Oral tradition
Dados do Periódico
| Tipo | JOURNAL |
|---|---|
| Editora | Center for Studies in Oral Tradition (US) |
| ISSN | 0883-5365 / 1542-4308 |
| OpenAlex | S102533535 |
| MAG | 102533535 |
| Site | http://journal.oraltradition.org/ |
| Total de publicações | 42 |
| Período coberto | 2003 - 2018 |
| País | US |
| Idioma | EN |
| Acesso | Open Access |
| Indexação | DOAJ |
| Citada por | 126 |
| Fator de impacto | 0.4 |
| Índice h | 5 |
| Índice i10 | 3 |
This journal is dedicated to oral tradition, folklore, and oral literature. Folklore is explicitly listed as a cognate area with regular anthropological intersection
Anthropological Studies and Insights · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Basque language and culture studies · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Chinese history and philosophy · Classical Antiquity Studies · Cultural Identity and Representation · Digital Humanities and Scholarship · Diverse Musicological Studies · Diverse Scientific and Economic Studies
Eall-feala Ealde Sæge: Poetic Performance and "The Scop's Repertoire" in Old English Verse
Eall-feala Ealde Sæge:Poetic Performance and "The Scop's Repertoire" in Old English Verse1 Paul Battles (bio) and Charles D. Wright (bio) Scenes depicting the recitation of verse, particularly in Beowulf, are among the most memorable and closely studied passages in Old English poetry. Beowulf repeatedly depicts the making and performance of poetry (Hill 2002), and it is the swutol sang scopes ("the clear song of the scop," Bwf 90a) that first dra…
Prayers for the Community: Parallelism and Performance in San Juan Quiahije Eastern Chatino
Processing note: review needed
The Tale of Meleager in the Iliad
The Tale of Meleager in the Iliad Jonathan Burgess (bio) I employ narratology and oral theory in a close reading of Phoenix's tale of the Kalydonian hero Meleager in Book 9 of the Iliad to clarify the function of this embedded narrative within the Homeric epic. Phoenix compares Achilles to Meleager, and the crux of the analogy—angry withdrawal from battle—has tempted some in the past to suppose that a pre-Homeric epic about an angry Meleager was …
Hear the Tale of the Famine Year: Famine Policy, Oral Traditions, and the Recalcitrant Voice of the Colonized in Nineteenth-Century India
Hear the Tale of the Famine Year":Famine Policy, Oral Traditions, and the Recalcitrant Voice of the Colonized in Nineteenth-Century India1 Gloria Goodwin Raheja (bio) We desire to place special emphasis on the immense importance of "moral strategy." There is no greater evil than the depression of the people. . . . A main trait in Oriental character is proneness to succumb to difficulties and to accept them as inevitable. But, if given heart at an…
Traditional Poetry in Contemporary Senegal: A Case Study of Wolof Kasak Songs
Traditional Poetry in Contemporary Senegal:A Case Study of Wolof Kasak Songs Cheikh Tidiane Lo (bio) Introduction This essay examines the contextual frame in which Wolof kasak songs are performed, the system of values they convey, and the artistic quality embedded within this poetic genre. It goes on to examine the change of the form as well as the factors that have contributed to the disappearance of the poetic genre in contemporary Wolof societ…
It may be verifyit that thy wit is thin”: Interpreting Older Scots Flyting through Hip Hop Aesthetics
It may be verifyit that thy wit is thin":Interpreting Older Scots Flyting through Hip Hop Aesthetics Caitlin Flynn (bio) and Christy Mitchell (bio) Poetic invective traditions have developed across many cultures throughout history.1 This study examines Older Scots flyting, a little known instance of medieval poetic invective. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines this tradition as "a kind of contest practised by the Scottish poets of the si…
The Philippine Epics and Ballads Multimedia Archive
The Philippine Epics and Ballads Multimedia Archive Nicole Revel (bio) Background and History Palawan is an island in the Philippines with remarkable heritages of both an archaeological and an intangible nature.1 Major prehistoric discoveries occurred on the island in the 1960s, and today intensive excavations are ongoing alongside progressive, interdisciplinary research employing new analytical tools.2 In May 1970 Charles Macdonald (an anthropol…
Curation of Oral Tradition from Legacy Recordings: An Australian Example
Curation of Oral Tradition from Legacy Recordings:An Australian Example Nick Thieberger (bio) Introduction Hundreds of hours of ethnographic field recordings and their associated oral tradition were destined to be lost until the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC, http://paradisec.org.au) was established in 2003 to digitize and curate this legacy made by Australian academic researchers since the 196…
Poetry’s Politics in Archaic Greek Epic and Lyric
Poetry’s Politics in Archaic Greek Epic and Lyric David F. Elmer (bio) In memoriam John Miles Foley1 The Iliad’s Politics of Consensus In a recent book (Elmer 2013) examining the representation of collective decision making in the Iliad, I have advanced two related claims: first, that the Iliad projects consensus as the ideal outcome of collective deliberation; and second, that the privileging of consensus can be meaningfully correlated with the …
In and Out of Culture: Okot p’Bitek’s Work and Social Repair in Post-Conflict Acoliland
In 2008, on my fifth visit to Northern Uganda, I was staying with Nyero's family in Padibe Internally Displaced Person's (IDP) camp, in what is now Lamwo district. At that time, the cease-fire of the previous year and a half had changed things considerably. People all over Acoliland1 (Northern Uganda) had begun to return to their villages after a decade of forced displacement into squalid camps, where inhumane conditions killed--according to one …
Challenges in Comparative Oral Epic
In this paper we propose to examine some fundamental issues in comparative oral epic. Our investigation will proceed across four epic traditions widely separated in space and time. Two of them, the Mongolian and South Slavic epic, are or were recently still living and therefore observable by fieldworkers. The other two, the ancient Greek and Old English epic traditions, are preserved only in manuscript form. Although no comparative treatment can …
"Managing the "Boss: Epistemic Violence, Resistance, and Negotiations in Milman Parry's and Nikola Vujnović's Pričanja with Salih Ugljanin
Managing the "Boss":Epistemic Violence, Resistance, and Negotiations in Milman Parry's and Nikola Vujnović's Pričanja with Salih Ugljanin Slavica Ranković (bio) Without a doubt, Albert B. Lord's seminal work The Singer of Tales owes much of its success to the series of pričanja ("conversations")1 conducted with the South Slavic singers in 1933-35 by his mentor, Milman Parry, and his native assistant, Nikola Vujnović. This was an endeavor that Lor…
Our Grandparents Used to Say That We Are Certainly Ancient People, We Come From the Chullpas: The Bolivian Chipayas' Mythistory
Our Grandparents Used to Say That We Are Certainly Ancient People, We Come From the Chullpas":The Bolivian Chipayas' Mythistory Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar Sáenz (bio) Introduction1 In this paper I will study the story2 that the Bolivian highland Chipayas tell about their origin and past. This oral tradition is closely related to the present. Not only does it explain and justify why they live where they do and how they do, but it also explains their…
Cicero the Homerist
Cicero the Homerist Carolyn Higbie (bio) In six letters1 written to Atticus over a span of fourteen years (59-45 BCE), Cicero quotes Iliad 6.442 in whole or in part: αἰδέομαι Τρω̑ας καὶ Τρῳάδας ἑλκεσιπέπλους (“I hesitate before Trojan men and Trojan women with their trailing dresses”).2 Cicero uses the line to express his hesitation to the reactions of others to a decision, political or literary, that he feels he must make. He clearly depends upo…
Singing Dead Tales to Life: Rhetorical Strategies in Shandong Fast Tales
Singing Dead Tales to Life:Rhetorical Strategies in Shandong Fast Tales Eric Shepherd (bio) Introduction Shandong kuaishu, literally "fast tales," is a northern Chinese narrative performance1 tradition with more than one hundred years of documented history. This tradition involves a single performer who integrates rhymed and rhythmic narration, character dialogue, various dramatic techniques, rhythmic musical accompaniment, humor, and exaggeratio…
Ritual Scenes in the Iliad: Rote, Hallowed, or Encrypted as Ancient Art
Ritual Scenes in the Iliad:Rote, Hallowed, or Encrypted as Ancient Art? Margo Kitts (bio) To analyze ritual scenes in the Iliad, one first must contend with the myriad scenes scholars have deemed ritualistic. These include not only prayer, supplication, sacrifice, and oath-making,1 but also gift exchanges and hospitality,2 speechmaking and taunting,3 grieving and funeral ceremonies,4 and dressings and armings.5 Indeed, the whole performance of th…
Variation within Limits: An Evolutionary Approach to the Structure and Dynamics of the Multiform
Variation within Limits: An Evolutionary Approach to the Structure and Dynamics of the Multiform Michael D. C. Drout (bio) One1 of Albert Lord’s more surprising discoveries about living oral traditions was that no two oral performances of the South Slavic epic that he collected were precisely the same (1953).2 Scholars before Milman Parry and Lord seem to have assumed that any long performance must have been of a text that had been memorized verb…
Toward an Ethnopoetically Grounded Edition of Homer's Odyssey
Toward an Ethnopoetically Grounded Edition of Homer's Odyssey1 Steve Reece (bio) My contribution to this Festschrift for Professor John Miles Foley has its origin in an experimental course on comparative oral traditions titled "The Singers of Tales" that I have taught three times in quite different formats, once at Vanderbilt University and twice at Saint Olaf College. I began envisioning this course at the 1992 NEH Summer Seminar on Comparative …
Beowulf's Singers of Tales as Hyperlinks
Beowulf's Singers of Tales as Hyperlinks Peter Ramey (bio) This short essay is written in appreciation of John Miles Foley, who has done more than any other contemporary scholar to probe the analogy between oral tradition and more recent Internet technology. He has explored this correlation both theoretically (most fully in The Pathways Project [2011-] and Oral Tradition and the Internet: Pathways of the Mind [2012]) and methodologically (in, for…
Rethinking the Orality-Literacy Paradigm in Musicology
Rethinking the Orality-Literacy Paradigm in Musicology Francesca R. Sborgi Lawson (bio) The literacy-orality problematic, which has been debated from Plato to Postman, has focused on how the visuality of the literary medium affects the aurality of the oral medium. Recent research by John Miles Foley has addressed the particular advantages in using the most modern technology of the Internet to simulate and explore the oldest technology of orality,…
"Secret Language" in Oral and Graphic Form: Religious-Magic Discourse in Aztec Speeches and Manuscripts
Secret Language" in Oral and Graphic Form:Religious-Magic Discourse in Aztec Speeches and Manuscripts Katarzyna Mikulska Dąbrowska (bio) Introduction On the eve of the conquest, oral communication dominated Mesoamerican society, with systems similar to those defined by Walter Ong (1992 [1982]), Paul Zumthor (1983), and Albert Lord (1960 [2000]), although a written form did exist. Its limitations were partly due to the fact that it was used only b…
Performative Loci of the Imperial Edicts in Nara Japan, 749-70
The naiki presented the text to the Minister, the Minister submitted it to the Emperor. This being over, the Minister selected a capable man to read it, who received it and went back to his proper place. The Prince Imperial rose in the Eastern side of his seat and faced the West. Then everybody present from the princes downward rose and did likewise. The senmyō no taifu (herald) went to his appointed place and read the senmyō. Its contents were..…
Storytellers of Children's Literature and their Ideological Construction of the Audience
Storytellers of Children's Literature and their Ideological Construction of the Audience David Poveda (bio), Marta Morgade (bio), and Bruno Alonso (bio) Introduction In recent decades there has been renewed social and academic interest in organized storytelling and storytellers in contemporary industrialized societies. Folklorists, storytellers, and other commentators speak of a "revival" of storytelling as manifested in the growing number of sto…
The Art of Dueling with Words: Toward a New Understanding of Verbal Duels across the World
The Art of Dueling with Words:Toward a New Understanding of Verbal Duels across the World Valentina Pagliai (bio) A common view of verbal duels posits that they are a cathartic expression of aggression. This is partially due to the fact that-although a body of cross-disciplinary studies on verbal duels demonstrates their complexity as forms of expression-works intended to summarize and disseminate them have tended to rely on a minor number of sou…
From Journalism to Gypsy Folk Song: The Road to Orality of an English Ballad
From Journalism to Gypsy Folk Song:The Road to Orality of an English Ballad Tom Pettitt (bio) Recent years have seen the discovery of something as wonderful and unexpected as an authentic English oral tradition, persisting into the last quarter of the twentieth century: authentically English in being performed in English and in England; authentically oral in being performed by largely illiterate singers, who have received this heritage from the p…
Neoanalysis, Orality, and Intertextuality: An Examination of Homeric Motif Transference
Neoanalysis, Orality, and Intertextuality: An Examination of Homeric Motif Transference Jonathan Burgess University of Toronto As with other schools of thought in Homeric research, neoanalysis has experienced experimentation and change. 1 Neoanalysts have slowly become aware of points of contact between their methodology and an oralist approach, and recently some oralists have enthusiastically accepted the compatibility of the two schools of thou…
Curation of Oral Tradition from Legacy Recordings: An Australian Example
Curation of Oral Tradition from Legacy Recordings:An Australian Example Nick Thieberger (bio) Introduction Hundreds of hours of ethnographic field recordings and their associated oral tradition were destined to be lost until the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC, http://paradisec.org.au) was established in 2003 to digitize and curate this legacy made by Australian academic researchers since the 196…
The Art of Dueling with Words: Toward a New Understanding of Verbal Duels across the World
The Art of Dueling with Words:Toward a New Understanding of Verbal Duels across the World Valentina Pagliai (bio) A common view of verbal duels posits that they are a cathartic expression of aggression. This is partially due to the fact that-although a body of cross-disciplinary studies on verbal duels demonstrates their complexity as forms of expression-works intended to summarize and disseminate them have tended to rely on a minor number of sou…
In and Out of Culture: Okot p’Bitek’s Work and Social Repair in Post-Conflict Acoliland
In 2008, on my fifth visit to Northern Uganda, I was staying with Nyero's family in Padibe Internally Displaced Person's (IDP) camp, in what is now Lamwo district. At that time, the cease-fire of the previous year and a half had changed things considerably. People all over Acoliland1 (Northern Uganda) had begun to return to their villages after a decade of forced displacement into squalid camps, where inhumane conditions killed--according to one …
"Secret Language" in Oral and Graphic Form: Religious-Magic Discourse in Aztec Speeches and Manuscripts
Secret Language" in Oral and Graphic Form:Religious-Magic Discourse in Aztec Speeches and Manuscripts Katarzyna Mikulska Dąbrowska (bio) Introduction On the eve of the conquest, oral communication dominated Mesoamerican society, with systems similar to those defined by Walter Ong (1992 [1982]), Paul Zumthor (1983), and Albert Lord (1960 [2000]), although a written form did exist. Its limitations were partly due to the fact that it was used only b…
Rethinking the Orality-Literacy Paradigm in Musicology
Rethinking the Orality-Literacy Paradigm in Musicology Francesca R. Sborgi Lawson (bio) The literacy-orality problematic, which has been debated from Plato to Postman, has focused on how the visuality of the literary medium affects the aurality of the oral medium. Recent research by John Miles Foley has addressed the particular advantages in using the most modern technology of the Internet to simulate and explore the oldest technology of orality,…
A Living Shamanistic Oral Tradition: Ifugao hudhud, the Philippines
A Living Shamanistic Oral Tradition: Ifugao hudhud, the Philippines Maria V. Stanyukovich (bio) The most ancient genres of oral literature date back to the time when one ritual specialist performed the functions of epic singer, shaman, and priest. Once studied in Siberia and Central Asia, these ancient forms are better preserved nowadays in insular Southeast Asia (Stanyukovich forthcoming). The Ifugao hudhud oral tradition, which I have been stud…
Ritual Scenes in the Iliad: Rote, Hallowed, or Encrypted as Ancient Art
Ritual Scenes in the Iliad:Rote, Hallowed, or Encrypted as Ancient Art? Margo Kitts (bio) To analyze ritual scenes in the Iliad, one first must contend with the myriad scenes scholars have deemed ritualistic. These include not only prayer, supplication, sacrifice, and oath-making,1 but also gift exchanges and hospitality,2 speechmaking and taunting,3 grieving and funeral ceremonies,4 and dressings and armings.5 Indeed, the whole performance of th…
Calliope, a Muse Apart: Some Remarks on the Tradition of Memory as a Vehicle of Oral Justice
Calliope, a Muse Apart:Some Remarks on the Tradition of Memory as a Vehicle of Oral Justice Penelope Skarsouli The relation of the Muses in ancient Greece, especially during the archaic and the beginning of the classical period with which this paper is concerned, to the notion of memory is apparent first by their very name: the word mousa can be related to the verb mimnêskô ("remind," "bring, put in mind").1 Around the seventh century B.C.E., in …
Plato, Memory, and Performance
Plato, Memory, and Performance Naoko Yamagata (bio) It is now widely recognized among classicists that in the culture of classical Greece, that is, in the fifth to fourth century B.C.E., the element of "performance" played a prominent role in various aspects of daily life. The term "performance culture" is often applied to classical Greece, especially to Athens, in reference to many areas where the citizens conducted their activities in public, s…
It may be verifyit that thy wit is thin”: Interpreting Older Scots Flyting through Hip Hop Aesthetics
It may be verifyit that thy wit is thin":Interpreting Older Scots Flyting through Hip Hop Aesthetics Caitlin Flynn (bio) and Christy Mitchell (bio) Poetic invective traditions have developed across many cultures throughout history.1 This study examines Older Scots flyting, a little known instance of medieval poetic invective. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines this tradition as "a kind of contest practised by the Scottish poets of the si…
Oral Theory and the Limits of Formulaic Diction
Oral Theory and the Limits of Formulaic Diction Margalit Finkelberg Introduction It has been pointed out more than once that the theory of formulaic composition in the form originally given it by Milman Parry is far from homogeneous.1 Not only chronologically but also in content Parry's studies of the Homeric formulae fall into two parts: the French publications of the 1920s and the American publications of the 1930s. In the former, Parry showed,…
Singing Dead Tales to Life: Rhetorical Strategies in Shandong Fast Tales
Singing Dead Tales to Life:Rhetorical Strategies in Shandong Fast Tales Eric Shepherd (bio) Introduction Shandong kuaishu, literally "fast tales," is a northern Chinese narrative performance1 tradition with more than one hundred years of documented history. This tradition involves a single performer who integrates rhymed and rhythmic narration, character dialogue, various dramatic techniques, rhythmic musical accompaniment, humor, and exaggeratio…
Performance and Text in the Italian Carolingian Tradition
Performance and Text in the Italian Carolingian Tradition Antonio Scuderi Truman State University [*eCompanion at www.oraltradition.org 1 ] One of the most fascinating aspects of the chivalric-epic tradition of Italy is the historical dialectic between its manifestations as oral performance and written text. Based primarily on Carolingian lore, the oral and written traditions influenced each other in a symbiotic dialogue across the centuries. Joh…
A Plea for an Interdisciplinary Approach to the Study of Arab Oral Tradition
In reviewing the history of scholarship in the field of oral literature, we find that the theory of oral-formulaic composition and performance is one of its most outstanding landmarks. The application of this theory in its traditional conception as proposed by Milman Parry and enunciated by Albert Lord is rather sterile and restricted, however, in that it applies only to the poetic genre looked at strictly from a formal literary perspective. It i…
The Tale of Meleager in the Iliad
The Tale of Meleager in the Iliad Jonathan Burgess (bio) I employ narratology and oral theory in a close reading of Phoenix's tale of the Kalydonian hero Meleager in Book 9 of the Iliad to clarify the function of this embedded narrative within the Homeric epic. Phoenix compares Achilles to Meleager, and the crux of the analogy—angry withdrawal from battle—has tempted some in the past to suppose that a pre-Homeric epic about an angry Meleager was …
Hear the Tale of the Famine Year: Famine Policy, Oral Traditions, and the Recalcitrant Voice of the Colonized in Nineteenth-Century India
Hear the Tale of the Famine Year":Famine Policy, Oral Traditions, and the Recalcitrant Voice of the Colonized in Nineteenth-Century India1 Gloria Goodwin Raheja (bio) We desire to place special emphasis on the immense importance of "moral strategy." There is no greater evil than the depression of the people. . . . A main trait in Oriental character is proneness to succumb to difficulties and to accept them as inevitable. But, if given heart at an…
Cicero the Homerist
Cicero the Homerist Carolyn Higbie (bio) In six letters1 written to Atticus over a span of fourteen years (59-45 BCE), Cicero quotes Iliad 6.442 in whole or in part: αἰδέομαι Τρω̑ας καὶ Τρῳάδας ἑλκεσιπέπλους (“I hesitate before Trojan men and Trojan women with their trailing dresses”).2 Cicero uses the line to express his hesitation to the reactions of others to a decision, political or literary, that he feels he must make. He clearly depends upo…
Variation within Limits: An Evolutionary Approach to the Structure and Dynamics of the Multiform
Variation within Limits: An Evolutionary Approach to the Structure and Dynamics of the Multiform Michael D. C. Drout (bio) One1 of Albert Lord’s more surprising discoveries about living oral traditions was that no two oral performances of the South Slavic epic that he collected were precisely the same (1953).2 Scholars before Milman Parry and Lord seem to have assumed that any long performance must have been of a text that had been memorized verb…
Toward an Ethnopoetically Grounded Edition of Homer's Odyssey
Toward an Ethnopoetically Grounded Edition of Homer's Odyssey1 Steve Reece (bio) My contribution to this Festschrift for Professor John Miles Foley has its origin in an experimental course on comparative oral traditions titled "The Singers of Tales" that I have taught three times in quite different formats, once at Vanderbilt University and twice at Saint Olaf College. I began envisioning this course at the 1992 NEH Summer Seminar on Comparative …
From Journalism to Gypsy Folk Song: The Road to Orality of an English Ballad
From Journalism to Gypsy Folk Song:The Road to Orality of an English Ballad Tom Pettitt (bio) Recent years have seen the discovery of something as wonderful and unexpected as an authentic English oral tradition, persisting into the last quarter of the twentieth century: authentically English in being performed in English and in England; authentically oral in being performed by largely illiterate singers, who have received this heritage from the p…
Carneades' Quip: Orality, Philosophy, Wit, and the Poetics of Impromptu Quotation
Carneades' Quip:Orality, Philosophy, Wit, and the Poetics of Impromptu Quotation M. D. Usher In spite of a long and influential philosophical career, when Carneades of Cyrene (214-129 BC), head of the Academy in its skeptical phase, died at age eighty-five, he left behind no written works. There were, we are told, some letters extant in Diogenes Laertius' time addressed to Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia, but Carneades' philosophical opinions were…
The Search for Wisdom in Native American Narratives and Classical Scholarship
The Search for Wisdom in Native American Narratives and Classical Scholarship William Schneider (bio) Oral tradition is characterized by three qualities: 1) It is shared orally among people who, to varying degrees, hold common understandings of their histories and cultures. (Some people share in multiple histories and cultures.) 2) The knowledge that comes from oral tradition is learned and subject to common and yet ever-evolving understandings o…
Neoanalysis and Oral Tradition in Homeric Studies
By oral tradition I understand the transmission from one generation to another of verbal messages of any kind carried out without recourse to writing, whether because this medium is unavailable or by deliberate choice. The messages can be transmitted verbatim or re-created anew at the time of delivery. Oral tradition embraces a wide range of cultural phenomena, among them epic poetry extemporized at the time of performance as addressed in the Par…
Oral Tradition: A Definition
Oral Tradition: A Definition Carlos Nogueira (bio) What is oral tradition? In the vast system of forms and modes of communication denominated by the syntagma "oral" tradition, which congregates knowledge, memories, values, and symbols generally configured in linguistic objects of non-literary or aesthetic-literary nature, objects with or without consignment in written testimonies, accomplished vocally and recognizable collectively and during cons…
From Journalism to Gypsy Folk Song: The Road to Orality of an English Ballad
From Journalism to Gypsy Folk Song:The Road to Orality of an English Ballad Tom Pettitt (bio) Recent years have seen the discovery of something as wonderful and unexpected as an authentic English oral tradition, persisting into the last quarter of the twentieth century: authentically English in being performed in English and in England; authentically oral in being performed by largely illiterate singers, who have received this heritage from the p…
Performative Loci of the Imperial Edicts in Nara Japan, 749-70
The naiki presented the text to the Minister, the Minister submitted it to the Emperor. This being over, the Minister selected a capable man to read it, who received it and went back to his proper place. The Prince Imperial rose in the Eastern side of his seat and faced the West. Then everybody present from the princes downward rose and did likewise. The senmyō no taifu (herald) went to his appointed place and read the senmyō. Its contents were..…
Storytellers of Children's Literature and their Ideological Construction of the Audience
Storytellers of Children's Literature and their Ideological Construction of the Audience David Poveda (bio), Marta Morgade (bio), and Bruno Alonso (bio) Introduction In recent decades there has been renewed social and academic interest in organized storytelling and storytellers in contemporary industrialized societies. Folklorists, storytellers, and other commentators speak of a "revival" of storytelling as manifested in the growing number of sto…
The Art of Dueling with Words: Toward a New Understanding of Verbal Duels across the World
The Art of Dueling with Words:Toward a New Understanding of Verbal Duels across the World Valentina Pagliai (bio) A common view of verbal duels posits that they are a cathartic expression of aggression. This is partially due to the fact that-although a body of cross-disciplinary studies on verbal duels demonstrates their complexity as forms of expression-works intended to summarize and disseminate them have tended to rely on a minor number of sou…
Rethinking the Orality-Literacy Paradigm in Musicology
Rethinking the Orality-Literacy Paradigm in Musicology Francesca R. Sborgi Lawson (bio) The literacy-orality problematic, which has been debated from Plato to Postman, has focused on how the visuality of the literary medium affects the aurality of the oral medium. Recent research by John Miles Foley has addressed the particular advantages in using the most modern technology of the Internet to simulate and explore the oldest technology of orality,…
"Secret Language" in Oral and Graphic Form: Religious-Magic Discourse in Aztec Speeches and Manuscripts
Secret Language" in Oral and Graphic Form:Religious-Magic Discourse in Aztec Speeches and Manuscripts Katarzyna Mikulska Dąbrowska (bio) Introduction On the eve of the conquest, oral communication dominated Mesoamerican society, with systems similar to those defined by Walter Ong (1992 [1982]), Paul Zumthor (1983), and Albert Lord (1960 [2000]), although a written form did exist. Its limitations were partly due to the fact that it was used only b…
Variation within Limits: An Evolutionary Approach to the Structure and Dynamics of the Multiform
Variation within Limits: An Evolutionary Approach to the Structure and Dynamics of the Multiform Michael D. C. Drout (bio) One1 of Albert Lord’s more surprising discoveries about living oral traditions was that no two oral performances of the South Slavic epic that he collected were precisely the same (1953).2 Scholars before Milman Parry and Lord seem to have assumed that any long performance must have been of a text that had been memorized verb…
Toward an Ethnopoetically Grounded Edition of Homer's Odyssey
Toward an Ethnopoetically Grounded Edition of Homer's Odyssey1 Steve Reece (bio) My contribution to this Festschrift for Professor John Miles Foley has its origin in an experimental course on comparative oral traditions titled "The Singers of Tales" that I have taught three times in quite different formats, once at Vanderbilt University and twice at Saint Olaf College. I began envisioning this course at the 1992 NEH Summer Seminar on Comparative …
Beowulf's Singers of Tales as Hyperlinks
Beowulf's Singers of Tales as Hyperlinks Peter Ramey (bio) This short essay is written in appreciation of John Miles Foley, who has done more than any other contemporary scholar to probe the analogy between oral tradition and more recent Internet technology. He has explored this correlation both theoretically (most fully in The Pathways Project [2011-] and Oral Tradition and the Internet: Pathways of the Mind [2012]) and methodologically (in, for…
Singing Dead Tales to Life: Rhetorical Strategies in Shandong Fast Tales
Singing Dead Tales to Life:Rhetorical Strategies in Shandong Fast Tales Eric Shepherd (bio) Introduction Shandong kuaishu, literally "fast tales," is a northern Chinese narrative performance1 tradition with more than one hundred years of documented history. This tradition involves a single performer who integrates rhymed and rhythmic narration, character dialogue, various dramatic techniques, rhythmic musical accompaniment, humor, and exaggeratio…
Ritual Scenes in the Iliad: Rote, Hallowed, or Encrypted as Ancient Art
Ritual Scenes in the Iliad:Rote, Hallowed, or Encrypted as Ancient Art? Margo Kitts (bio) To analyze ritual scenes in the Iliad, one first must contend with the myriad scenes scholars have deemed ritualistic. These include not only prayer, supplication, sacrifice, and oath-making,1 but also gift exchanges and hospitality,2 speechmaking and taunting,3 grieving and funeral ceremonies,4 and dressings and armings.5 Indeed, the whole performance of th…
Cicero the Homerist
Cicero the Homerist Carolyn Higbie (bio) In six letters1 written to Atticus over a span of fourteen years (59-45 BCE), Cicero quotes Iliad 6.442 in whole or in part: αἰδέομαι Τρω̑ας καὶ Τρῳάδας ἑλκεσιπέπλους (“I hesitate before Trojan men and Trojan women with their trailing dresses”).2 Cicero uses the line to express his hesitation to the reactions of others to a decision, political or literary, that he feels he must make. He clearly depends upo…
Our Grandparents Used to Say That We Are Certainly Ancient People, We Come From the Chullpas: The Bolivian Chipayas' Mythistory
Our Grandparents Used to Say That We Are Certainly Ancient People, We Come From the Chullpas":The Bolivian Chipayas' Mythistory Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar Sáenz (bio) Introduction1 In this paper I will study the story2 that the Bolivian highland Chipayas tell about their origin and past. This oral tradition is closely related to the present. Not only does it explain and justify why they live where they do and how they do, but it also explains their…
"Managing the "Boss: Epistemic Violence, Resistance, and Negotiations in Milman Parry's and Nikola Vujnović's Pričanja with Salih Ugljanin
Managing the "Boss":Epistemic Violence, Resistance, and Negotiations in Milman Parry's and Nikola Vujnović's Pričanja with Salih Ugljanin Slavica Ranković (bio) Without a doubt, Albert B. Lord's seminal work The Singer of Tales owes much of its success to the series of pričanja ("conversations")1 conducted with the South Slavic singers in 1933-35 by his mentor, Milman Parry, and his native assistant, Nikola Vujnović. This was an endeavor that Lor…
Challenges in Comparative Oral Epic
In this paper we propose to examine some fundamental issues in comparative oral epic. Our investigation will proceed across four epic traditions widely separated in space and time. Two of them, the Mongolian and South Slavic epic, are or were recently still living and therefore observable by fieldworkers. The other two, the ancient Greek and Old English epic traditions, are preserved only in manuscript form. Although no comparative treatment can …
Poetry’s Politics in Archaic Greek Epic and Lyric
Poetry’s Politics in Archaic Greek Epic and Lyric David F. Elmer (bio) In memoriam John Miles Foley1 The Iliad’s Politics of Consensus In a recent book (Elmer 2013) examining the representation of collective decision making in the Iliad, I have advanced two related claims: first, that the Iliad projects consensus as the ideal outcome of collective deliberation; and second, that the privileging of consensus can be meaningfully correlated with the …
In and Out of Culture: Okot p’Bitek’s Work and Social Repair in Post-Conflict Acoliland
In 2008, on my fifth visit to Northern Uganda, I was staying with Nyero's family in Padibe Internally Displaced Person's (IDP) camp, in what is now Lamwo district. At that time, the cease-fire of the previous year and a half had changed things considerably. People all over Acoliland1 (Northern Uganda) had begun to return to their villages after a decade of forced displacement into squalid camps, where inhumane conditions killed--according to one …
The Philippine Epics and Ballads Multimedia Archive
The Philippine Epics and Ballads Multimedia Archive Nicole Revel (bio) Background and History Palawan is an island in the Philippines with remarkable heritages of both an archaeological and an intangible nature.1 Major prehistoric discoveries occurred on the island in the 1960s, and today intensive excavations are ongoing alongside progressive, interdisciplinary research employing new analytical tools.2 In May 1970 Charles Macdonald (an anthropol…
Curation of Oral Tradition from Legacy Recordings: An Australian Example
Curation of Oral Tradition from Legacy Recordings:An Australian Example Nick Thieberger (bio) Introduction Hundreds of hours of ethnographic field recordings and their associated oral tradition were destined to be lost until the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC, http://paradisec.org.au) was established in 2003 to digitize and curate this legacy made by Australian academic researchers since the 196…
It may be verifyit that thy wit is thin”: Interpreting Older Scots Flyting through Hip Hop Aesthetics
It may be verifyit that thy wit is thin":Interpreting Older Scots Flyting through Hip Hop Aesthetics Caitlin Flynn (bio) and Christy Mitchell (bio) Poetic invective traditions have developed across many cultures throughout history.1 This study examines Older Scots flyting, a little known instance of medieval poetic invective. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines this tradition as "a kind of contest practised by the Scottish poets of the si…
Traditional Poetry in Contemporary Senegal: A Case Study of Wolof Kasak Songs
Traditional Poetry in Contemporary Senegal:A Case Study of Wolof Kasak Songs Cheikh Tidiane Lo (bio) Introduction This essay examines the contextual frame in which Wolof kasak songs are performed, the system of values they convey, and the artistic quality embedded within this poetic genre. It goes on to examine the change of the form as well as the factors that have contributed to the disappearance of the poetic genre in contemporary Wolof societ…
Prayers for the Community: Parallelism and Performance in San Juan Quiahije Eastern Chatino
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The Tale of Meleager in the Iliad
The Tale of Meleager in the Iliad Jonathan Burgess (bio) I employ narratology and oral theory in a close reading of Phoenix's tale of the Kalydonian hero Meleager in Book 9 of the Iliad to clarify the function of this embedded narrative within the Homeric epic. Phoenix compares Achilles to Meleager, and the crux of the analogy—angry withdrawal from battle—has tempted some in the past to suppose that a pre-Homeric epic about an angry Meleager was …
Hear the Tale of the Famine Year: Famine Policy, Oral Traditions, and the Recalcitrant Voice of the Colonized in Nineteenth-Century India
Hear the Tale of the Famine Year":Famine Policy, Oral Traditions, and the Recalcitrant Voice of the Colonized in Nineteenth-Century India1 Gloria Goodwin Raheja (bio) We desire to place special emphasis on the immense importance of "moral strategy." There is no greater evil than the depression of the people. . . . A main trait in Oriental character is proneness to succumb to difficulties and to accept them as inevitable. But, if given heart at an…
Eall-feala Ealde Sæge: Poetic Performance and "The Scop's Repertoire" in Old English Verse
Eall-feala Ealde Sæge:Poetic Performance and "The Scop's Repertoire" in Old English Verse1 Paul Battles (bio) and Charles D. Wright (bio) Scenes depicting the recitation of verse, particularly in Beowulf, are among the most memorable and closely studied passages in Old English poetry. Beowulf repeatedly depicts the making and performance of poetry (Hill 2002), and it is the swutol sang scopes ("the clear song of the scop," Bwf 90a) that first dra…