Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

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