Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Calvert Watkins. "Response" to Kiparsky 1976. In Oral Literature and the Formula. Ed. Benjamin A. Stolz and Richard S. Shannon. Ann Arbor: Center for the Coordination of Ancient and Modern Studies, University of Michigan. pp. 107-11.

Connects the preservation of oral material by rote memory in Indic, Italic, and Celtic with a priestly class in each tradition. Questions Kiparsky's distinction between fixed and flexible formulas, since diachronically the surface structure had to be generated at some point, and brings up the equivalence of sentence and verse line. He would collapse fixed and flexible formulas into a single category and see the deep structure underlying them as the theme: the formula is defined as "the verbal and grammatical device in oral literature for encoding and transmitting a given theme or interaction of themes, with the repetition or potential repetition assuring the long-term preservation of the surface structure, the wording" (p. 110).
Area: IE, CP, TH