Compares Chaucer's poems and suggests widening the critical scope of concepts like authorship, traditional versus original, and "literature."Area: CP, TH
Robert L. Kellogg. "Literature, Nonliterature, and Oral Tradition." New Literary History, 8:531-34.
A brief response to the essays that constitute the NLH collection on oral culture and oral performance (Cohen 1977).Area: CP, TH
Robert L. Kellogg. "Oral Narrative, Written Books." Genre, 10:655-65.
Considers the rhetorical and textual impact of the pretense of an oral narrator in a written work. Describes the general features of true oral (as distinguished from written) narrative and suggests that there is "a complex series of gradations and transitions existing between the two" (661).Area: AG, ME, CP
Robert L. Kellogg. "Varieties of Tradition in Medieval Narrative." In Medieval Narrative: A Symposium (Proceedings of the Third International Symposium Organized by the Center for the Study of Vernacular Literature, Held at Odense University on 21-22 November, 1978). Ed. Hans Bekker-Nielsen et al. Odense: Odense University Press. pp. 120-29.
Distinguishes among traditional art, which is communal and conservative; high art, which is personal and innovative; and popular art, which mediates between the other two. Discusses rhythmic and formulaic aspects of traditional art, looking at AG epic, the Kalevala, the Mwindo Epic, and many early medieval works and finding a number of traditional narratives but no oral performances.Area: AG, OE, OSX, FN, AF, CP
William J. Kennedy. "Petrarchan Audiences and Print Technology." Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 14:1-20.
Addresses the question of the literary reception and transmutation of the Petrarchan lyric upon its interaction with the emerging print culture of Europe.Area: LT, PT
Barbara Kerewsky-Halpern. "Thoughts on Communicative Competence in a Serbian Village." In Selected Papers on a Serbian Village: Social Structure as Reflected by History, Demography, and Oral Tradition. Ed. Barbara Kerewsky-Halpern and Joel M. Halpern. Research Report no. 17. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Department of Anthropology. pp. 125-40.
An overview of language use by peasant speakers in the central Serbian region of Yugoslavia. Includes discussion of the indigenous oral tradition.Area: SC
Barbara Kerewsky-Halpern. "Genealogy as Genre." In Selected Papers on a Serbian Village: Social Structure as Reflected by History, Demography, and Oral Tradition. Ed. Barbara Kerewsky-Halpern and Joel M. Halpern. Research Report no. 17. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Department of Anthropology. pp. 141-63.
A briefer version of Kerewsky-Halpern 1980.Area: SC
Barbara Kerewsky-Halpern. "Genealogy as Genre in a Serbian Village." In Oral Traditional Literature: A Festschrift for Albert Bates Lord. Ed. John Miles Foley. Columbus: Slavica Publishers. Rpt. 1983. pp. 301-21.
A sociolinguistic description of a heretofore unstudied oral genre in rural Yugoslavia: the metrical genealogy, in which older men keep their family's ancestry back more than ten generations in the decasyllable meter of the epic. Presents text along with metrical, formulaic, and structural analysis.Area: SC
Barbara Kerewsky-Halpern. "Text and Context in Serbian Ritual Lament." In Oral Tradition. Ed. John Miles Foley. Special issue of Canadian-American Slavic Studies, pp. 52-60.
A sociolinguistic profile of SC oral lament (tuzbalica). Includes a transcription of an example recorded in Serbia in the early 1960s.Area: SC
Barbara Kerewsky-Halpern and John Miles Foley. "The Power of the Word: Healing Charms as an Oral Genre." Journal of American Folklore, 91:903-24.
An analysis of variant texts of a charm against erysipelas as recorded by Kerewsky-Halpern and Foley in the Sumadijan region of Serbia. Attention given to cultural context, linguistic and symbolic structure, mode of transmission, relationship among variants, and folkloric motifs. Serves to document and analyze another non-epic oral genre in SC.Area: SC
Barbara Kerewsky-Halpern. "Bajanje: Healing Magic in Rural Serbia." In Culture and Curing. Ed. Peter Morley and Roy Wallis. London and Pittsburgh: Peter Owen and University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 40-56.
A description of oral healing charms in SC (cp. Kerewsky-Halpern and Foley 1978a), with emphasis on the cultural significance of this verbal magic.Area: SC
Barbara Kerewsky-Halpern and Joel M. Halpern, eds. Selected Papers on a Serbian Village: Social Structure as Reflected by History, Demography, and Oral Tradition. Research Report no. 17. Amherst: University of Massachusetts/Amherst Department of Anthropology.
An eclectic collection of literary, linguistic, and anthropological studies; separately annotated are Foley 1977, Kerewsky-Halpern 1977a and 1977b, and Halpern, Kerewsky-Halpern, and Foley 1977.Area: SC, CP
J. Kerling. "Kunst of Kunstjes: De Oral Formula en Ouden-gelse Poëzie." In Literatuur en Samenleving in de Middeleeuwen. Wassenaar: Servire. pp. 33-62.
An explanation of formulaic diction and its possibilities for meaning, using classic Parry-Lord theory (espec. Magoun 1953a and Lord 1960) to explain the generic quality of traditional phraseology.Area: OE
J. Kerling. "Sievers and Scops: A Revaluation of Old English Poetic Techniques." Dutch Quarterly Review of Anglo-American Letters, 12, ii:125-40.
During a critical assessment of metrical systems proposed for Old English poetry, he discards oral-formulaic theory and claims that "the stress patterns found in the OE poetic half-lines are the automatic result of a formalisation of the spoken language" (129).Area: OE
J. Kerling. "A Case of `Slipping': Direct and Indirect Speech in Old English Prose." Neophilologus, 66:286-90.
During a brief discussion of prose techniques, he contends that OE scops "were not `jongleurs,' `troubadours,' `trouveres' or `Spielmanner'" but rather "nobles and professionals, performing on special occasions in the lord's hall" (286).Area: OE
Lylian Kesteloot. "The West African Epics." Présence africaine, 30:197-202.
Contains ethnographic notes on the griot, the West African singer of tales.Area: AF
Emil Kettner. Die österreichische Nibelungendichtung: Untersuchungen über die Verfasser des Nibelungenliedes. Berlin: Weidmann.
A Higher Critical study of the Nibelungenlied to determine authorship, original versus reworded sections, and so on, which proceeds via stylistic analysis. Often refers to parallels, by sense or by character, to other contemporary poems. Includes an index of Parallelstellen (pp. 289-301) and compares in method to many early OE studies (see, e.g., Sarrazin 1888).Area: MHG
Giovanni Kezich. "Extemporaneous Oral Poetry in Central Italy." Folklore, 93:193-205.
Reports a tradition of improvised, extemporaneous oral poetry in rural areas of the Tyrrenic side of central Italy, called by its practitioners and their audiences canto a poeta or canto a braccio. The performers, commonly peasant farmers, shepherds, craftsmen, laborers, artisans, or peddlers, are only weakly literate and take their material both from classical written sources (the chivalric octave, epic novels in prose, Greek and Roman mythology, etc.) and from oral tradition. Their medium for public performance is the contest or tournament, in which competitors attempt successively to outdo their fellows within the rules of poetic composition. The remainder of the article considers various folkloric models for the interpretation of the tradition.Area: IT
Ann K. Khalil. "Musicians and Music." In The Muses at Work: Arts, Crafts, and Professions in Ancient Greece and Rome. Ed. Carl Roebuck. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 226-49.
Includes a brief statement on Homeric (and possible Mycenaean) oral singers (espec. pp. 228-29), noting that "where written literature is unknown, or books are rare, meter and melody act as mnemonic devices in preserving and transmitting oral composition" (p. 229).Area: AG, MU
Marion Kilson. Kpele Lala: Ga Religious Songs and Symbols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
A collection of oral kpele song texts, collected by the author in Ghana in 1964-65 and 1968 and presented here in both original and translated forms against the backdrop of an ethnographic survey.Area: AF
Clare Kinney. "The Needs of the Moment: Poetic Foregrounding as a Narrative Device in Beowulf." Studies in Philology, 82:295-314.
Describes narrative "moments" in Beowulf in which the poet "foregrounds" particular narrative sequences in order to lend immediacy to his tale, concluding that "Beowulf is full of potential tensions between the ultimately linear nature of the heroic poem and its tendency to generate spontaneous alternative realities, near-autonomous parts which temporarily take over the narrative foreground and can only be ordered, retrospectively and synchronically, after the hero has died and his story has been closed" (314).Area: OE
Eugene R. Kintgen. "Echoic Repetition in Old English Poetry, Especially The Dream of the Rood." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 75:202-23.
Understands key repetitions in OE poetry as conscious wordplay that links sound and sense. In the line of critical studies on echo-word (originated by Beaty 1934) that runs parallel to oral-formulaic theory.Area: OE
Eugene R. Kintgen. "Wordplay in The Wanderer." Neophilologus, 59:119-27.
In accordance with his earlier study (1974), he argues that wordplay reinforces the effect of the exile theme in The Wanderer, that, in addition to straight repetition and etymological variants, "the poet employs purely phonetic repetition to provide a kind of continuo for the poem" (126).Area: OE
Eugene R. Kintgen."`Lif,' `Lof,' `Leof,' `Lufu,' and `Geleafa' in Old English Poetry." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 78:309-16.
Follows Quirk 1963 in describing associations of key words which can create, fulfill, or frustrate poetic expectation. In this case the example involves a set of words related etymologically.Area: OE
Paul Kiparsky. "Commentary." New Literary History, 5:177-85.
Includes a response to Kellogg 1974, in which he contends that K.'s distinction between authorship and bardic performance is tradition-dependent, that is, a function of different traditions' genres of poetry, different bards' ability to depart creatively from their traditions, and the degree of artistic freedom inherent in different oral traditions. Cites the history of Indian oral literature to illustrate how various forms of oral literature can co-exist, involving memorization of fixed texts as well as recitation.Area: AG, SK, CP
Paul Kiparsky. "Oral Poetry: Some Linguistic and Typological Considerations." In Oral Literature and the Formula. Ed. Benjamin A. Stolz and Richard S. Shannon. Ann Arbor: Center for the Coordination of Ancient and Modern Studies, University of Michigan. pp. 73-106.
Attempts a grammatical description of the formula as bound phraseology, defining flexible formulas as "co-occurrence restrictions (obligatory or variable) between lexical items" (p. 82) and fixed formulas as surface structures which exist as ready-made entries in the poetic lexicon. Thus formulas can occur both in metrically complex oral poetries and in oral prose. To traditional phraseology crystallizing at the levels of deep and surface structures must be added a third type of recurrence: the echoic pattern of purely phonological dimensions. Closes with a trial narrative typology for oral literature. See the response by Watkins (1976).Area: AG, FN, SK, CP
Steven D. Kirby. "Concordances to the Old Spanish Texts: Present Status and Proposed Future Guidelines." La Corónica, 6:38-40.
A summary of the variations in criteria, design, and utility of concordances of Old Spanish literature available to date.Area: HI, CC
Geoffrey S. Kirk. "Objective Dating Criteria in Homer." Museum Helveticum, 17:189-205. Rpt. in The Language and Background of Homer: Some Recent Studies and Controversies. Ed. Geoffrey S. Kirk. Cambridge and New York: Heffer and Barnes & Noble. Rpt, 1967. pp. 174-90.
Finds little archaeological or linguistic evidence of either Mycenaean sources or post-Homeric additions in the Iliad and Odyssey. Feels that "late" sections can be identified only where the formulaic diction is misused by poets who were presumably rhapsodes, that is, reproducers of the Homeric poems rather than creative oral poets.Area: AG
Geoffrey S. Kirk. "Homer and Modern Oral Poetry: Some Confusions." Classicaly Quarterly, n.s. 10:271-81. Rpt. in The Language and Background of Homer: Some Recent Studies and Controversies. Ed. Geoffrey S. Kirk. Cambridge and New York: Heffer and Barnes & Noble. Rpt. 1967. pp. 79-89. Rpt. in Homer and Oral Tradition. Ed. Geoffrey S. Kirk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. pp. 113-28. Rpt. in Homer: Tradition und Neuerung. Ed. Joachim Latacz. Wege der Forschung, Band 463. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1979. pp. 320-37.
Admits that the same essential principles of composition underlie both Homeric and SC epic, but wishes to emphasize how differently the "creative" Homer composes from the "reproductive" guslar. Harbors serious misconceptions about SC oral tradition as a result of treating that poetry only in translation.Area: AG, SC, CP
Geoffrey S. Kirk. "Dark Age and Oral Poet." Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, n.s. 7:34-48. Rpt. in Homer and Oral Tradition. Ed. Geoffrey S. Kirk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. pp. 19-39.
After a review of various kinds of evidence for a continuous oral tradition from Mycenaean times, he contends that the early post-Mycenaean period presents a possible setting for oral tradition. Analogies to SC guslari, with a distinction made between "creative" and "reproductive" oral poets, are inept and unconvincing.Area: AG, SC, CP
Geoffrey S. Kirk. The Songs of Homer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sections on historical background, the oral poet and his methods, the growth of oral epic in Greece, plurality and unity in Homer, development and transmission, and the songs and their qualities. Stresses differences between the AG aoidós and the SC guslar: (1) the relative strictness of Homeric formulaic diction, (2) the relative complexity of the hexameter as compared to the SC deseterac, and (3) the creative Homeric bard versus the reproductive Yugoslav singer. Among other topics, he reviews the evidence for a Mycenaean oral tradition, the nature of the Homeric poetic dialect, structural inconsistencies, and possible circumstances of composition. Applies the derived theorems to readings of the Iliad and Odyssey. Constitutes his major work, one which has been widely cited. Reprinted in abridged form as Kirk 1965.Area: AG, SC, CP
Geoffrey S. Kirk, ed. The Language and Background of Homer: Some Recent Studies and Controversies. Cambridge and New York: Heffer and Barnes & Noble. Rpt. 1967.
Includes a number of reprinted articles dealing with oral tradition, all separately annotated: Bowra 1957, Dodds 1954, Gray 1947, Kirk 1960a, Kirk 1960b, Lord 1953a, and A. Parry 1956.Area: AG, CP
Geoffrey S. Kirk. Homer and the Epic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
An abridged reprint of his The Songs of Homer (1962).Area: AG, SC, CP
Geoffrey S. Kirk. "Studies in Some Technical Aspects of Homeric Style." Yale Classical Studies, 20:76-152. Rpt. in simplified form in Homer and Oral Tradition. Ed. Geoffrey S. Kirk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 146-82.
Part I discusses colon-structure in the AG hexameter, responding to studies by Fränkel, H. Porter (1951), and O'Neill (1942). Part II examines verse structure, sentence structure, and enjambement, along with their bearing on oral style and transmission within an oral tradition.Area: AG
Geoffrey S. Kirk. "Formular Language and Oral Quality." Yale Classical Studies, 20:155-74. Rpt. in Homer and Oral Tradition. Ed. Geoffrey S. Kirk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. pp. 183-201.
Denies that formulaic density proves orality, citing an example passage from the Batrachomyomachia to illustrate a literate imitation of oral style. Prefers to base the judgment for or against orality on "formular quality," as evidenced by economy and extension in the systemic use of formulas and by the natural character of rhythm and enjambement.Area: AG
Geoffrey S. Kirk. "War and the Warrior in the Homeric Poems." In Problèmes de la guerre en Grèce ancienne. Ed. J.-P. Vernant. Paris: Mouton. pp. 93-117. Rpt. in Homer and Oral Tradition. Ed. Geoffrey S. Kirk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. pp. 40-68.
Probes archaeological and sociocultural data in an attempt to discover the validity of the picture of heroic life in the Iliad and Odyssey. Points out that "the idea of a Heroic Age may be to an important extent a `literary' crystallization rather than a direct and lifelike reflection of an actual historical period" (rpt., p. 46). Finds the general outline of this orally preserved information valid, with the impression of detail the result of traditional modes of transmission.Area: AG
Geoffrey S. Kirk. Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures. Sather Classical Lectures, vol. 40. Cambridge and Berkeley: Cambridge University Press and University of California Press. Rpt. 1973.
Concerned throughout with the nature of oral traditional conservatism, under whose aegis mythic stories will shift with respect to details while maintaining a dynamic core or sequence (see espec. pp. 73-77). Applies the findings of Parry and Lord to Lévi-Straussian methodology.Area: AG, SU, CP, TH
Geoffrey S. Kirk. "Homer's Iliad and Ours." Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 16:48-59. Rpt. in Homer and Oral Tradition. Ed. Geoffrey S. Kirk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. pp. 129-45.
Primarily a response to A. Parry 1966, claiming that the autograph oral-dictated text is no solution to the Homeric Problem and presenting the "creative/reproductive" dichotomy (see, e.g., Kirk 1961) as a description of various oral traditions. Does not find a writing oral poet to be a logical probability and sees the Homeric poems as linked to the innovative and expansionist sentiment of the eighth century B.C., "quite independently of the development of the alphabet" (rpt., p. 145).Area: AG, SC, CP
Geoffrey S. Kirk. "Homer: The Meaning of an Oral Tradition." Chapter 6 in Literature and Western Civilization: The Classical World. Ed. David Daiches and Anthony Thorlby. London: Aldus Books. pp. 155-71. Rpt. in Homer and Oral Tradition. Ed. Geoffrey S. Kirk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 1-18.
Views Homer as an aoidós, a singer, who lived in the eighth century B.C., before the age of real literacy. The texts of the Iliad and Odyssey were assembled slowly, perhaps at the Panathenaean festivals. Feels that "orality is no mere incidental detail, an accident to be emphasized just for the sake of the unusual. It is of crucial importance for the understanding of the poems as poetry, as works of literature in the broader sense, and as vast and erratic forces in the cultural history of the ancient world" (p. 157). Also notes the artificial poetic language and formulaic structure; comparative oral traditions in Yugoslavia, Russia, and the Greek islands; the special poetic qualities of oral traditional diction; similes; variation among performances; textual inconsistencies; and the transition from oral tradition to later ages of poetry and philosophy in Greece.Area: AG, CP
Geoffrey S. Kirk. "The Search for the Real Homer." Greece & Rome, 2o ser., 20:124-39. Rpt. in Homer and Oral Tradition. Ed. Geoffrey S. Kirk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. pp. 201-17.
Describes Homer as "an individual singer who came near the end of a long tradition of heroic poetry; he presumably acquired a repertory of songs from other singers and reproduced them in his own manner" (rpt., p. 202). Sees Homer's individuality in his invention of the monumental epic poem and considers his possible original contribution in several unique aspects of the Iliad. His reply to Fenik's (1968) claim of typicality in the Iliadic battle scenes is that "once the basic elements and patterns have been assembled, the process of arrangement and further cumulation becomes a matter of genuinely artistic choice" (rpt., p. 217). Distinguishes Homer sharply from the SC guslar, whom he characterizes unfairly as one who "simply piles together everything he can think of" (rpt., p. 217), and from earlier singers in the AG tradition.Area: AG, SC, CP
Geoffrey S. Kirk. The Nature of Greek Myths. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Consists of three sections: The Nature of Myths (I), The Greek Myths (II), and Influences and Transformations (III). In Part I he follows the same tack as in Kirk 1970a, stressing the controlled variation of oral traditional taletelling. In Chapter 5 ("Greek Myths in Literature," pp. 95-112) he makes brief reference to the literary forms in which myths are imbedded, arguing that "Homer came near the end of a long oral tradition" and that "he made something spectacularly new out of the poetry assimilated from his predecessors, yet the fact remains that much of his material, including much of its mythical content, goes back long before the eighth century B.C., some of it close to the time of the Trojan War itself, and odd details to long before that" (p. 96).Area: AG, CP, TH
Geoffrey S. Kirk. "The Homeric Poems as History." Rev. ed. as Chapter XXXIX(b) in The Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed., vol. 2, pt. 2 (History of the Middle East and the Aegean Region c. 1380-1000 B.C.). Ed. I.E.S. Edwards et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 820-50. [orig. version publ. as fascicle 22 in the 1964 ed.].
Surveys the Iliad and Odyssey in an attempt to assess their importance as historical sources, apart from literary issues. Weighs evidence from three periods: the late Bronze Age (Trojan War and fall of Mycenae); early Iron Age (also called the Dark Age, the eleventh and tenth centuries B.C.); and the Ionian era or eighth century B.C., when he feels the "large-scale composition of the poems" (p. 821) took place. Includes sections on the Iliad and Odyssey as oral poems, with comments on the Parry-Lord theory and comparative work, on the special poetic language utilized by Homer and his predecessors, on the likelihood of Mycenaean survivals in the received texts, and on the influence of later periods. Notes that the phenomenon of oral tradition "severely limits the use of the poems as an exact historical source" (p. 849), but that they nonetheless offer a precious glimpse of ages otherwise unrecoverable.Area: AG, SC, CP
Geoffrey S. Kirk. Homer and the Oral Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Contains eight previously published essays (1960b, 1961, 1966a, 1966b, 1968, 1970, 1972, and 1973), plus "The Oral and the Literary Epic" (1976b).Area: AG, SC, CP
Geoffrey S. Kirk. "The Oral and the Literary Epic." In Homer and Oral Tradition. Ed. Geoffrey S. Kirk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 69-112.
Consists of the previously unpublished J.H. Gray Lectures given at Cambridge University in 1974. In Part I he considers the question of a special oral poetics, noting that many of the large-scale features of oral poetry (repetition, ring-composition, foreshadowing) can also be found in written verse. Contends that the flexibility of formulaic style enriches Homeric diction with subtlety and expressiveness and at the same time recalls a constant, traditional world of heroic action and character. Also describes parataxis, what he calls the "cumulative technique" (p. 79). Argues that "the critic will function best only if he has a full and sensitive knowledge of the formular and cumulative style and its implications, as well as of other technical elements... and only if he lacks the ambition to make doctrinaire or scientific rules for oral poetry such as are implied by the whole concept of an `oral poetics'" (p. 85). In Part II he compares the epic styles of Homer, Virgil, and Milton. Part III is devoted to illustrating how Homeric style is both traditional and original, how the monumental poet molded his inherited diction to achieve innovative and unforgettable effects.Area: AG, SC, CP
Geoffrey S. Kirk. "The Formal Duels in Books 3 & 7 of the Iliad." In Homer: Tradition and Invention. Ed. Bernard C. Fenik. University of Cincinnati Classical Studies, n.s. 2. Leiden: E.J. Brill. pp. 18-40.
Considers the question of priority in the composition of these two instances of a single scene by comparing formulaic content and motif structure, finding significant differences as well as similarities. Posits "a great singer gradually working up and adjusting his repertoire so as to make a monumental poem, going from one application of a central theme to another and then back again, so that in the end neither is precisely primary, but both become more or less parallel instances of the idea in the background, indebted to each other as well as various other traditional models, styles and formular phrases at different points" (p. 40).Area: AG
Geoffrey S. Kirk. "Orality and Sequence." In Language and Thought in Early Greek Philosophy. Ed. by Kevin Robb. La Salle, IL: Monist Library of Philosophy/The Hegeler Institute, pp. 83-90.
Reviews the essential aspects of the movement away from an oral-based culture towards a literate one. Determines that an important factor in such a transition was the movement from an aorist-sequential narrative to a present-tense dominated discourse concerned not with events, but permanent relationships.Area: AG
William Kirwin. "Folk Etymology: Remarks on Linguistic Problem-Solving and Who Does It." Lore and Language, 4, ii:18-24.
Discusses the motivation of language users to provide folk etymologies for uncommon terms and the transmission of these etymologies.Area: FK
Gail Kligman. "The Rites of Women: Oral Poetry, Ideology, and the Socialization of Peasant Women in Contemporary Romania." Journal of American Folklore, 97:167-87.
Discusses the changing socioeconomic factors, especially the government's ideological emphasis upon sexual equality, surrounding the wedding rites of Romanian peasant women of Transylvania, concluding that peasant rites and their attendant attitudes are "in contrast to the primary concerns of state ideology, which is normative in scope but only operates at the formal instituttional level" (186).Area: RO
Jan Knappert. "The Epic in Africa." Journal of the Folklore Institute, 4:171-90.
Gathers references to oral epic in Africa (Ankole, Bushong, Fulani, Hausa, Luba, Malinke-Soninke, Nkundo, Rwanda, Songai, Swahili, Tswana, and Zulu). Concludes that "though the epic is found in many parts of Africa, its occurrence seems to be accidental, and only in a few places do we find the true epic in form and content" (188). A summary of types follows. Compare J.W. Johnson 1980a.Area: AF
William F.J. Knight. Many-Minded Homer. London and New York: Allen & Unwin and Barnes & Noble.
Describes oral poetry, formulas, and typical scenes (espec. pp. 21-26, 42-56), but sees Homer as a literate composer who orchestrated these and his own materials within a larger poetic enterprise.Area: AG
S.T. Knight. "The Oral Transmission of Sir Launfal." Medium AEvum, 38:164-70.
Argues that Thomas Chestre knew the earlier English romance Sir Landevale in an oral form and composed his Sir Launfal under its influence. Points to evidence in rhyming, formulaic phraseology, and narrative design, suggesting that Chestre amounts to "a minstrel, rather than a literary poet" (169) and that we should therefore interpret his work from that perspective.Area: ME
Douglas A. Knight. Rediscovering the Traditions of Israel: The Development of the Traditio-Historical Research of the Old Testament, with Special Consideration of the Scandinavian Contributions. Society of Biblical Literature, Dissertation Series, 9. Missoula: Scholars Press.
In this history of the study of those traditions that inform the text of the Old Testament, he makes frequent reference to the role of oral tradition. A lengthy anda penetrating account of what the concept of "oral tradition" meant to scholars interested in probing its influence and of their conclusions, this volume will serve as a fine introduction to the generalized subject of oral tradition and the Bible. Especially noteworthy is the final section, entitled "Critique" (pp. 383-99), in which he offers his own views on oral composition and transmission, comparative evidence, critical evaluation of "oral literature," and related topics. Includes an extensive bibliography.Area: BI
Douglas A. Knight. "The Understanding of `Sitz im Leben' in Form Criticism." Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers (1974), 105-25.
Discusses the applicability of oral theory to the linguistic description of Sitz im Leben.Area: BI
Christopher Knipp. "Beowulf 2210b-2323: Repetition in the Description of the Dragon's Hoard." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 73:775-85.
Understands the repetition of the flashbacks describing the dragon's hoard as a traditional artistic device that draws out the narrative at climactic moments. Distinguishes between repetition and variation, mentions oral-formulaic structure.Area: OE
Karin Knorr. "The Structural Study of Oral Literature: Preliminary Survey." Review of Ethnology, 3:97-103, 105-8.
A report on the oral tradition of the Pauserna-Guarasug'wä, regarding that tradition as "a system like language or kinship, whose underlying components can be validly identified and analysed" (99). Focus on the motif-content of tales, with criticism of the approaches adopted by Propp, Pike, and Dundes.Area: SAI, TH
Rosa Knorringa. Fonction phatique et tradition orale: Constantes et transformations dans un chant narratif roumain, Mogos Vornicul. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Analysis of 11 variants of an oral ballad, including an exposition of formulaic structure (pp. 25-62). Describes the phatic function in terms of "formules-outils," which carry the narrative forward, and ornamental formulas, which retard and embellish the story.Area: RM
Charles A. Knudson. "Quel Terrain faut-il ceder au neotraditionalisme? Le cas de la `Chanson de Roland'." Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona, 31:119-31.
Argues in favor of the "individualist" position regarding the origin of the chanson de geste on three points: (1) finds four references in the Roland to written documents and questions the neotraditionalist theory of uninterrupted transmission of historical facts; (2) feels more attention must be paid to the manuscript stemmata and each text must be treated individually; and (3) doubts the hypothesis of late additions (e.g., the Blancandrin episode) and asks the reader to ponder the question of unity without imposing neotraditionalist assumptions. Concludes that the oral traditional theory is too radical an explanation of the origin and transmission of the chanson de geste.Area: OF
John Koila. "The Lala and Balawaia in Central Province." In Oral Tradition in Melanesia. Ed. by Donald Denoon. Port Moresby, New Guinea: University of Papua, New Guinea and Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. pp. 231-39.
Discusses the roles of art, architecture, and language in establishing a cultural pattern upon which to evaluate a society's oral tradition.Area: ML
Walter W. Kolar, ed. The Folk Arts of Yugoslavia: Papers Presented at a Symposium (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, March 1976). Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Tamburitzans Institute of Folk Arts.
Fifteen papers by native Yugoslav scholars on various folk arts given at a 1976 conference. Separately annotated in this volume are Milosevic-Djordjevic (oral prose), Kumer (folk ballads), Buturovic (oral epic), and Ristovski (oral lyric). These studies are especially valuable as rare English-language versions of Yugoslav scholars' work on oral tradition.Area: SC
Svetozar Koljevi. The Epic in the Making. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
A thoroughly revised edition and translation of his Nas junaki ep (1974). Constitutes a thorough historical, social, and cultural history of SC oral epic from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries, including the earliest records of epic singing in the region. The section on "Technique and Achievement" (pp. 322-43) suggests revisions of the Parry-Lord oral theory, most significantly the idea that original phrases and motifs were part of the singer's own expertise. A very important book, not only because of its endemic value as a careful history and contribution to oral theory, but also because it is one of the few (and so far the finest and most ambitious) examples of native scholarship on SC oral tradition to reach English translation.Area: SC
John Kolsti. "Albanian Oral Epic Poetry." In Studies Presented to Professor Roman Jakobson by His Students. Ed. Charles E. Gribble. Cambridge, MA: Slavic Publishers. pp. 165-67.
Reports the case of the Parry-Lord guslar Salih Ugljanin, who was able to compose oral epic songs in Serbo-Croatian and Albanian with equal facility. Posits an AB influence on Moslem SC oral poetry through such bilingual singers, basing his remarks on the Lord archive of AB oral epic in the Parry Collection. Compare the works of Skendi (espec. 1954 and 1980).Area: AB
Fritz Krafft. Vergleichende Untersuchungen zu Homer und Hesiod. Hypomnemata: Untersuchungen zur Antike und zu ihrem Nachleben, Heft 6. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.
Founds his comparative study of Homer and Hesiod on the assumption of a literate Homer fully in artistic control of his material and pronounces the limitations of the comparison with SC oral epic: "Allerdings kann mann die Gesänge der sudslavischen Analphabeten kaum mit Ilias und Odyssee vergleichen...; deren Komposition verlangt Schriftlichkeit. Analogien mit `oral poetry' lassen sich höchstens mit Vorstufen homerischer Epik ziehen, sie erklären allerdings die Formelhaftigkeit in der Ausführung" (p. 24).Area: AG, SC, CP
Per Krarup. "Beobachtungen zur Typik und Technik einiger homerischer Gesprächsformeln." Classica et Mediaevalia, 4:230-47.
Contends that formulas employed as speech introductions are not necessarily ornamental or simply metrically convenient and that the poet occasionally chooses a particular phrase for a special contextual effect.Area: AG
Per Krarup. Homer: Blade af den nyere Forsknings Historie. Copenhagen: Gyldendals Ugleboger. Rpt. 1964.
In his short history of Homeric scholarship from the Alexandrians forward (pp. 13-30), he discusses Parry-Lord oral theory and comparative extensions in Russian and SC. Later he considers the question of a pre-Homeric oral tradition and the archaeological evidence on writing in ancient Greece (espec. pp. 237-43).Area: AG, CP
Per Krarup. "Homer and the Art of Writing." Eranos, 54:28-33.
Contends that the weight of oral traditions would govern the poet's composition for a period after the invention of writing. Conceives of Mycenaean and Dark Age poetry as shorter lays made up of formulas and themes and handed down orally. Later on, even "the written texts themselves show traces of the old mobility of the text" (32).Area: AG
Friedrich S. Krauss. Slavische Volkforschungen: Abhandlungen über Glauben, Gewohnheit-rechte, Sitten, Bräuche und Guslarenlieder der Südslaven. Leipzig: Verlag von Wilhelm Heims.
An early ethnography of the Southslavic people that influenced Murko and Parry, especially the essays on "Guslarenlieder. Zur Einführung" (pp. 177-82) and "Von wunderbaren Guslarengedächtnis" (pp. 183-89), in the latter of which he explains the illiterate singer's ability to produce thousands of verses extemporaneously by describing an oral tradition: "Der Guslar erfindet nichts mehr von Belang, nachdem durch die Jahrhunderte alte Überlieferung die stehenden Formeln, von denen er weder abweichen kann noch will, in Fülle für seinen Gebrauch vorhanden sind" (p. 184).Area: SC
M. Kravar. "Formularna obrada tema u sastavima usmene epike." Ziva antika (Antiquité vivante), 27:77-94. With English summary, 93-94.
Offers a sketch of oral-formulaic theory (Parry, Lord, and a few others) and its origins in the work of Meillet (1923) and Arend (1933). Concludes from a comparative look at Homer and the published poems of Salih Ugljanin (SCHS I and II) that (1) although both SC and AG styles are highly formulaic, the SC style is more repetitious of the same formulas and (2) the two traditions diverge substantially in structure and deployment. Suggests that Homer was therefore not a true "singer of tales" but an oral poet who wrote his poems. Adduces as an analogy the figure of Andrija Kacic-Miosic, who as a literate craftsman inherited and imitated the oral tradition.Area: SC, AG, CP
Tilman Krischer. Formale Konventionen der homerischen Epik. Munich: C.H. Beck.
Argues that the author(s) of the Homeric epics employed other conventions besides formula and theme in composing their works. Sees the "classifying" or "catalog" principle as a fundamental trait of the extensive oral epic, a feature which manifests itself in two groups of conventions: (1) those which allow the poet to involve a large number of heroes in the many battles of the Iliad, and (2) those which enable the poet to solve the difficulties of synchronizing parallel presentations (parataxis).Area: AG
Valerie Krishna. "Formulas and Rhetorical Style." In the introduction to her ed., The Alliterative "Morte Arthure": A Critical Edition. New York: Burt Franklin. pp. 27-34, 37-38.
A brief look at the phraseological and narrative patterns in the AMA. Includes notation of both aesthetic and stylized uses of formulas, which tend to occur more frequently in the B-verse, and examples of narrative patterns such as the encomium, description of costume or armor, battle, and nature description.Area: ME
Valerie Krishna. "Parataxis, Formulaic Density, and Thrift in the Alliterative Morte Arthure." Speculum, 57:63-83.
Finds the ME poem closer to ascertainably and theoretically oral works than are the OE poems in terms of three of Parry's basic criteria: enjambement, density, and formulaic thrift. Leaves the oral/written question open but suggests the thoroughly traditional character of the Alliterative Morte Arthure.Area: ME, OE, AG, SC, CP
Kaarle L. Krohn. Kalevalastudien, 6 vols. FFC Nos. 53, 67, 71, 72, 75, 76. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia
Along with Comparetti 1891, an important study of the oral roots of the Finnish Kalevala that influenced Parry early in his transition from viewing Homer as a traditional craftsman to understanding his verse as orally composed.Area: FN
Hugo Kuhn. Dichtung und Welt im Mittelalter. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler.
Stresses the combination of traditional materials and individual craft in MHG verse, especially the Nibelungenlied. Contains sections treating phraseology ("Stil als Epochen-, Gattungs-, und Wortproblem in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters," pp. 62-69) and thematics ("Über nordische und deutsche Szenenregie in der Nibelungendichtung," pp. 196-219).Area: MHG
Hugo Kuhn. "Zur Typologie mündlicher Sprachdenkmäler." Sitzungbericht der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaft (Munich). Heft 5.
An attempt to construe the inner form and social function of various oral texts.Area: MHG, CP
Sherman Kuhn. "Response" to Foley 1976. In Oral Literature and the Formula. Ed. Benjamin A. Stolz and Richard S. Shannon. Ann Arbor: Center for the Coordination of Ancient and Modern Studies, University of Michigan. pp. 233-34.
Questions the philological basis of Foley's metrical analysis and the character of the OE theme presented as echoic roots.Area: OE
Konrad Kuiper and Douglas Haggo. "Livestock Auctions, Oral Poetry, and Ordinary Language," Language in Society, 13:205-34.
Considers the language used by livestock auctioneers in North Canterbury, New Zealand, finding oral-formulaic and other features to be the result of performance constraints in this medium. Presents evidence that formulas are not confined to oral literature, and the "the difference between traditional oral formulaic and ordinary spoken language is one of degree, not kind" (205).Area: TH
Koenraad Kuiper and Douglas Haggo. "On the Nature of Ice Hockey Commentaries." In Regionalism and National Identity. Ed. Reginald Berry and James Acheson. Christchurch, New Zealand: Association for Canadian Studies. pp. 167-75.
Demonstrates that the rules of discursive structure, a set of lexicalized oral formulae, and characteristic prosody identify the English of ice hockey commentaires as "an oral formulaic variety of English like other such varieties..." (167).Area: FK
Koenraad Kuiper and Frederick Tillis. "The Chant of the Tobacco Auctioneer." American Speech, 60, ii:141-49.
Citing prosodic and musical evidence, describes the chant of American tobacco auctioneers of the Deep South as a joing product of the seventeenth-century British auctioneering drone and balck slave music derived from West African tradition.Area: FK
Zmaga Kumer. "The Folk Ballads of Yugoslavia." In The Folk Arts of Yugoslavia: Papers Presented at a Symposium (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, March 1976). Ed. Walter W. Kolar. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Tamburitzans Institute of Folk Arts. pp. 117-34.
A historical, geographical, philological, and stylistic analysis of SC oral ballads by a native scholar, with an extensive bibliography of both primary and secondary sources.Area: SC
Daniel P. Kunene. Heroic Poetry of the Basotho. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Chapter 6 ("Parallelism and Structure: A Linear Approach," pp. 68-101) describes varying types of phraseological and syntactic patterns in the diction of Basotho poetry.Area: AF
Deirdre La Pin. "Narrative as Precedent in Yorùbá Oral Tradition." In Oral Traditional Literature: A Festschrift for Albert Bates Lord. Ed. John Miles Foley. Columbus: Slavica Publishers. Rpt. 1983. pp. 347-74.
Treats the pedagogical and homeostatic function of narrative in a sub-Saharan African oral tradition, illustrating how story structure serves as a pretext and reference for social action.Area: AF
Lars Lönnroth. "Hjálmar's Death-Song and the Delivery of Eddic Poetry." Speculum, 46:1-20.
Although he does not accept the standard Parry-Lord model as a faithful characterization of the Eddic poet, he considers the lays to be oral performances which, as is evident in their formulaic texture, owe their existence to an unwritten tradition. Believes memorization may have played a role in this shorter genre.Area: ON
Lars Lönnroth. "The Double Scene of Arrow-Odd's Drinking Contest." In Medieval Narrative: A Symposium (Proceedings of the Third International Symposium Organized by the Center for the Study of Vernacular Literature, Held at Odense University on 21-22 November, 1978). Ed. Hans Bekker-Nielsen et al. Odense: Odense University Press. pp. 94-119.
Assumes that a medieval oral literature meant a literature for oral delivery, whether it was actually orally composed or not, and argues that it should be studied as performance rather than as bookish texts. His illustration is the "double scene" ("something that occurs in the course of an oral performance whenever the narrative appears to be enacted by the performer or his audience on the very spot where the entertainment takes place," 95) of the drinking contest, which combines the motif of the disguised hero taking part in a game with the Norse mannjafnar, or "companion of men." Assesses the impact of such doubling on the audience.Area: ON, CP
Lars Lönnroth. "Ior fannz aeva né upphiminn. A Formula Analysis." In Speculum Norroenum: Norse Studies in Memory of Gabriel Turville-Petre. Ed. Ursula Dronke et al. Odense: Odense University Press. pp. 310-27.
Compares three versions of this formula from the Old Norse Codex Regius, Hauksbok, and Snorra Edda with the same phrase in OHG and OS, noting that in all cases it occurs in descriptions of the creation and destruction of the world.Area: ON, OHG, OSX, GM, CP
William Labov. Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Rpt. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1977.
While the first two parts of this book deal with linguistic structure and social setting, Part III ("The Uses of Black English Vernacular") studies the formal and interactional principles governing performance in two oral genres. Focusing on the verbal activity variously known as "sounding," "signifying," and "the dozens," Chapter 8 ("Rules for Ritual Insults") develops a taxonomy of insult frames and attributes, distinguishes between "ritual" and "applied" sounding, formulates rules of production, sequence, and interpretation, and relates the activity to its social context. Chapter 9 ("The Transformation of Experience in Narrative Syntax") articulates the underlying structure of extemporaneous oral narration among inner-city black youths and examines patterns of sentence syntax. Both chapters work with material collected through field research.Area: AA, US, FK
Vivian Labrie. "Cartography and Graphic Analysis of the Physical Universe in the Odyssey Story." Journal of Folklore Research, 20:219-42.
Addresses the question: "is a story perceived in its written form the same as a story perceived orally?" (219), and examines particularly the role of "written cultural tradition" in perception. She deals with the "alphabetical conditioning" of literate researchers and the world-view of the non-literate storyteller, reviews briefly the psychological origins of writing systems, and delineates a procedure of "dynamic cartography" through which one may "cartograph the `journey' so important to storytellers" (230), illustrating the manner in which an oral storyteller understands and denotes structural developments and spatial relationships and movement in his narrative.Area: AG
Roderic Lacey. "Traditions of Origin and Migration: Some Enga Evidence." In Oral Tradition in Melanesia. Ed. by Donald Denoon. Port Moresby, New Guinea: University of Papua, New Guinea and Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. pp. 45-56.
Describes genesis stories and migration lore of the oral tradition of the Enga people of MelanesiaArea: ML
Roderic Lacey. "Oral Sources and the Unwritten History of Papua New Guinea." Oral Tradition in Melanesia. Ed. by Donald Denoon. Port Moresby, New Guinea: University of Papua, New Guinea and Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. pp. 252-68.
Reviews scholarship to date relating to the history of the Papuans and calls for an interdisciplinary effort to employ historical studies in the service of the peoples involved.Area: ML
J. Laessoe, J. "Literacy and Oral Tradition in Ancient Mesopotamia." In Studia Orientalia Ioanni Pedersen...dicata. Copenhagen: Einar Munksgaard. pp. 205-18.
After a brief review of research on oral tradition in Old Testament, Avestan, ancient Greek, and Islamic studies, he reconstructs the history of writing and its relationship to various developments in Mesopotamian civilization. Argues that writing made possible the "perfection" of the epic Gilgamesh, advocating the model of a literate master editor who grouped together disparate oral tales under a single literary-thematic aegis. Feels that Hammurabi's Code was formulated in a similar way. In general he urges a greater emphasis on writing and the advance of literacy.Area: SU, BI, IR, AG, IS, CP
Robin T. Lakoff. "Some of My Favorite Writers are Literate: The Mingling of Oral and Literate Strategies in Written Communication." In Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy. Ed. Deborah Tannen. Advances in Discourse Processes, vol. 9. Norwood: Ablex. pp. 239-60.
A commentary on the oral and literate content of various media. Claims that because of advances in information- processing, "literacy shortly will not be essential for simple survival anymore, nor will there be any need to preserve it except as a curiosity or an atavistic skill, like quiltmaking, learned and proudly practiced by a few" (p. 259). Sees the most innovative contemporary writers as evolving a style conversant with the "new nonliteracy."Area: TH
Edward W. Lane. Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians. 2 vols. Paisley and London: Gardner. Rpt. London: Dent, 1954.
Contains material on the public oral recitation of romances (Chapters 21-23 in vol. 2).Area: EG
Mabel L. Lang. "Homer and Oral Techniques." Hesperia, 38:159-68.
Being "impatient with scholars who pay lip-service to the oral composition of [the] Iliad and Odyssey but continue to use literary criteria in their analysis of the epics" (159), she counters Page's (1955) demonstrations of inconsistencies in the Odyssey with explanations from oral theory. Stresses the role of the audience and the process of thematic composition.Area: AG
Mabel L. Lang. "Reverberations and Mythology in the Iliad." In Approachers to Homer. Ed. by Carl A. Rubino and Cynthia Shelmerdine. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 140-64.
Analyzing the episodes in the Iliad dealing with interrelations among divinities and divine-human relationships, she examines the Niobe story in Book 24 in terms of the correspondence between non-Trojan War exempla and the Iliad episodes which they explain. Suggests that there existed a "process of reverberation between inherited material influencing the Iliad and... the Iliad narrative influencing inherited narrative material" (140).Area: AG
Rafael Lapesa. "La lengua de la poesía épica en los catares de gesta y en el Romancero viejo." AnL, 4:5-24. Rpt. in De la Edad Media a nuestros días. Madrid: Gredos, 1967. pp. 9-28.
Although viewing the epic and the romancero as literary creations composed by a writing poet, he shows the traditional and artificial nature of the poetic language, from morphology and syntax through certain formulaic substitutions. Concludes that "usa una fraseología y unos procedimientos estilísticos que, asimilados por toda la comunidad de poetas y oyentes, contribuye a transformar la obra individual en creación colectiva" (24).Area: HI
Michael Lapidge. "Aldhelm's Latin Poetry and Old English Verse." Comparative Literature, 31:209-31.
Finds formulas in Aldhelm and declares the texts "literary-formulaic." Goes on to question the necessary connection between repetitive phraseology and orality in OE as well as in Latin. Sees the formulaic technique in general use by later Anglo-Latin and Carolingian poets and postulates that "this type of formulaic composition was taught in Anglo-Saxon schools" (230).Area: LT, OE, CP
Roger Lapointe. "Tradition and Language: The Import of Oral Expression." In Tradition and Theology in the Old Testament. Ed. Douglas A. Knight. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. pp. 125-42.
Perceives a discontinuity between oral and written stages of composition and therefore advises that "we should both attempt to restore as much of the oral stage as we can, but realistically also accept that this has to be achieved by way of the written stage" (p. 134). Contends that orality is not the whole but only a part of the tradition: "tradition is rather the complex network of situations that underlie the biblical text" (p. 139, italics deleted).Area: BI
BIB_ENTRY
BIB_ANNOTArea: AREA
Joachim Latacz. Kampfparänese, Kampfdarstellung und Kampfwirklichkeit in der Illias, bei Kallinos und Tyrtaios. Zetemata: Monographien zur Klassischen Altertumwissenschaft, Heft 66. Munich: C.H. Beck. Rpt. 1977.
A monograph intended as groundwork for a commentary on Kallinos and Tyrtaios. Includes a chapter on the epic singer's technique of presentation in the formulation of battle scenes.Area: AG
Joachim Latacz, ed. Homer: Tradition und Neuerung. Wege der Forschung, 463. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
A collection of studies leading to, exemplifying, reacting to, and proceeding from oral theory. Included and separately annotated are Drerup 1920, Düntzer 1864, Ellendt 1861, Hermann 1877, Latacz 1979b,c,d, Murko 1919, Schadewaldt 1975, Witte 1912; also Parry 1930, 1933b, 1936a, Lesky 1954, Lord 1953a, Kirk 1960b, M. Pope 1963, Hainsworth 1962, Nagler 1969, Russo 1968, A. Parry 1966, 1971b (sels.), Fenik 1974 (sels.), and Heubeck 1974 (sels.).Area: AG, SC, CP, BB
Joachim Latacz. "Spezialbibliographie zur Oral poetry-Theorie in der Homerforschung." In Homer: Tradition and Neuerung. Ed. Joachim Latacz. Wege der Forschung, Band 463. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. pp. 573-618.
A bibliography on Homer and oral theory divided into three parts: I. Bibliographies and Summaries of Research Since 1945 (pp. 573-74), II. Pertinent Literature before Milman Parry, a Selection (pp. 574-83), and III. Pertinent Literature From Milman Parry On (pp. 583-618).Area: AG, BB, CP
Joachim Latacz. "Tradition und Neuerung in der Homerforschung: Zur Geschichte der Oral poetry-Theorie." In Homer: Tradition and Neuerung. Ed. Joachim Latacz. Wege der Forschung, Band 463. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. pp. 25-44.
After a history of German scholarship on Homer from the late eighteenth century, he proposes that oral theory and German textual studies can form a systematic unity. Contends that present-day Homeric research will bear fruit only when these two directions merge. Compare the similar argument developed by Fenik (1978a, b).Area: AG
Joachim Latacz. "Einfuhrung." In Homer: Tradition and Neuerung. Ed. Joachim Latacz. Wege der Forschung, Band 463. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. pp. 1-23.
A useful short summary, organized in terms of major individual thinkers, of the research and scholarship that led up to and comprises contemporary oral-formulaic theory. Mentions the roots in the work of Hermann, Ellendt, Düntzer, Witte, and Murko, the writings of Parry and Lord, and the further studies by some later scholars, in preparation for selections from the most important work of each (see Latacz 1979a).Area: AG, SC, CP
Richard Lattimore. "Introduction" to his trans., The Iliad of Homer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, et seq. pp. 11-55.
Includes a brief exposition of Homeric oral tradition: structure (formula and theme), style, unity, pattern, and so forth.Area: AG
Richard Lattimore. "Introduction" to his trans., The Odyssey of Homer. New York: Harper, et seq. pp. 1-24.
Discusses in passing the issues of unity and formulaic phraseology in relation to translation (espec. pp. 18-22).Area: AG
Sione Latukefu. "Oral History and Pacific Islands Missionaries: the Case of the Methodist Mission in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands." In Oral Tradition in Melanesia. Ed. by Donald Denoon. Port Moresby, New Guinea: University of Papua, New Guinea and Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. pp. 175-87.
Cites oral evidence regarding the coming of Christian missionaries to the Solomon Islands and New Guinea and compares it with the written records maintained by the missionaries.Area: ML
Julio Camarena Laucirica. "La bella durmiente en la tradición oral ibérica e iberoamericana." Revista de Dialectologia y Tradiciónes Populares, 40:261-78.
Gives an account of the transmission, diffusion, and literary treatment of the "Sleeping Beauty" legen in Iberian and Ibero-American oral tradition, discussing the confluence of oral and written traditions and analyzing multiforms of the tale.Area: HI
Elaine J. Lawless. "Shouting for the Lord: The Power of Women's Speech in the Pentecostal Religious Service." Journal of American Folklore, 96:434-59.
Based on fieldwork in a rural all-white Pentecostal congregation in south Indiana, this study discusses styles of women's preaching and resulting conflicts with Biblical teaching regarding the woman preacher and status of women. In the section on "Testimonies," she draws on Rosenberg's (1970a, etc.) taxonomy of formulaic structures to explain phraseological and narrative structure in terms of what she calls "positions." Includes a table of formulas and formulaic systems as well as numerous example texts.Area: FP, US
Elaine J. Lawless. "Oral Character' and Literary' Art: A Call for a New Reciprocity Between Oral Literature and Folklore." Western Folklore, 44:77-98.
Discusses the application of the Parry-Lord theory to folklore studies and provides a summary of the major influences in the area. Utilizing the example of women's sermons as "oral art," she provides a methodology for applying the Parry-Lord theory to "non-metered, non-narrative oral forms of poetic creativity" (89) and calls for a "reassessment of both concept and terminology and a refusal to accept the dichotomy of oral character' and literary art'" (96).Area: FK, US, TH
R.F. Lawrence. "The Formulaic Theory and its Application to English Alliterative Poetry." In Essays on Style and Language. Ed. Roger Fowler. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. pp. 166-83.
Denies the necessary connection between formulaic density and orality, arguing that if Creed (1959) can recompose formulaic diction in his study, then a literate monk could do the same in Anglo-Saxon England.Area: ME, OE, CP
R.F. Lawrence. "Formula and Rhythm in The Wars of Alexander." English Studies, 51:97-112.
Noting that the poem in question is a close translation of the medieval Latin Historia Alexandri Magni de Preliis and therefore not orally composed, he analyzes formulaic and grammatical patterns in terms of their regular metrical shape. Sees the linguistic adaptations which suit phraseology to rhythmic pattern as evolved by the tradition to maintain itself.Area: ME
Pierre Le Gentil. "Le Traditionalisme de D. Ramón Menéndez Pidal (d'après un ouvrage récent)." Bulletin hispanique, 61:183-214.
More than a review essay on Menéndez Pidal's Poesía juglaresca y orígenes de las literaturas romanicas, this article examines the traditionalism-individualism debate which has been and continues to be the Homeric Question of medieval Hispanic studies.Area: HI
Pierre Le Gentil. "Réflexions sur la Chanson d'Otinel." In Atti del 2deg. Congresso Internazionale della "Société Rencesvals." Vol. 21 of Cultura Neolatina, pp. 66-70.
Recognizes the formulaic diction of Otinel but maintains that in phraseology, as well as in other aspects, the poem reveals an individual character: "une oeuvre donc qui ne suppose pas une élaboration progressive et de nombreux remaniements, mais a été écrite d'un seul jet par un écrivain consciencieux, bien informé et bon technicien, à un moment où le succès même du genre épique incitait à la facilité et au conformisme" (p. 69).Area: OF
Pierre Le Gentil. "Les Chansons de geste et le problème de la création littéraire au moyen âge: "`remaniement' et `mutation brusque'." In Mélanges offerts à Marcel Bataillon par les hispanistes franc^ais. Ed. Maxime Chevalier, Robert Ricard and Noël Salomon. Bordeaux: Feret et Fils. [= Bulletin Hispanique, 64 bis (1962)]. pp. 490-97.
Agrees with Delbouille (e.g., 1961) that oral composition as suggested by Rychner (1955) raises serious problems, and that learned clerical influence is inescapable. Views the formulaic style and oral presentation as compatible with written composition. Thus he sees no reason to choose between the two critical "myths" of traditionalism and individualism: advocates a middle ground, explaining the style and mode of presentation while allowing the poet individual reflection on his work.Area: OF
Pierre Le Gentil. "Les nouvelles tendances de la critique et l'interprétation des épopées médiévales." Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona, 31:133-41.
Notes similarities between the chansons de geste and the Homeric and SC epics as well as the recent work on formula and theme, but argues for consideration of the OF poems on their own terms and against facile application of sociological or other kinds of analysis without attention to aesthetic questions.Area: OF, CP
Pierre Le Gentil. "Les Chansons de geste: le problème des origines." Revue d'histoire littéaire de la France, 70:992-1006.
Contra the oral hypothesis for chansons de geste, explicitly attacking Parry, Lord, and Rychner (1955), the last of which he feels has been misused by later critics. Suggests that the notion of oral tradition means "prétendre que tous les chants épiques primitifs, francais ou autres, doivent à une perpétuelle improvisation orale, non seulement leur diffusion, mais même leur genèse" (999).Area: OF
D.J.N. Lee. The Similes of the Iliad and Odyssey Compared. Melbourne and Cambridge: Melbourne University Press and Cambridge University Press.
Finds the similes largely unformulaic and untraditional, in general unusual units within the oral traditional narrative. Also interprets them as in various stages of development and thus dismisses the possibility of Homer's having ready-made long similes at hand. Understands these comparisons as having entered the text as it was becoming fixed in writing.Area: AG
Winfred P. Lehmann. The Alliteration of Old Saxon Poetry. Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap, Suppl. Bind 3. Oslo: H. Aschehoug.
An alphabetical index of alliterations in the Old Saxon Heliand and Genesis, which he argues were the work of a literary innovator and which therefore "did not stand directly in the old Germanic alliterative tradition" (p. 30). Specific comparisons with Beowulf (pp. 34-37).Area: OSX, OE, CP
Winfred P. Lehmann. "The Composition of Eddic Verse." In Studies in Germanic Languages and Literatures in Memory of Fred. O. Nolte. Ed. Erich Hofacker and Liselotte Dieckmann. St. Louis: Washington University Press. pp. 7-14.
Dismisses the applicability of ballad methodology and the Parry-Lord compositional model to Eddic verse on the grounds of incongruency in poetic genre. Feels research must instead treat the internal evidence in Germanic poetry, both the verse itself and the descriptions it contains of the composition of poetry. Taking examples of general structure from the Locasenna and of repetitive phraseology from the Volundarqvia, he contends that the Eddic poets were sophisticated artists who drew on the available stock of formulaic expressions but manipulated them to aesthetic advantage.Area: ON, CP
Winfred P. Lehmann and Takemitsu Tabusa. The Alliterations of the Beowulf. Austin: Department of Germanic Languages, University of Texas.
In the "Introduction" (pp. 1-13), they discuss formulaic method in OE and AG and illustrate a putative Common Germanic formula (with reflexes in OHG, OSX, and ON as well as OE). They accept the idea of an artificial poetic dialect that fossilizes linguistic features (cp. Parry 1932).Area: OE, OHG, OSX, ON, GM, CP
Valdis Leinieks. "A Structural Pattern in the Iliad." Classical Journal, 69:102-7.
Sees the sequence of Sarpedon's, Patroklos', and Hector's deaths as a group of repeated elements in a larger design leading to a projection about Achilles' eventual fate. Understands the sequence as typical of oral traditional structure.Area: AG
Rita Lejeune. "Technique formulaire et chansons de geste." Le Moyen âge, 60:311-34.
After first discussing the OF formulas that include the words abrivé, adurée, alferant, and alsosé," she goes on to argue, after Parry and others, that the formulaic structure of the chanson de geste indicates that it was the product of oral improvisation. Speaks of the poet's "mémoire auditive" and the usefulness of formulaic diction to both poet and audience, as well as of the metrical values of the "cliches.'" Claims that "les chansons de geste aux formes immuables sont `monotones' comme sont `monotones' les sculptures romanes_et même gothiques_de nos cathédrales, avec leurs thèmes identiques: `Jugement dernier' ou `Annonciation' à leur portail..." (331).Area: OF
Juan M. Lekuona. "Literatura oral vasca." In Cultura vasca, vol. 2. Euskal Unibertsitatea, 4. Ed. Jose Luis Alvarez-Emparanza. San Sebastián: Erein. pp. 59-109.
A first approximation of the forms of Basque oral literature. Outlines six genres of oral poetry and seven of oral theater, suggests divisions for oral narratives and proverbs. Stresses the important influence of "bertsolarismo," a popular and relatively strict form of improvisational poetry with roots in the Middle Ages but with a written history dating from the early nineteenth century. Reviews six generations of Bertsolaris poets from 1800 to the post-1960 period.Area: BQ
Tony M. Lentz. "The Rhapsodes Revisited: Notes Regarding their Divine Inspiration, Success and Recognition." Literature in Performance: A Journal of the Literary and Performing Arts, 1, i:45-50.
A brief look at ancient sources on the activity of the rhapsode, including evidence on oral performance, the skeptron (staff), the skolion (song sung over the wine), rhapsodic competitions, and the question of divine inspiration.Area: AG
Albin Lesky. "Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit im homerischen Epos." In Festschrift Kralik, pp. 1-9. Rpt. in Lesky, Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Walther Kraus. Bern: A. Francke, 1966. pp. 63-71. Rpt. in Homer: Tradition and Neuerung. Ed. Joachim Latacz. Wege der Forschung, Band 463. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1979. pp. 297-307.
In an attempt to explain both the oral nature and literary design of the Homeric epics, he argues for literate craftsmanship as proven by the high poetic quality of the Iliad and Odyssey.Area: AG
Albin Lesky. Geschichte der griechischen Literatur. Bern: A. Francke, 1963. Trans. James Willis and Cornelis de Heer as A History of Greek Literature. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966.
In Chapter 3 ("The Homeric Epic," trans., pp. 14-90), he treats epic poetry before Homer, the Homeric Question, and transmission of the texts. Feels that formulaic phraseology does not prove orality, that writing was involved in the composition of the poems which have reached us, and that scholars should therefore be more attentive to nonformulaic features of the epic (see espec. "Language and Style," trans., pp. 58-65).Area: AG
Albin Lesky. Homeros (sonderausgaben der Paulyschen Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft). Stuttgart: Alfred Druckenmüller.
In the section "Oral poetry als Voraussetzung der homerischen Epen" (pp. 7-18), he surveys Parry's work and what has followed in its wake, concluding that the next question to be engaged is whether the Homeric epics are themselves truly oral or written in imitation of the oral tradition.Area: AG
G.A. Lester. "The Cædmon Story and its Analogues." Neophilologus, 58:225-37.
Reviews analogs of the story of the miraculous gift of poetic song in AG, ON, OSX, Indic, AR, and other traditions. Stops short of agreeing with Magoun (1955a) that Bede's account describes an oral singer, preferring the common opinion that it offers evidence of the first poet to compose religious poetry in the vernacular.Area: OE, CP
Harry Levin. "Portrait of a Homeric Scholar." Classical Journal, 32:259-66.
An appreciative remembrance of Milman Parry and his accomplishments, with special emphasis on the anthropological aspects of his research and writings.Area: AG, CP
David B. Levine. "Odysseus' Smiles." Transactions of the American Philological Association, 114:1-9.
Argues that instances of Odysseus' smiling, as an example of formulaic language, mark important structural points in Books 20-23, and further that such phraseology can contribute to individual characterization: "since the psychology behind Odysseus' smiles changes in accordance with the development of the narrative, we see how Homeric formulaic language can be charged with thematic meaning" (8-9).Area: AG
Richard A. Lewis. "Beowulf 992a: Ironic Use of the Formulaic." Philological Quarterly, 54:663-64.
Claims that the passage in question "shows how the poet took a demonstrably formulaic pattern and adapted it to a context for a specific rhetorical effect" (663).Area: OE
Anatoly Liberman. "The Concept of `Literary Theme'." Enclitic, 1:49-56.
Faults Parry, Lord, and their followers in OE studies for not clearly defining their terms (formula, theme, etc.). Posits an original oral tradition in both OE and Skaldic poetry, which gave way to a stage in which individual poets, the Beowulf-poet and the skalds among them, could use the inherited materials in aesthetic designs of their own.Area: OE, ON, CP
Anatoly Liberman. "The Oral-Formulaic Theory and the Style of Old Icelandic Poetry." In The Nordic Languages and Modern Linguistics/3: Proceedings of the Third International Conference of Nordic and General Linguistics (University of Texas at Austin, April 5-9, 1976). Ed. John Weinstock. Austin: University of Texas at Austin. pp. 442-53.
Finds the oral-formulaic theory unprovable in its hermeneutical positing of an actual oral Beowulf, e.g., but of tremendous importance in its demonstration of an oral traditional background from which the recorded Germanic texts evolved. Sees skaldic poetry as "anti-formulaic," the original and creative response of individuals to a poetic tradition then in the process of passing away. Using the work of Havelock (1963), he theorizes that the skalds, like Plato versus Homer, deliberately attempted a difficult style as far removed from tradition as possible.Area: ON, OE, CP
Deborah Lifchitz. "La Littérature orale chez les Dogons du Soudan francais." Africa, 13:235-49.
An ethnographic survey of oral genres among the Dogon, including the Tige, or "formules propitiatoires," that exhibit oral traditional features common to other literatures: "pour des raisons de rythme des mots sont abrégés, ou allongés, des emprunts aux dialectes voisins sont fréquents" (240). Translated examples of major genres are appended.Area: AF
Keith Lincoln. "Native American Literatures." In Smoothing the Ground: Essays on Native American Oral Literature. Ed. Brian Swann. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 3-38.
An excellent, readable introduction to the plethora of American Indian literatures in historical and cultural context. Considers the phenomenological differences between the oral and the written word and recognizes the status of any single text or performance: "`Text' is only a stop-time facet of the embracing mode and texture of a cultural performance" (18). Also includes mention of formulaic structure. [Rpt. in part from The Southwest Review, 60, ii (1975):101-16 and American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 1, iv(1976):14-21 and 4, i-ii (1980):1-17.]Area: AI
Carl Lindahl. "On the Borders of Oral and Written Art," Folklore Forum, 11:94-123.
Considers the efforts of folklorists and literary scholars to understand each other by discussing eight criteria of differentiation between oral and written art: (1) medium (voice versus print), (2) fixity versus fluidity, (3) complexity, (4) style and structure, (5) tradition versus creativity, (6) authorship, (7) compositional techniques, and (8) audience.Area: FK, TH