Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Alain Renoir. "Fragment: An Oral-Formulaic Nondefinition." New York Literary Forum, 8-9:39-50.

After invoking a variety of models (Gauguin's Ia Orana Maria, the Odoacer and Offa cycles, poems by Sappho, the endings of Dickens' Great Expectations, Beowulf, the OE Riddle 89, and The Canterbury Tales) to show that apparent fragments may be entire works from another point of view, he applies oral-formulaic theory to the Hildebrandslied, demonstrating its thematic integrity. As in Renoir 1980, he extends oral theory into an instrument for establishing a comparative context.
Area: OE, ME, OHG, AG, CP