Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Bruce A. Rosenberg. "The Morphology of the Middle English Metrical Romance." Journal of Popular Culture, 1:63-77.

After a Proppian motif analysis, he defines the ME romance as "an extended and elaborated tale of traditional origin concerned with the themes of Justice (crime and punishment), Love (fulfilled after one or more separations), and chivalric tests" (70). Invoking Baugh (1959), he argues that the recognition that these romances were recited orally should alter scholarly views on the role of the audience, textual fixity, and the medieval preference for copiousness over brevity.
Area: ME