Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Flemming G. Andersen and Thomas Pettitt. "Mrs. Brown of Falkland: A Singer of Tales?" Journal of American Folklore, 92:1-24.

Reviews the history of the oral-formulaic theory in ballad studies and concludes that the ballads of the eighteenth-century compiler/composer Mrs. Brown represent memorial transmission and not oral improvisation and re-creation, although she may have changed or improvised "individual phrases, lines, or stanzas" (23).
Area: BR, FB