Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Patricia Arant. "The Persistence of Narrative Patterns: Variants of `Dobrynja and Vasilij Kazimirov' and Homer's Odyssey." In American Contributions to the Seventh International Congress of Slavists (Warsaw, August 21-27, 1973), vol. 2: Literature and Folklore. Ed. Victor Terras. The Hague: Mouton. pp. 9-21, with summary in Russian.

Sees both the Odyssey and the Russian heroic poem (sung by Rjabinin and collected by Hilferding) as narratives produced by the combination of two patterns, that of the novice hero and that of the "Return Song." Notes that at the point of convergence the thematic content is the same for novice and mature hero, and understands this mode of story composition as oral traditional.
Area: RU, AG, CP