Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Herschel Talashoma, narr. Hopitutuwutsi: Hopi Tales. Rec. and trans. Ekkehart Malotki, illus. Anne-Marie Malotki. Sun Tracks, 9. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press.

A collection of 42 brief oral tales in a facing-page bilingual format, followed by a glossary of names and terms (and a brief phonology) and a selected bibliography.
Area: AI

Deborah Tannen. "A Comparative Analysis of Oral Narrative Strategies: Athenian Greek and American English." In The Pear Stories: Cognitive, Cultural, and Linguistic Aspects of Narrative Production. Advances in Discourse Processes, vol. 3. Ed. Wallace L. Chafe. Norwood: Ablex. pp. 51-89.

A linguistic analysis of contrastive synchronic rhetorics in the conversation of these two geographically and culturally defined groups of speakers.
Area: MG, US, TH, CP

Deborah Tannen. "Implications of the Oral/Literate Continuum for Cross-Cultural Communication." In Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1980. Ed. J. Alatis. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. pp. 326-47.

After a brief review of oral theory and its applications, she applies the research of such scholars as Lord, Havelock, and Ong to a study of communication between (a) natives of different countries, (b) compatriots of different cultural, ethnic, or geographic backgrounds, and (c) men and women. Suggests that "the key distinction is not between orality vs. literacy as such, but between strategies that have been associated with oral and literate tradition which can be employed in any mode" (p. 326), that is, that the most important distinction must be made between communication that assumes a shared, inexplicit traditional knowledge versus detached and decontextualized communication that downplays the speaker/audience interaction.
Area: TH

Deborah Tannen, ed. Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy. Advances in Discourse Processes, vol. 9. Norwood: Ablex.

A group of thirteen essays on orality, literacy, and the phenomenology of the word in various cultures. Separately annotated are: Tannen, Hildyard and Olson, Chafe, Heath, Polanyi, Bright, Goody, Becker, and Lakoff.
Area: TH, CP

Deborah Tannen. "The Oral/Literate Continuum in Discourse." In Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Orality and LIteracy. Ed. Deborah Tannen. Advances in Discourse Processes, vol. 9. Norwood: Ablex. pp. 1-16.

A brief summary of previous research on oral and literate traditions relevant to the study of discourse, with reference to Greek, American, and Turkish narratives. Demonstrates how various channels of meaning are more strongly elaborated in the two modes.
Area: MG, US, TK, TH, CP

Deborah Tannen. "Oral and Literate Strategies in Spoken and Written Narratives." Language, 58:1-21.

A theoretical linguistic analysis of oral and context-based versus literate tendencies in spoken and written forms. Finds that "the features which have been identified as characterizing oral discourse are also found in written discourse" (1), and that the written narrative uses both oral and literate strategies. A touchstone for a field that runs parallel to oral-formulaic studies.
Area: TH, CP

Deborah Tannen and Piyale C. OOztek. "Health to Our Mouths: Formulaic Expressions in Turkish and Greek." In Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley: University of California. pp. 516-34. Rpt. in Conversational Routine: Explorations in Standardized Communication Situations and Prepatterned Speech. Rasmus Rask Studies in Pragmatic Linguistics, vol. 2. Ed. Florian Coulmas. The Hague: Mouton, 1981. pp. 37-54.

A morphology and situational analysis of recurrent verbal phrases in spoken Greek and Turkish, with appendices devoted to examples.
Area: TK, MG, CP

Oliver Taplin. "The Shield of Achilles within the Iliad." Greece & Rome, 2nd ser., 27:1-21.

In making his case that the shield is a poetic microcosm of the Iliad and Odyssey as a whole, he virulently attacks oral-formulaic theory and demands the assumption of a literary poet fully aware of the finest nuances of meaning in his traditional language. Constitutes a return to nineteenth-century German criticism and a refusal to consider fairly the work of Parry, Kirk, and others.
Area: AG

Eric Tappe. "A Rumanian Ballad and its English Adaptation." Folklore, 95:113-19.

Describes the adaptation of a ballad from the Transylvanian oral tradition, "The Clement Mason," by W.M.W. Call in his Manoli: A Moldo-Wallachian Legend published by The Cornhill Magazine in September 1862, in which the central motif is the interment of a woman in a castle wall. The conclusion offers two additional appearances of the legend in English fiction of the nineteenth century.
Area: RO, BR, FB, CP

Theodore A. Tarkow. "Achilles' Responses to the Embassy." Classical Bulletin, 58:29-34.

In contending that Achilles' responses are part of an intention to exact vengeance on Agamemnon by creating confusion, he advocates a view that would ally older kinds of literary criticism with the more modern understanding of Homeric oral-formulaic compositional technique.
Area: AG

John S.P. Tatlock. "Epic Formulas, Especially in Layamon." Publications of the Modern Language Association, 38:494-529.

Sees formulas as a contribution to the "originality" of a poem, phrases which embellish a work. Believes the OE poet cultivated individuality and a "conscious Ars Poetica" (516). Illustrates the formulaic structure of the ME Brut, claiming no direct connection with oral composition.
Area: ME, OE, OF, HI, AG, CP

John S.P. Tatlock. "Layamon's Poetic Style and its Relations." In The Manly Anniversary Studies in Language and Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rpt. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1968. pp. 3-11.

Understands the OE poet as consciously avoiding formulaic phraseology and thus showing his sophistication. Includes comments on Layamon's "formulas." A shorter version of Tatlock 1923a.
Area: ME, OE, CP

Paul B. Taylor. "The Structure of Völundarkvia." Neophilologus, 47:228-36.

Identifies formulaic and thematic structures used to aesthetic advantage in this Eddic poem. Shows that irony, foreshadowing, and subtle correspondences are accomplished through oral traditional techniques. Assumes the standard Parry-Lord-Magoun model.
Area: ON

Paul B. Taylor. "Themes of Death in Beowulf." In Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays. Ed. Robert P. Creed. Providence: Brown University Press. pp. 249-74.

Considers the meaning of thematic repetition in parallelism and identification of elements, unification of the poem, and traditional resonance recalling previous thematic contexts.
Area: OE

Paul B. Taylor. "Heroic Ritual in the Old English Maxims." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 70:387-407.

Treats the Maxims as an aphoristic repository of heroic attitudes and conventions preserved in a ritualized form. Mentions formulaic diction and Magoun's (1955b) "Beasts of Battle" theme.
Area: OE

Joseph R. Tebben. Homer-Konkordanz: A Computer Concordance to the Homeric Hymns. Alpha-Omega, Reihe A, 35. Hildesheim: Georg Olms.

An IBM-style, unlemmatized listing by key word (centered on the page), with preceding and following context on either side.
Area: AG, CC

Dennis Tedlock. "On the Translation of Style in Oral Narrative." Journal of American Folklore, 84:114-33.

Decries the lame translations of oral narrative, especially the limp, literal prose renderings characteristically fashioned by Boasian anthropologists, and calls for translation that preserves the qualities of the oral performance. Using as illustration passages from Zun~i tradition, and mentioning formulas, archaic interjections, onomatopoeic words, voice quality, loudness, pausing, intonation, and various sorts of repetition and parallelism, he describes the immediate analytic and aesthetic rewards incumbent on a translation that takes account of these factors.
Area: AI, CP

Dennis Tedlock, trans. Finding the Center: Narrative Poetry of the Zun~i Indians. Rpt. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978.

Explanation and multiple illustrations of Tedlock's technique for restoring the oral poetic performance to its original shape instead of resorting to the customary prose recension.
Area: AI

Dennis Tedlock. "Learning to Listen: Oral Poetry as History." In The Oral Impulse in Contemporary American Poetry. Ed. William V. Spanos and Robert Kroetsch. Special number of Boundary 2, 3, iii: 707-26.

An illustration of his method of visual scoring of oral material to recover its oral/aural reality. The text itself is in fact a discussion of how and why one makes such a libretto for performance.
Area: CN, TH

Dennis Tedlock. "Toward an Oral Poetics." New Literary History, 8:507-19.

Argues against the structural analysis of dead-language oral texts and for an oral poetics that takes into account social context and performance aspects gleaned via fieldwork. Mentions the experimental transcription of paratextual features in Alcheringa/Ethnopoetics (Rothenberg-Tedlock 1970 et seq.).
Area: CP, TH

Marie-Louise Tenèze. "The Devil's Heater: On the `Contexts' of a Tale." Journal of Folklore Research, 20:197-209.

Examines the "service in hell" motif in the French oral tradition, emphasizing "the complementary importance of looking at folktales stricto sensu within the broader perspective of traditional oral prose narratives" (197). Illustrates the differing meanings one motif may possess "depending on its needs and uses" (199).
Area: FK, FR

Kenneth A. Thigpen, Jr. "A Reconsideration of the Commonplace Phrase and Commonplace Theme in the Child Ballads." Southern Folklore Quarterly, 37:385-408.

After a brief review of scholarship on recurrent phrases and themes, he analyzes the repertoires of four women from the Scottish community of Kilbarchan to test the applicability of Parry-Lord theory to the oral ballad. Finds that the idea of the commonplace must be radically changed, since some loci communes are specific to one singer, or one song, or more rarely one region. Sees the ballads as oral-formulaic only in a limited sense, since a given singer's text tends to stabilize over time: "the technique of the early singers of the English and Scottish popular ballads was mainly memorization, infused sporadically with creative variation which resulted from both conscious improvisation and from the need to fill in blanks due to faulty memorization" (408).
Area: FB, BR

Gerald Thomas. Les Deux traditions: Le Conte populaire chez les Franco-Terreneuviens. Montreal: Les Editions Bellarmin.

Basing his analysis on fieldwork begun in 1970, the author surveys the oral folktale traditions of the Terre-Neuve province in Canada. Finds two traditions_"private and familial" versus "public"_and discusses performers from each. Also includes numerous examples of both types of folktales.
Area: CD

James W. Thompson. The Literacy of the Laity in the Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rpt. New York: Burt Franklin, 1960).

A history of the ability to read and write (mainly Latin) of nonreligious society in various European countries during the medieval period.
Area: LT, CP

Denys Thompson. Distant Voices: Poetry of the Preliterate. London and Totowa, NJ: Heinemann and Rowman & Littlefield.

Aware of the work of the Chadwicks (1932-40), Bowra (1962c), and Havelock (1963), he discusses in the introduction (pp. 1-13) the poetic language, style, and audience typical of oral literature. The remainder of the volume presents selections from a wide variety of oral traditions in English translation.
Area: CP

George H. Thomson. "The Making of the Iliad." College Literature, 3:155-67.

A general explication of the Iliad as an oral epic from the Parry-Lord perspective. Warns that "if we do not discipline our expectations in accordance with the exigencies of oral composition, we will obscure the true character of the poem by importing into it a rag-bag of modern assumptions" (155). References to stock epithets, similes, and other typical stylistic devices, with emphasis on the characters' absence of "inward-looking self-awareness and self-denial" (161).
Area: AG, SC, CP

Janet Thormann. "Variations on the Theme of `The Hero on the Beach' in The Phoenix." Neophilologus Mitteilungen, 71:187-90.

Argues that Crowne's (1960) schema occurs in The Phoenix as (1) the hero, or the phoenix (2) together with his retainers, or feathered companions (3) at the beach/boundary either beginning or ending a journey, or the flights before and after rejuvenation (4) in the presence of a flashing light, or the rising sun. Understands the pattern as joined to the poem's allegory to produce a unifying structure.
Area: OE

Agathe Thornton. People and Themes in Homer's Odyssey. London and Dunedin: Methuen and the University of Otago Press.

After an introduction that aligns her method with Parry-Lord theory, she proceeds in Part I to study themes of the Achaeans' homecoming, Odysseus' wandering, guest-friendship, testing, and omens. The examination of individual characters in Part II owes less to oral-formulaic method and more to literary criticism. Sees the structure of the Odyssey as six groups of four books apiece, each group constituting a "lap" of the Homeric bard's "path" (oíme). Reviews the narrative with Holscher's terms "concealment" and "disclosure" as the basic process on which the whole is patterned.
Area: AG

Nai-Tung Ting. A Type Index of Chinese Folktales in the Oral Tradition and Major Works of Non-Religious Classical Literature. FFC no. 223. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia.

A taxonomy of oral folktales from a wide variety of sources. Uses Aarne-Thompson categorization, finding 843 types and subtypes, 268 of which are putatively Chinese and 575 international.
Area: CH

Jeff T. Titon. Early Downhome Blues: A Musical and Cultural Analysis. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

In Chapter 5 ("Formulaic Structure and Meaning in Early Downhome Blues," pp. 178-93), he employs Parry-Lord theory to discuss recurrent phraseology in blues songs, maintaining that "instead of a mere substitution system, a blues singer possesses a generating system, a variety of formulaic and nonformulaic word groups which carry a variety of rhythmic combinations that may be accommodated to a given tune" (p.179). Numerous examples demonstrate this generativity.
Area: MU, BL, SC, CP

Jeff T. Titon. "Thematic Pattern in Downhome Blues Lyrics: The Evidence on Commercial Phonograph Records Since World War II." Journal of American Folklore, 90:316-30.

Defining thematic pattern as "the thought sequence that controls attitudes toward human experience and selects a narrative pattern (that is, an event sequence) to illustrate those attitudes" (316), he studies recurrent stories and motifs as a reflection of culture, an imitation of life.
Area: MU, BL

Jeff T. Titon. "Every Day I Have the Blues: Improvisation and Daily Life." Southern Folklore Quarterly, 42:85-98.

Discusses two types of improvisation in blues guitar accompaniment_variation and invention_by comparing them to everyday activities that are similarly patterned. Briefly compares "preforms," accompaniment units that are preformed, memorized, and stored, to Parry-Lord formulas.
Area: MU, BL

Jeff T. Titon. "A Song from the Holy Spirit." Ethnomusicology, 24:223-31.

Documents and analyzes a case in which a Baptist lay preacher received a song by ostensibly supernatural means. Views the composition process in the larger context of Western culture.
Area: MU, FP

J. Barre Toelken. "An Oral Canon for the Child Ballads: Construction and Application." Journal of the Folklore Institute, 4:75-101.

Establishes the canon of unambiguously oral Child ballads (135, or 44% of the entire corpus) on one or more of three criteria: (1) the existence of two or more reputable English-language variants collected outside England from oral tradition, (2) the existence of two or more demonstrably traditional tunes connected with a given ballad, and (3) the existence of reputable versions in England if they manifest variation and are collected from oral tradition. Proceeds to study motif-units (called "textual formulas") as traditional groupings of ideas in oral tradition and points to the need for more emphasis on the poetic qualities of the ballads.
Area: FB, BR, CP

Barre Toelken. "Context and Meaning in the Anglo-American Ballad." In The Ballad and the Scholars: Approaches to Ballad Study. Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA. pp. 17-25.

Sees "textual and contextual approaches not as opposed alternatives but as mutually enriching modes of critical analysis" (33) and suggests five "contexts" (the human, the social, the cultural-psychological, the physical, and the occasional) in which any given ballad might be evaluated.
Area: FB, US, BR, CP

H. Ward Tonsfeldt. "Ring Structure in Beowulf." Neophilologus, 61:443-52.

Moves from structural analysis of ring-composition to an aesthetically based explanation that assumes that the ring is a rhetorical rather than narrative unit.
Area: OE

V.N. Toporov. "Folk Poetry: General Problems." In Current Trends in Linguistics, 12: Linguistics and Adjacent Arts and Sciences, vol. 2, pt. 3: Linguistics and the Verbal Arts. Ed. Thomas A. Sebeok. The Hague: Mouton. pp. 683-739.

Offers summaries of research and suggestions for future work in a number of related fields within oral literature: (1) folktale, (2) synchronic and diachronic aspects, (3) the problem of poetic language, (4) different levels of structure, (5) morphological level, (6) syntactic level, and (7) subject or motif level. An extensive bibliography follows.
Area: CP, TH, BB

Birthe Traerup. "Albanian Singers in Kosovo." Trans. from the Danish by John Bergsagel. In Festschrift Ernst Emsheimer. Ed. Gustav Hillestrom. Musikhistoriska Museets Skrifter, 5. Studia Instrumentorum Musicae Popularis, 3. Stockholm: Musikhistoriska Museet. pp. 244-51, 300.

An extensive, articulate description of Albanian singers and oral performance in a section of Yugoslavia, with emphasis on the role (and control) of the audience, the instruments used to accompany vocal performance, singers' repertoires, and song structure. Concentrates on the nature of melodic formulas and the form of narrative and lyric songs. Includes some comparison to SC tradition.
Area: AB, MU, SC, CP

Willard R. Trask. The Unwritten Song: Poetry of the Primitive and Traditional Peoples of the World, 2 vols. Rpt. London: Jonathan Cape, 1969.

A brief introduction to some principles or characteristics of oral poetry (vol. 1, pp. vii-xxvii), followed by translated selections from the Far North (Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Europe), Africa, Indonesia, Melanesia, Australia, Micronesia, Polynesia, Asia, North America, Central America, and South America.
Area: CP

Moritz Trautmann. Über Verfasser und Entstehungszeit einiger alliterirender Gedichte des Altenglischen. Leipzig: Habilitationsschrift.

An example of the Higher Critical use of analysis of repetition to establish authorship. Compare Sarrazin 1898 etc.
Area: OE

Leo Treitler. "Homer and Gregory: The Transmission of Epic Poetry and Plainchant." The Musical Quarterly, 60:333-72.

Investigates the role of transmission of plainchant before the age of musical transcription, explaining how oral forms played a role in the invention, maintenance, and passing on of melodies. Understands the process as one of oral performance/composition in which "formulas" (standard musical passages) have become stereotypes under the aegis of "formulaic systems" (the constraints of a melody or phrase). Treats the system as the singer's internal sense of pattern and demonstrates Parry-Lord thrift as an aspect of the melodic multiforms.
Area: MU, CP

Leo Treitler. "`Centonate' Chant: Übles Flickwerk or E pluribus unus?" Journal of the American Musicological Society, 28:1-23.

Discusses the centonization theory of plainchant production and transmission, which understands each chant as the issue of a single and separate act of composition, dismissing it in favor of a generative model involving formulaic reconstruction (as opposed to reproduction after an original invention).
Area: MU

Leo Treitler. "Transmission and the Study of Music History." In Transmission and Form in Oral Traditions. Ed. Leo Treitler et al. In International Musicological Society: Report of the Thirteenth Congress (Berkeley 1977). Kassel: Barenreiter. pp. 202-11.

Proposes a new paradigm for the historical study of music as the study of its transmission. Taking medieval chant as evidence, he argues that "music was produced... through the repeated generation of melodies on the basis of a common set of underlying structures, and that this resulted in collections united by strong family resemblances" (209). Feels that an oral versus written model is simplistic, describing how generation and dissemination are really a single category and how the overall medieval paradigm must regard transmission both synchronically and diachronically.
Area: MU

Leo Treitler, et al., eds. Transmission and Form in Oral Traditions, in International Musicological Society: Report of the Thirteenth Congress (Berkeley 1977). Kassel: Bärenreiter.

A group of essays on the applicability of oral theory to medieval chant and modern jazz. Separately annotated are: Fry, Gushee, Hucke, Nettl, Nowacki, Olsen, Rubin, and Treitler; many of these essays contain further bibliography peripherally related to oral-formulaic theory.
Area: MU, OE, CP

Garry Trompf. "Oral Sources and the Study of Religious History in Papua New Guinea." 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. 151-74.

Addresses the issue of the effects of doctrines taught by literate missionaries on the perception of religious ideas from the period before Christianity in Papua and suggests methodologies for the accurate recovery of such ideas in current fieldwork.
Area: ML

A.M. Trounce. "The English Tail-Rhyme Romances." Medium AEvum, 1:87-108, 168-82.

A classification of stock phrases in tail-rhyme romances.
Area: ME

Marion Trousdale. "Shakespeare's Oral Text." Renaissance Drama, 12:95-115.

Interested in the oral nature of Shakespeare's plays. Uses as an analogy George Gascoigne, an Elizabethan poet who composed among other works a contribution to a masque. This piece leads him to "call Gascoigne an oral poet principally because the verbal conventions which seem to control the smaller and larger verbal patterns of his composition are conventions which logically and historically attach themselves to the artistic and cultural concerns of an oral age" (101). Goes on to say the same of Shakespeare, pointing out what he takes to be formulas, themes, sound-patterns, and ring-composition, collectively "a kind of evidence that Shakespeare in fact composed in the way in which oral poets appear to have composed" (105).
Area: BR

C.A. Trypanis. "Byzantine Oral Poetry." Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 56:1-3.

A very brief notice of late Byzantine oral poetry "which flourished mainly in the Greek lands occupied by the Francs" (1) and which may in part be of ultimate Frankish origin. Applies Parry-Lord theory, citing multiformity of language and textual variants typical of oral tradition, and notes the complexity of manuscript tradition resulting from oral transmission.
Area: BG

C.A. Trypanis. The Homeric Epics. Warminster: Aris & Phillips, Ltd.

A survey touching on the authorship question, theories of dating, oral epic narrative technique and artistry, and the structure of the poem in terms of "principal traditional epic themes" (12). A final chapter dealing with the influence of the Homeric epics briefly examines the contributions of the Alexandrian scholars to Homeric studies.
Area: AG

Agapitos G. Tsopanakis. Homerica Researches: From the Prosodic Irregularity to the Construction of the Verse. Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies.

Interprets the complexity of the ancient Greek hexameter, and even of Homeric formulaic phraseology, as the result of combinations of metrical word-types. Also considers grammatical and rhetorical forms as sources of complexitiy and irregularity.
Area: AG

Thorlac Turville-Petre. The Alliterative Revival. Totowa and Ipswich: Rowman & Littlefield and D.S. Brewer.

In "The Theory of Oral Tradition" (pp. 13-17) and later remarks on collocations, set phrases, and formulas (pp. 83-92), he denies the application of oral-formulaic theory to the ME poems of the Alliterative Revival, preferring to regard the style as a traditional but literary method of composition.
Area: ME

Madeleine Tyssens. "Le Style oral et les ateliers de copistes." In Mélanges de línguistique romane et de philologie médiévale offerts à M. Maurice Delbouille, vol 2. Ed. Jean Renson. Gembloux: Duculot, 2 vols. pp. 659-75.

Makes a case for the institutional participation of the written word in the development of the chansons de geste, despite their formulaic content and the claims of the oral-formulaic theory: "Derrière les formules de récitant, l'écrit est donc présent à toutes les étapes de l'évolution de la geste: objet de commerce, moyen de transmission et de sauvegarde des vieux textes, mais aussi instrument de leur diffusion vivante" (p. 675).
Area: OF

Madeleine Tyssens. "Le Jongleur et l'écrit." In Mélanges offerts à René Crozet à l'occasion de son soixante-dixième anniversaire, vol 1. Ed. Pierre Gallais and Yves-Jean Riou. Poitiers: Société d'Etudes Médiévales. pp. 685-95.

Examines textual descriptions of a reciter using a written text and considers the relationship of these citations to possible memorization. Mentions that formulaic phraseology is further evidence for oral composition and distinguishes this kind of composition from later rhapsodic recitation.
Area: OF

Madeleine Tyssens. La Geste de Guillaume d'Orange dans les manuscrits cycliques. Paris: Société d'Edition "Les Belles Lettres."

Argues that the surviving manuscripts were intended for libraries, and that the chansons were literary compositions (espec. pp. 452-58). Contends that the textual variants cited by Rychner (1955) as evidence of oral composition are simply the result of intervention by editors and copyists.
Area: OF

William J. Urbrock. "Formula and Theme in the Song-Cycle of Job." In Society of Biblical Literature, 1972 Proceedings (September 1-5), vol. 2. Missoula: Scholars Press. pp. 459-87.

Explains the discrepancies between the Masoretic and Old Greek texts of the Book of Job as the result of an oral tradition underlying the manuscripts, a "traditional song cycle" (p. 459). Illustrates formulaic and thematic content, giving numerous examples and discussing morphology at both levels. Notes traditional word-pairs as a formulaic device (as well as formulas and systems) and contends that "the Joban song-cycle... is built up entirely of themes common to the laments in the Psalter, in the so-called Confessions of Jeremiah and in the allied Book of Lamentations; of themes common to the traditional Wisdom of the biblical Book of Proverbs and of other Ancient Near Eastern Wisdom literature; and of other themes current in the hymnic, legislative, or folk-tale traditions of Israel and her neighbors" (pp. 471-72). Adds that oral transmission may well have continued after the initial encoding into written form.
Area: BI

William J. Urbrock. "Mortal and Miserable Man: A Form-Critical Investigation of Psalm 90." Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers, 110, i:1-34.

Mentions the difficulty of dating Psalm 90 within the Psalter because of the revelations of oral-formulaic theory about the poetic tradition from which the psalms derive. Compare Culley 1967.
Area: BI

William J. Urbrock. "Oral Antecedents to Job: A Survey of Formulas and Formulaic Systems." In Oral Tradition and Old Testament Studies. Ed. Robert C. Culley. Special issue of Semeia, 5, i:111-37.

Finds various kinds of formulas and formulaic patterns in the poetry of Job, phraseology that recurs (often with variation) both in Job and elsewhere in the Old Testament. Posits a traditional oral song-cycle behind the present text of Job. Compare Urbrock 1972.
Area: BI

Francis L. Utley. "Folklore, Myth, and Ritual." In Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature (Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1958-59). Ed. Dorothy Bethurum. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 83-109.

A caveat against too historical an approach to myth criticism and too facile an approach to oral folktale sources of medieval works. Emphasis on OE and ME authors' originality and creativity in handling inherited materials.
Area: OE, ME, FK, CP

Francis L. Utley. "Folk Literature: An Operational Definition." Journal of American Folklore, 74:193-206. Rpt. in The Study of Folklore. Ed. Alan Dundes. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1965. pp. 7-24.

In discussing proper, productive ways of collecting and classifying oral literature, he mentions the problem of separating true oral material from material influenced by written tradition and of editorially emending or "rewriting" true folk texts, taking as an example of the latter process the great nineteenth-century Serbian ethnographer Vuk Stefan Karadzic.
Area: FK, SC, CP

Francis L. Utley. "The Oral Formula, Its Critics, and Its Extensions." Studies in Medieval Culture, 4:9-18.

Briefly rehearses the history of the study of the oral formula, mainly in OE, from Parry, Lord, and Magoun forward. Calls for more medievalists to carry on fieldwork.
Area: OE, ME, FK, CP

P.D. Uxov. "Commonplaces (loci communes) as a Means of Documenting Byliny." Trans. Stephen Soudakoff et al. In The Study of Russian Folklore. Ed. Felix J. Oinas and Stephen Soudakoff. The Hague: Mouton. pp. 207-17.

Studies recurrent, formulaic phrases (which he calls loci communes) in the byliny finding (1) that they are not memorized but amenable to creative manipulation by different narrators, (2) that each poet develops a personal set of formulas differing from those of other poets, (3) that the commonplaces are used consistently, that is, functionally, and (4) that slight modifications of a narrator's phrases can occur under varying narrative conditions.
Area: RU

P.D. Uxov. "Fixed Epithets in the Byliny as a Means of Creating and Typifying Images." Trans. Stephen Soudakoff et al. In The Study of Russian Folklore. Ed. Felix J. Oinas and Stephen Soudakoff. The Hague: Mouton. pp. 219-31.

Begins with a short history of Russian scholarship on fixed epithets. Assembles a four-part morphology of these phrases and argues against the idea that they are inert, maintaining that functionality is paramount and that specific epithets may be employed by singers if the aim is not to typify but rather to individualize an image.
Area: RU

Alberto Vàrvaro. "Il Couronnement de Louis e la prospettiva epica." Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona, 31:333-44.

Argues for a definition of epic which takes into account not only oral forms but all aspects of the genre, and warns against overstressing oral traditional features.
Area: OF

André Vaillant. "Les Chants épiques des Slaves du Sud." Revue des cours et conférences, 1deg. ser., 33:309-26, 431-47, 635-47.

A historical survey of South Slavic epic, from its earliest attestations in the fourteenth century to the modern period. In addition to noting the various collections and song cycles, he includes remarks on the oral performance of the guslar and the structure of his verse.
Area: SC, CP

V. van Bulck. Gesproken Woordkunst in Afrika met toepassing op de Ba-Kongo. Brussels: Uitgave van de Commissie voor de Bescherming der Inheemsche Kunsten en Ambachten.

Following Jousse (1924), he distinguishes between oral and written taletelling styles as typical of cultures without and with writing, respectively. Using Jousse's terminology, he describes religious, juridical, and historical narratives. Notes changes in three areas: (1) the influence of language employed by communications media, (2) modifications induced by missionaries, and (3) the advent of writing and the demise of oral tradition. Includes remarks on typical narrative forms.
Area: AF

J. van der Ploeg. "Le Rôle de la tradition orale dans la transmission du texte de l'Ancien Testament." Revue Biblique, 54:5-21.

A history of scholarship on the question of orality and the Old Testament, pointing out that whereas earlier scholars were concerned with how and when the OT came into being, contemporary scholars study the possible modes of transmission.
Area: BI

Marchinus H.A.L.H. van der Valk. "The Formulaic Character of Homeric Poetry and the Relation between the Iliad and the Odyssey." L'Antiquité classique, 35:5-70.

Raises two main objections to the Parry-Lord oral theory: (1) what seems generic and traditional is really personal invention, and (2) formulas can indeed be employed with conscious intention. Spends the remainder of the essay making the Unitarian argument for single authorship and attempting to illustrate these two principles.
Area: AG

J. van der Veen. "Les Aspects musicaux des Chansons de Geste." Neophilologus, 41:82-100.

Describes the possible melodies for twelfth- and thirteenth-century compositions in terms of musical formulas.
Area: MU, OF

Hendrik van der Werf. The Chansons of the Troubadours and Trouvères: A Study of the Melodies and their Relation to the Poems. Utrecht: A. Oosthoek's Uitgeversmaatschappij.

In the section "Written and Oral Traditions" (pp. 26-34), he argues on the basis of manuscript evidence for a composite oral-written transmission, that "initially most or all chansons were transmitted in an exclusively oral tradition and that from about the middle of the 13th century on there was dissemination in writing parallel to the continuing oral tradition" (p. 28).
Area: OF, MU

W.G. van Emden. "`La Bataille est adurée endementres': Traditionalism and Individualism in Chanson-de-geste Studies." Nottingham Medieval Studies, 13:3-26.

After reviewing the individualist-traditionalist controversy, he judges in favor of the individualist position on the grounds that variations among manuscript versions of the chansons de geste reveal a greater textual stability than do the Yugoslav epics collected by Parry and Lord. Allows for an oral prehistory but postulates a "mutation" stage about 1100, during which epic material "was taken up by a literate poet for literary use" (14).
Area: OF

Arnold van Gennep. La Question d'Homère: Les poèmes homériques, l'archéologie et la poésie populaire. Paris: Mercure de France.

This restatement of the Question from literary and archaeological viewpoints was read by and influential on Parry. Includes a description of the oral performance of long epic in SC (as conducted by F. Krauss) and of the singers' "memory" (pp. 50-55).
Area: AG, SC, CP

B.A. van Groningen. "Eléments inorganiques dans la composition de l'Iliade et de l'Odyssée." Revuew des études homériques, 5:3-24.

During a discussion of the inorganic structure of the Homeric epics (the relationship of parts each to the other as well as to the whole), he mentions the stylized, formulaic diction and Parry's documentation of its nature.
Area: AG

Barend A. van Nooten. "The Sanskrit Epics." In Heroic Epic and Saga: An Introduction to the World's Great Folk Epics. Ed. Felix J. Oinas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 49-75.

Includes remarks on manuscripts, oral transmission, recensions, and versification (espec. pp. 63-72).
Area: SK

Willem A.A. van Otterlo. Untersuchungen über Begriff, Anwendung, und Entstehung der griechischen Ringkomposition. Mededeelingen der Nederlandsche Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkunde, n.s. 7, no. 3. Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij.

The earliest study of ring-structure as a tectonic, compositional device, with most examples drawn from non-Homeric texts.
Area: AG

Willem A.A. van Otterlo "Eine merkwürdige Kompositionsform der älteren griechischen Literatur." Mnemosyne, 3deg. ser., 12:192-207.

Along with van Otterlo 1944a, this study stands as a primary influence on later investigations of ring-structure (e.g., C. Whitman 1958, Gaisser 1969b, Niles 1979). Examples drawn primarily from Homer and Hesiod.
Area: AG

Willem A.A. van Otterlo. De ringcompositie als Opbouwprincipe in de epische Gedichten van Homerus. Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandsche Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkunde, n.s. 51, no. 1. Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij. With French résumé, pp. 87-92.

A two-part study of ring-composition that gathers together the insights of his two earlier investigations (1944a,b).
Area: AG

John Van Seters. "The Conquest of Sihon's Kingdom: A Literary Examination." Journal of Biblical Literature, 91:182-97.

In an analysis of the two primary accounts of Israel's conquest of Sihon and Og (Numbers 21: 21-35 and Deuteronomy 2:24-3: 11), he argues against "the current a priori, but unwarranted, assumption that there must always be primitive oral traditions behind every episode recorded in the pentateuchal narratives," and that "the possibility of a literary artificial' development of the tradition without any great antiquity must be seriously considered" (197).
Area: BI

John Van Seters. Abraham in History and Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Argues that Noth's (1948) idea of a "pentateuchal oral tradition" is flawed both historically (with respect to the history of Israel) and analogically (given Noth's comparisons with the development of Icelandic saga). Contends that traces of folkloric structure do not make it inevitable "that the tradition as a whole, or even [certain] parts of it, derive from a pre-literate period" (p. 161). Views the problem of variants as one of differences among scribally transmitted texts and not as the kind of mutation typical of oral tradition (see espec. pp. 143-64).
Area: BI

John Van Seters. "Oral Patterns or Literary Conventions in Biblical Narrative." In Oral Tradition and Old Testament Studies. Ed. Robert C. Culley. Special issue of Semeia, 5, i:139-54.

Responds to Gunn (1974a, 1974b), "who has challenged the thesis that a scribal convention is operative in the battle reports of the O[ld] T[estament] and has sought to show that prose patterns in Judges and Samuel may represent oral narrative formulae" (p. 139). Finding Gunn's choice of examples to be narrowly selective, Van Seters argues that these patterns are best explained in terms of common authorship or direct literary borrowing. See further Gunn 1976b.
Area: BI

Bernard Van't Hul and Dennis S. Mitchell. "`Artificial Poetry' and Sea Eagles: A Note on [[pi]]ane hasupadan/earn aeftan hwit,' lines 62b and 63a of The Battle of Brunanburh'." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 81:390-94.

Finds in this unusual description of the eagle evidence that, along with his debt to formulas and themes, the Brunanburh-poet was a creative as well as traditional artist, and that "he must accordingly be given credit for more than a simple, mechanical ability to use the traditional poetic systems with some skill, and for strengths in areas other than diction and phraseology" (394).
Area: OE

Eugene Vance. "Notes on the Development of Formulaic Language in Romanesque Poetry." In Mélanges offerts à René Crozet à l'occasion de son soixante-dixième anniversaire, vol. 1. Ed. Pierre Gallais and Yves-Jean Riou. Poitiers: Société d'Etudes Médiévales. pp. 427-34.

Sees the formulaic language of the Chanson de Roland and late twelfth-century courtly lyric as serving two entirely different intellectual attitudes. In the OF epic, formulaic diction polarizes the world of the poem and actions take place under a stylistic aegis, while the lyric describes a world where knowledge is more important than style.
Area: OF

Eugene Vance. "Formulaic Language and Heroic Warfare." In his Reading The Song of Roland. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. pp. 21-38.

Expands the definition of the formula to include any repeating unit between a single hemistich and a whole laisse, claiming that it "is not exclusively verbal" but "may also exist in the memory as a non-verbal Gestalt before it is clothed in words that satisfy the metrical demands of the Old French decasyllabic verse" (p. 22). Contends that the formulaic diction served to embody the ideals of a ruling, martial aristocracy and that the close alliance between word and deed reflects a traditional value system epitomized in the poetry.
Area: OF

Jan Vansina. Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology. Trans. H.M. Wright. Chicago and London: Aldine and Routledge & Kegan Paul. First publ. as De la Tradition orale: Essai de méthode historique. Annales du Musee Royal de l'Afrique centrale, Sciences humaines, no. 36. Tervuren: Musée Royal, 1961.

Although primarily a work on oral history and its proper interpretation sui generis, this study nonetheless includes apposite discussion of variant texts and of the role of memory in oral tradition.
Area: AF, TH

Jan Vansina. "Once Upon a time: Oral Traditions as History in Africa." Daedalus, 100:442-68.

Part One describes forms of oral historical account and the transmission of written and oral records; Part Two discusses problems in translating material from the oral tradition into written texts; and Part Three describes uses of the African oral tradition for historians.
Area: AF

Jan Vansina. La Légende du passé: Traditions orales du Burundi. Archives d'anthropologie, 16. Tervuren: Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale.

A study of oral history and literature among the Burundi (contes historiques, contes d'origine, contes merveilleux, traditions non-narratives) collected by the author in Rwanda from 1957 to 1959. Analysis illustrated by a multitude of examples translated into French. In describing historical tales and the insertion of fictional but standard storytelling motifs, he comments: "Il est donc possible, et le cas se vérifie, que des récits historiques entiers soient crées à partir de clichés ou d'autres éléments irréels" (p. 32).
Area: AF

Jan Vansina. "Memory and Oral Tradition." In The African Past Speaks: Essays on Oral Tradition and History. Ed. by Joseph C. Miller. Hamden, CN: Archon, pp. 262-79.

Analyzes the impact of memory on oral traditional literature and claims that the repeated passage of a message through several memories compounds its effects. Summarizes relevant findings in psychology on memory and discusses the implications of these findings for personal reminiscenceds and for the oral tradition which stems from such reminiscences.
Area: AF, TH

Lajos Vargyas. Hungarian Ballads and the European Ballad Tradition. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado.

A two-volume set, the first of which discusses the theoretical and historical background of European ballad studies in general and traces the development of the Hungarian ballad from tis peasant Walloon and Northern French origins in the Middle Ages to the present, with special attention to transitional genres and to the relationship and differences between the ballad and the epic. The second volume includes historical and comparative essays on 134 Hungarian ballad types with examples of each, some including music notations.
Area: BF, HY, CP

W.J. Verdenius. "L'Association des idées comme principe de composition dans Homère, Hésiode, Théognis." Revue des études grecques, 73:345-61.

Accepting Parry's demonstration of Homer's orality, he suggests that post-Homeric written works were also deeply influenced by principles of oral composition, among them the principle of association, which he proceeds to illustrate in various AG works.
Area: AG

W.J. Verdenius. "Aspecten van mondelinge Compositie in het homerische Epos." Forum der Letteren, 6:76-95.

A brief history of the oral theory, with illustrations drawn from the Iliad and a sizeable bibliography.
Area: AG

Ole Vesterholt. Tradition and Individuality: A Study in Slavonic Oral Epic Poetry. Trans. John Kendal. Kobenhavns Universitet Slaviske Institut, Studier 2. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger.

Primarily a study of the Russian bylina, although SC oral epos also receives comparative treatment. Using Parry-Lord theory as a starting point, he finds the Russian tradition often more stereotyped at the level of phraseology, a fact he attributes to the "lower prosodic requirements" of the guslar and a corresponding tendency toward either free-form or highly conservative diction. Discovers the SC repertoire of themes to be much larger, perhaps because of the greater length of songs and wider variety of subjects. Describes opportunities for improvisation within the tradition and notes that SC singers seem to favor individualized tale-telling more than their Russian counterparts. Emphasizes the necessity of determining the interplay between tradition and the individual.
Area: RU, SC, CP

John F. Vigorita. "The Antiquity of Serbo-Croatian Verse." Juznoslovenski filolog, 32:205-11.

Includes analysis of a sample from the oral epic songs of Salih Ugljanin (SCHS 1-2). Relates the SC decasyllable (or deseterac) to the AG paroemiac and Vedic decasyllable.
Area: SC, AG, SK, CP

Vaira Vikis-Freibergs and Imants Freibergs. "Formulaic Analysis of the Computer-Accessible Corpus of Latvian Sun-Songs." Computers and the Humanities, 12:329-39.

A computer analysis of almost 17,000 lines of Latvian oral lyric songs whose theme is the sun. Differentiates among syntagmatic formula, paradigmatic formula, and the formula as a syntactic mold. Includes a report on the density of the first type and a full description of methodology.
Area: LA

B.W. Vilakazi. "The Conception and Development of Poetry in Zulu." Bantu Studies, 12:105-34.

An early description of Zulu oral poetry in sociocultural context. Sections on performance, meter, and genre, the last including izibongo (panegyric), amahubo (war and ceremonial songs), imidunduzelo (lullabies), and imilozi (onomatopoeic forms).
Area: AF

August F.C. Vilmar. Deutsche Altertümer im Heliand als Ein-kleidung der evangelischen Geschichte. 2deg. ausgabe. Marburg: N.G. Elwert'sche Universitäts-Buchhandlung.

In the section on "Epische Form" (pp. 3-10), he makes a connection between epic formulas and oral tradition. The earliest such recorded hypothesis (cp. Sievers 1878).
Area: OSX

Paolo Vivante. The Homeric Imagination. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. Rpt. New York: Irvington.

In considering Homer as an individual poet who achieves aesthetic effects through acts of the imagination now called literary, he dismisses the importance of oral tradition: "there exists, after all, a basic human fact_poetic expression; it exists at a deeper level than any particular form_oral or written, popular or literary, archaic or classical" (p. vii).
Area: AG

Paolo Vivante. "On Homer's Winged Words." Classical Quarterly, n.s. 25:1-12.

Sees the much-discussed "winged words" formula in Homer as much more than an automatic element of speech introduction. Feels the phrase connotes words as self-existent and as not merely a medium for communication. Maintains that "winged words thus mostly come when the mind is free, quick, receptive, sympathetic; they are neither aggressive nor self-conscious but naturally effusive" (8).
Area: AG

Paolo Vivante. "Rose-fingered Dawn and the Idea of Time." Ramus, 8:125-36.

Argues that the "rosy-fingered dawn" formula is not merely a convenient element of diction but that it "reflects a mode of perception and thought" (125) and must be explained poetically. Views the phrase as engendering an extra-narrative meaning that provides a continuing context for any particular situation: "It is this persisting aspect of continuous time which gives life to the encompassing stylization by imparting rhythm into any happening, so that even the most tragic event takes the form of a natural phenomenon. The recurring phrases are like key-notes to this pattern" (136).
Area: AG

Paolo Vivante. The Epithets in Homer: A Study in Poetic Values. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Arguing that noun-epithet phrases "merge the fleeting action with elementary reality" (p. 45) and that the epithets "present points of imaginative focus" (p. 46), he sees their recurrence as the reflection of a world view and as resonant of a traditionally symbolic poetics. In Chapter 22 ("Aesthetic Reflections," pp. 176-91), he takes direct issue with Parry-Lord theory on grounds of historical method, originality, the notion of heroic, facility of versification, and oral versus written poetry, claiming that oral-formulaic scholarship depreciates the poetic quality of Homer. Includes some serious misrepresentations of Parry-Lord theory in general and of SC oral tradition in particular.
Area: AG, CP

Vaira Vikis-Freibergs. "Creativity and Tradition in Oral Folklore or the Balance of Innovation and Repetition in the Oral Poet's Art." In Cognitive Processes in the Perception of Art. Ed. W.R. Crozier and A.J. Chapman. Amsterdam, New York: North-Holland Publishers. pp. 325-43.

Addresses the question of individual creativity by working "backward from the creative product to make inferences about the psychological processes that must have been at work in producing it" (325). Utilizing examples from the Latvian folksong, she describes the functional and technical qualities of the folk poet and concludes that the traditional daina ("folksinger") "is much more intent on expressing folk wisdom and beliefs about various aspects of the human condition than on giving vent to any personalized, individually subjective feelings" (341).
Area: LA, CP, TH

Hanna Vollrath. "Das Mittelalter in der Typik oraler Gesellschaften." Historische Zeitschrift, 233:571-94.

Argues that the hypothesis of a common oral culture for the Germanic nations during migration in the Roman Empire needs qualification, and further that the impact of writing on orality was a gradual, complex, and variable process among the different groups.
Area: CP

Marianne Von Lieres und Wilkau. Sprachformeln in der mittelhochdeutschen Lyrik bis zu Walther von der Vogelweide. Munich: C.H. Beck.

An exhaustive analysis of chosen MHG lyrics in the manner of Meyer 1889, but with an expanded definition of the "formel" that includes characteristics such as universal intelligibility, necessity, frequency of occurrence, fixed nature of the phraseology, and sense integrity ("SinnEinheit").
Area: MHG

Klaus von See. Germanische Heldensage: Stoffe, Probleme, Methoden: Eine Einführung. Frankfurt am Main: Athenaum; Verlag.

Includes a brief mention of Parry-Lord oral theory, with emphasis on the collectivity of story generation.
Area: CP

Norbert Voorwinden and Max de Haan, eds. Oral Poetry: Das Problem der Mündlichkeit mittelalterlicher epischer Dichtung. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.

A collection of reprints and translations of articles on oral theory applied to medieval Germanic and Romance poetry. Relevant essays are: Magoun 1953a, 1955a, Schaar 1956, Bonjour 1957b, van der Veen 1957, Crowne 1960, Wrenn 1962, Renoir 1964, Kellogg 1965, Whallon 1965a, Schwarz 1965, Bäuml 1968, and Lutz 1974.
Area: OE, MHG, OF, GM, CP