Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

H.L. Rogers. "The Oral Composition of Epic: Some Current Ideas Examined." In Proceedings and Papers of the Tenth Congress of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association (AULLA) Held at the University of Auckland 2-9 February 1966. Ed. Peter Dane. Auckland: University of Auckland. pp. 193-201.

A critique of oral theory applied to OE verse (chiefly to Beowulf) and ON saga. Treats the assumptions of the term "epic," the possibility that literary elements of classical origin can exist alongside oral traditional elements in Beowulf, the suggestiveness but not necessarily the universal accuracy of the SC analogy, the need for caution in using comparative literary methods, the lack of an absolute division between oral and written poetry and culture, and the unsatisfactory nature of Parry's definition of the formula for OE verse.
Area: OE, ON, AG, SC, CP