Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

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