Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Samuel G. Armistead. "Greek Elements in Judeo-Spanish Traditional Poetry," Laographia, 32:134-64.

Includes illustration of the origin of the Judeo-Spanish ballad El pozo airon in a Greek counterpart, The Haunted Wall. Reveals that "the Greek poem has been translated formula-by-formula and topos-by-topos, by someone who obviously knew both languages and both poetic traditions very well indeed, but who undoubtedly never set pen to paper in fulfilling his poetic task" (142). Sees this pair of ballads as furnishing "a splendid example of how ballads migrate across linguistic boundaries in oral tradition and, at the same time, it allows us to see the process of oral formulaic composition--as analyzed by Parry and Lord--at work, at least in the initial creation of Hispanic ballads, if not in their subsequent performance" (142-43).
Area: HI, MG, FB, CP