Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Bruce A. Rosenberg. "The Oral Quality of Rev. Shegog's Sermon in William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury." Literatur in Wissenschaft u. Unterricht, 2:73-88.

Examines the sermon as an example of oral composition within a literary context. After a description of oral performance by folk-preachers whom he recorded in terms of stylistic features such as formulaic diction, parallelism, incremental repetition, theme, and story pattern, he analyzes the Faulknerian passage using similar criteria and finds it convincing in its (pseudo-)orality. Compares other literary sermons and the OE epic Beowulf.
Area: US, FP, AA, OE, CP