Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

William A. Quinn and Audley S. Hall. Jongleur: A Modified Theory of Oral Improvisation and Its Effects on the Performance and Transmission of Middle English Romance. Washington, DC: University Press of America.

As an explanation of the conventional, repetitive quality of ME romances, they offer not the formulaic theory of Parry and Lord but "an alternative system based primarily on the jongleur's recurrent use of certain pre-determined rhyme words" (p. 6). Includes specific application to King Horn and Havelok the Dane, with extensive appendices (pp. 131-423) illustrating the generative system of end-rhymes which they consider the basis of oral improvisation and transmission.
Area: ME, CP

Randolph Quirk. "Poetic Language and Old English Meter." In Early English and Norse Studies Presented to Hugh Smith in Honor of His Sixtieth Birthday. Ed. Arthur Brown and Peter Foote. London: Methuen. pp. 150-71.

Concerned with charting the role of aesthetics in formulaic composition in OE. Feels the OE poet can assume an audience expectation, especially with respect to the formula and verse collocations, and that he can manipulate that expectation according to his artistic design. A reaction against what he views as the too mechanistic doctrine laid down by Magoun and followers.
Area: OE

Claude Régnier, ed. Les Rédactions en vers de la Prise d'Orange. Paris: Klincksieck.

Of the three extant versions of the Prise, he finds the D text closest to the oral style (and perhaps the result of an actual oral performance), while the C version is a courtly remaniement and the AB text the most "literary" of the group. See especially pp. 28-84.
Area: OF

Vasilii V. Radlov. Proben der Volkslitteratur der nördlichen türkischen Stämme. Comp. and tr. V. Radlov. Vol. 5: Der Dialect der Kara-Kirgisen. St. Petersburg: Commissionare der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften..

One of the early comparative influences on Parry, this translation of Kara-Kirghiz poetry collected by the author between 1862 and 1869 presents bona fide oral epics of as many as 5000 lines. Includes analysis of Kirghiz oral epic diction and description of oral performance and improvisation, with specific reference to the Homeric poems. Other volumes document the oral poetry of other Turkic peoples.
Area: TK, KR, AG, CP

Alfred Rambaud. La Russie épique: Etudes sur les chansons héroïques de la Russie. Paris: Maisonneuve.

Includes a brief introduction on byliny, which he analyzes by cycle (legendary, historical, etc.). Uses earlier collections, e.g. that by Rybnikov, in full knowledge of their oral character.
Area: RU

Lee C. Ramsey. "The Sea Voyages in Beowulf." Neophilologische Mitteilungen, 72:51-59.

Considers the two sea voyages in Beowulf, contending that, like other OE poems, their similarity consists largely of shared narrative structure rather than formulaic diction. He then interprets Scyld's and Beowulf's funerals against the background of the sea-voyage pattern.
Area: OE

Ronald M. Rassner. "The Transmission of the Oral Narrative from Africa to Brazil." Research in African Literatures, 13:327-58.

Presents evidence of a structural congruency to buttress his argument that African oral folktales are preserved in the oral and written folktale traditions of Brazil.
Area: AF, HI, CP

Barbara C. Raw. The Art and Background of Old English Poetry. London: Edward Arnold.

Views OE poetry as in general belonging to an oral tradition, with "some poems... composed while being recited while others were more probably composed in writing, but in all cases there was the same emphasis on the poem as something to be performed" (p. 6). Speaks of a tension between the poetic tradition and individual artistic design, with descriptions of the poet and his audience and world taken from the poems themselves. In Chapter 7 ("Rhythm and Style," pp. 97-122), she makes a case for rhythm as a central stylistic device, an aural rhetoric analogous to verbal designs.
Area: OE

Kenneth J. Reckford. "Helen in the Iliad." Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 5:5-20.

Explains the characterization of Helen as Homeric manipulation of thematic structures and relates her role to the major theme of the poem, Achilles' wrath.
Area: AG

James Redfield. "The Making of the Odyssey." In Essays in Western Civilization in Honor of Christian W. Mackauer. Ed. Leon Botstein and Ellen Karofsky. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 1-17. Rpt. in Parnassus Revisited. Ed. A.C. Yu. Chicago: American Library Association. pp. 141-54.

Assumes (1) separate, single authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey, (2) that the Iliad was a new form, much longer than anything before it, (3) that the monumental composer of the Iliad was trained in the oral tradition, (4) that the poet's task was turning oime, generic song, into aoide, the actual song, (5) that the Iliad-poet intended an aoide which unlike its precedents would last beyond performance, (6) that an epigonos of the Iliad-poet composed the Odyssey in the same way, (7) that the epigonos was less thoroughly trained in the oral tradition, and (8) that he also intended a lasting poem, virtually the one we now possess. His textual arguments, including discussion of Odysseus as bard, depend on these premises.
Area: AG

James Redfield. "The Proem of the Iliad: Homer's Art." Classical Philology, 74:95-110.

Contends that Homer stretches his poetic tradition in the Iliad proem, that he uses familiar diction in occasionally unfamiliar ways, taking full advantage of the resonance of formulaic language and employing personification, metaphor, and variation of tone to develop the key concepts.
Area: AG

M.D. Reeve. "Two Notes on Iliad 9." Classical Quarterly, n.s. 22:1-4.

Analysis of two parallel passages in Iliad 9 discloses that the earlier lines were composed after the later ones. Despite the traditional nature of epic diction, "it does not follow... that no occurrence of a traditional phrase is secondary, still less that no departure from a traditional phrase is secondary" (4).
Area: AG

M.D. Reeve. "The Language of Achilles." Classical Quarterly, n.s. 23:193-95.

Contests A. Parry's (1956) view that there were "certain things that the inherited vocabulary of oral poets did not allow them to say" (193), arguing that Parry's examples from Achilles' language are invalid.
Area: AG

Karl Reichl. "Oral Tradition and Performance of the Uzbek and Karakalpak Epic Singers." In Fragen der mongolischen Heldendichtung, vol. 3. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 613-43. With musical transcriptions.

Maintains that a common Indo-European tradition accounts for the similarities of the Uzbek oral epic with medieval European epic literature and demonstrates the Uzbek oral tradition to be a valid comparand for Old English and Old French.
Area: UZ, OE, OF, IE, CP

Karl Reichl, ed. Rawsan: Ein usbekisches mündliches Epos. Asiatische Forschungen, 76. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

A German translation of the Uzbek Epic of Rawsan.
Area: UZ

Felix Reichmann. The Sources of Western Literacy: The Middle Eastern Civilizations. Contributions in Librarianship and Information Science, 29. Westport, CN and London: Greenwood Press.

A historical examination of the rise and reign of literacy in Mesopotamia, Pharaonic Egypt, the Byzantine Empire, and Arab civilization. Extensive bibliography appended.
Area: SU, EG, BG, AR

Anita Reidinger. "The Old English Formula in Context." Speculum, 96:294-317.

Discusses the Old English formulaic system in terms of its traditional Germanic origins, sociocultural contexts, and thematic and poetic environments.
Area: OE

Mariann Reinhard. On the Semantic Relevance of the Alliterative Collocations in Beowulf. Schweizer Anglistische Arbeiten, 92. Bern: A. Francke.

In a brief introductory note (pp. 11-14), she contends that Magoun and his followers gave insufficient credit to poetic individuality, as distinct from originality.
Area: OE

Johannes M. Renger. "Mesopotamian Epic Literature." In Heroic Epic and Saga: An Introduction to the World's Great Folk Epics. Ed. Felix J. Oinas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 27-48.

No direct reference to oral theory but discussion of formulaic diction and other stylistic devices typical of oral traditional composition (espec. pp. 38-45).
Area: SU, BY, CP

Alain Renoir. "Judith and the Limits of Poetry." English Studies, 43:145-55.

In the course of illustrating how the narrative structure of Judith involves the reader/listener in a continuous experience of reaction, with special reference to the battle scene, he discusses the role of Magoun's "beasts of battle" (1955b) theme and the expectations it creates.
Area: OE

Alain Renoir. "Point of View and Design for Terror in Beowulf." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 63:154-67. Rpt. in The Beowulf Poet: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Donald K. Fry, Jr. Twentieth Century Views. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1968. pp. 154-66.

Traces the striking cinematographic effect of Grendel's approach to Heorot to the oral traditional nature of the poem.
Area: OE

Alain Renoir. "The Heroic Oath in Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland, and the Nibelungenlied." In Studies in Old English Literature in Honor of Arthur G. Brodeur. Ed. Stanley B. Greenfield. Eugene: University of Oregon. Rpt. New York: Russell and Russell, 1973. pp. 237-66.

Shows that in these three medieval tragedies the heroic oath as a solemn contract binding the hero who utters it constitutes a major determinative story element. But as one moves chronologically away from the primitive origins, increasing confusion and complexities surround the oath and its fulfillment.
Area: OE, OF, MHG, CP

Alain Renoir. "Oral-Formulaic Theme Survival: A Possible Instance in the Nibelungenlied." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 65:70-75.

Argues for the "hero on the beach/at the door" pattern (see Crowne 1960) as an oral-formulaic theme that survives in two medieval Germanic traditions, in the OE Beowulf and the MHG Nibelungenlied.
Area: MHG, OE, CP

Alain Renoir. "Originality, Influence, Imitation: Two Mediaeval Phases." In Proceedings of the IVth Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association, vol. 2. The Hague: Mouton. pp. 737-46.

Imitation, influence, and originality are concepts irrelevant to the earliest medieval texts, which were composed in the oral-formulaic tradition using materials "in the public domain." Comparison can, however, still illuminate these texts without claiming an author who intentionally appropriates literary models.
Area: AG, OE, MHG, LT, CP

Alain Renoir. "The Self-Deception of Temptation: Boethian Psychology in Genesis B." In Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays. Ed. Robert P. Creed. Providence: Brown University Press. pp. 47-68.

Finds that, when Satan goes beyond the biblical source to undertake revenge for its own sake, he is following a familiar pattern in oral tradition, one with which the audience would be acquainted.
Area: OE

Alain Renoir. "The Terror of the Dark Waters: A Note on Virgilian and Beowulfian Techniques." In The Learned and the Lewed: Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature. Ed. Larry D. Benson. Harvard English Studies, 5. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 147-60.

In the context of comparing Virgil's account of Avernus in the Aeneid and Hrothgar's description of Grendel's mother's pond in Beowulf (without arguing for influence), he considers the "design for terror" structure of the OE passage and the implications of oral-formulaic composition.
Area: OE, LT, CP

Alain Renoir. "A Reading Context for The Wife's Lament." In Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Essays in Appreciation for John C. McGalliard. Ed. Lewis E. Nicholson and Dolores W. Frese. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. pp. 224-41.

Postulates and illustrates a Germanic tradition of suffering women, within which he would place the Lament. Though positing no genetic relationship, he feels that this context "alerts us to certain circumstances, attitudes, and verbal formulas readily associated with the secular women of early Germanic poetry" (p. 240).
Area: OE, CP

Alain Renoir. "Oral Theme and Written Texts." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 77:337-46.

Reports the survival of an oral-formulaic theme in a number of traditions: the manmade wooden object which delivers a speech on its origin as a live tree occurs in Catullus' Poem IV, the OE Dream of the Rood and Husband's Message, the Iliad, and the Aeneid. Sees each poem as independently drawing on tradition and the observation of such correspondences as a way to bypass the problem of influence in dealing with formulaic materials.
Area: OE, LT, AG, CP

Alain Renoir. "Crist Ihesu's Beasts of Battle: A Note on Oral-Formulaic Theme Survival." Neophilologus, 60:455-59.

Discusses the oral-formulaic theme of the "beasts of battle" (see Magoun 1955b) in a fifteenth-century written poem by Lydgate, The Life of Saint Alban and Saint Amphibal. There exists no counterpart for the scene in the Latin source, but it is very close to the OE theme.
Area: ME, OE, CP

Alain Renoir. "The Armor of the Hildebrandslied: An Oral-Formulaic Point of View." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 78:389-95.

Argues from the oral-formulaic quality of the poem (hero's return, "hero on the beach" theme [after Crowne 1960], formulaic diction) against a suggested emendation. Sees the author of this text of the poem as a literate composer using traditional materials.
Area: OHG, CP

Alain Renoir. "A Reading of The Wife's Lament." English Studies, 58:4-19.

A close analysis of the text of the Lament to show how the repetition of certain words and classes of words builds up an incremental pattern which, understood against the background of the poetic tradition, draws the reader/listener into the work. Includes a version of the poem scored to emphasize its dynamic structure.
Area: OE

Alain Renoir. "Beowulf: a Contextual Introduction to Its Contents and Techniques." In Heroic Epic and Saga: An Introduction to the World's Great Folk Epics. Ed. Felix J. Oinas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 99-119.

A thorough description of oral traditional structures in Beowulf, with examples of formula, theme, and story-pattern. Numerous footnotes to oral-formulaic studies on OE verse. Altogether a well-balanced contextual essay on various approaches to Beowulf with stress on oral theory.
Area: OE, CP

Alain Renoir. "The English Connection Revisited: A Reading Context for the Hildebrandslied." Neophilologus, 63:84-87.

Pointing out the formulaic nature of the OHG poem's diction (as well as its similarity to OE phraseology) and the textbook occurrence of Crowne's (1960) "hero on the beach" theme (ubiquitous in OE verse), he suggests OE formulaic poetry as a reading context for the Hildebrandslied. Corroborates Moritz Trautmann's argument that the OHG poem had an OE predecessor.
Area: OHG, OE, GM, CP

Alain Renoir. "Germanic Quintessence: The Theme of Isolation in the Hildebrandslied." In Saints, Scholars, and Heroes: Studies in Medieval Culture in Honour of Charles W. Jones, vol. 2. Ed. Margot King and Wesley M. Stevens. Collegeville, MN: Hill Monastic Manuscript Library and St. John's Abbey and University. pp. 143-78.

Discusses the theme of separation in the OHG poem against a comparative context in other medieval Germanic works such as Beowulf, Nibelungenlied, Maldon, and so forth. Intensification of the separation makes it isolation, and part of the power of the poem stems from its oral-formulaic structure and context.
Area: OHG, OE, MHG, GM, CP

Alain Renoir. The Kassel Manuscript and the Conclusion of the Hildebrandslied." Manuscripta, 23:104-8.

Argues for the received text of the Hildebrandslied as a complete poem rather than a fragment. Sees it as a finished version of a single oral-formulaic theme (cp. Renoir 1977a), that of the "hero on the beach" (Crowne 1960), from the story cycle of Dietrich von Bern.
Area: OHG

Alain Renoir. "Oral-Formulaic Context: Implications for the Comparative Criticism of Mediaeval Texts." In Oral Traditional Literature: A Festschrift for Albert Bates Lord. Ed. John Miles Foley. Columbus: Slavica Publishers. Rpt. 1983. pp. 416-39.

Applies oral-formulaic theory to Beowulf, the Odyssey, and the Hildebrandslied to develop a comparative context which is not dependent on demonstrable historical context. Encourages the evolution of oral-formulaic methodology from textual analysis to aesthetic criticism. One of the true landmarks in the history of oral theory in OE and comparative literature.
Area: OE, AG, OHG, CP

Alain Renoir. "Fragment: An Oral-Formulaic Nondefinition." New York Literary Forum, 8-9:39-50.

After invoking a variety of models (Gauguin's Ia Orana Maria, the Odoacer and Offa cycles, poems by Sappho, the endings of Dickens' Great Expectations, Beowulf, the OE Riddle 89, and The Canterbury Tales) to show that apparent fragments may be entire works from another point of view, he applies oral-formulaic theory to the Hildebrandslied, demonstrating its thematic integrity. As in Renoir 1980, he extends oral theory into an instrument for establishing a comparative context.
Area: OE, ME, OHG, AG, CP

Alain Renoir. "The Least Elegiac of the Elegies: A Contextual Glance at The Husband's Message." Studia Neophilologica, 53:69-76.

While considering the meaning of "elegy" in OE poetry and reflecting on appropriate reactions to the "elegiac" nature of The Husband's Message, he mentions the connotative power of the oral-formulaic theme of "exile" (see Greenfield 1955).
Area: OE

Alain Renoir. "Introduction" to Approaches to Beowulfian Scansion. Old English Colloquium Series, No. 1. Ed. with intro. and sel. bibliography by Alain Renoir and Ann Hernandez. Berkeley: University of California/Berkeley Old English Colloquium. pp. 1-6.

Includes remarks on oral-formulaic theory and metrical structure.
Area: OE, CP

Alain Renoir. "The Old English Ruin: Contrastive Structure and Affective Impact." In the Old English Elegies: New Essays in Criticism and Research. Ed. Martin Green. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. pp. 148-73.

An analysis of The Ruin in terms of audience response as based on its knowledge of the Old English rhetorical tradition and archetypal paradigms embodied in the elegies and elsewhere. Suggests that the poem's power derives from the fact that its expression of the relationship between splendor and decay is "unexpected and therefore noticeable" (154). Adduces examples of such differentiation in the poem's diction, syntax, and rhetorical patterns.
Area: OE

Lorenzo Renzi. "`Varianti d'interprete' nei canti tradizionali narrativi romeni." In Actele celui de-al XII-lea Congres International de Lingvistica` s^i Filologie Romanica`, vol 2. Ed. Alexandra Rosetti. Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste Romania, 2 vols. pp. 471-80. "Discussion," p. 480.

Examines the formulaic style of a number of Romanian traditional narrative songs that are sung on different occasions.
Area: RM

Aldo Ricci. "The Chronology of Anglo-Saxon Poetry." Review of English Studies, 5:259-69.

Asserts that, substantial external evidence for the dates of most Anglo-Saxon poems being insufficient, "it has been found indispensible to turn to internal evidence, and see whether a study of the language, meter, style, etc., can lead to any useful conclusion, especially by comparison with the usage of such datable material_characters, glosses, certain inscriptions, the form of the names in Bede, etc._as we possess" (259) in order to establish an Anglo-Saxon poetic chronology. Offers three caveats in the application of the chronological tests of Morbach (1906) and Richter (1910): 1. "that the language of poetry is more archaic than that of prose" 2. that it is doubtful that "all the complicated rules elaborated by modern scholarship were strictly adhered to by all poets of all times" and 3. that with respect to short poems, meter is "not decisive" since "short poems furnish too few data to go upon" (259). Concludes that charms, gnomes, elegies, and epics are "pre-Christian types" and that "in varying degrees, we may actually reconstruct, or at least infer the forms of the originals. This will then give us a first group of poems, that we may conveniently call heroic. It comes first logically and ultimately chronologically, but it is independent of the difficultuies raised by the dating of the actual MS forms of the poems" (265-66).
Area: OE

W. Edson Richmond. "Some Effects of Scribal and Typographical Error on Oral Tradition." Southern Folklore Quarterly, 15:159-70. Rpt. in The Critics and the Ballad. Ed. MacEdward Leach and Tristram P. Coffin. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. pp. 225-35.

Contending that "the printed page is nearly as much the property of the folk' as is oral tradition and that it differs from the latter only in that to it is attributed more authority than is usually given today to the unsupported word" (159), he illustrates the role of scribal and typographical error in the transmission of oral material, citing the Child ballads and their American variants.
Area: FB, BR, US, CP

W. Edson Richmond. "`Den utrue egtemann': A Norwegian Ballad and Formulaic Composition." Norveg, 10:59-88.

While admitting oral-formulaic theory a role in the transmission of ballads, he also attributes morphology to memorization and its lapses. In addition he posits a "traditional manner of singing" so that "by reliance upon the stock words and phrases which are part of this tradition, it is possible for him to reconstruct any ballad which he has heard without necessarily echoing a single expression from the text which was communicated to him" (60). Goes on to illustrate by motif and diction analysis how, in one case, the hypothesis of an archetypal story structure best accounts for extant variants.
Area: NW

W. Edson Richmond. "Paris og Helen i Trejeborg: A Reduction to Essentials." In Medieval Literature and Folklore Studies: Essays in Honor of Francis Lee Utley. Ed. Jerome Mandel and Bruce A. Rosenberg. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. pp. 229-43.

Surveys the changes undergone by this ballad in oral tradition as it passed from its homeland in Greece to a number of Scandinavian versions.
Area: AG, SW, DN, NW, FB, CP

W. Edson Richmond. "Narrative Folk Poetry." In Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction. Ed. Richard M. Dorson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 85-98.

Distinguishes in general terms between folk poems, which may be imitated in written form, and a living oral tradition of poetry. Feels that, crossculturally, "narrative folk songs concentrate on a single episode, develop their stories dramatically, and are impersonal in their approach to their subject matter" (p. 86). After sketching various structural features and a short history of fieldwork and analytic scholarship, he notes the contribution of Parry and Lord.
Area: BR, SC, NW, CP

W. Edson Richmond. "Rhyme, Reason, and Re-creation." In Ballads and Ballad Research (Selected Papers of the International Conference on Nordic and Anglo-American Ballad Research, University of Washington, Seattle, May 2-6, 1977). Ed. Patricia Conroy. Seattle: University of Washington Press. pp. 58-67.

Tells of Moltke Moe's third major expedition to west Telemark, where he collected the texts of at least 54 ballad types from the Norwegian ballad "singer" Haege Bjonnemyr. With the help of Moltke Moe, Haege recited by memory the corpus of NW balladry sung at one time by her mother and mother's friends. Illustrates that the changes in her recreation were the result of "omissions, not of imaginative additions" (65).
Area: FB, NW

David Riesman. The Oral Tradition, the Written Word, and the Screen Image. Address delivered in connection with the dedication of the Olive Kettering Library, Antioch College Founders Day, October 5, 1955. Yellow Springs: Antioch Press.

A brief exploration (40 pp.) of the implications of various media for the messages they transmit, with emphasis on the collectivity of oral tradition and the distancing, individualizing force of print.
Area: TH, FM

Ha[[Omega]]kan Ringbom. Studies in the Narrative Technique of Beowulf and Lawman's Brut. Acta Academiae Aboensis, ser. A (Humaniora), vol. 36, nr. 2. Turku: Åbo Akademi.

Contains sections on formulaic structure in Beowulf (pp. 18-22), on "Lawman's Brut and Formulaic Analysis" (pp. 58-76), on "Themes in Lawman's Brut" (pp. 76-104; on feasts, arrivals, and voyages), and on Lawman's amplification of his source, the Roman de Brut. Decides that the Beowulf-poet is a learned Christian writer who knew the traditional idiom and that Lawman's recurrent phrases are not true formulas. Maintains the possibility of continuity between OE and ME alliterative traditions. Includes a reasonably large bibliography of oral-formulaic research.
Area: OE, ME, CP

Helmer Ringgren. "Oral and Written Transmission in the O.T.: Some Observations." Studia Theologica: Scandinavian Journal of Theology, 3:34-59.

Finds evidence in Old Testament variants of an original oral tradition that may have survived alongside a written tradition for a time. Argues that for this reason oral and written should not be thought of as mutually exclusive, and that the OT texts should be judged case by case.
Area: BI

Matti Rissanen. "The Theme of Exile' in The Wife's Lament." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 70:90-104.

In pointing out the convergence of this work with other exile poems in OE, and in noting both those elements lacking from and those added to the conventional pattern, he establishes the pliability of the "exile" theme (see Greenfield 1955) and of the oral-formulaic method in general. Feels that this flexibility would allow a poet to turn traditional structures to innovative usages: "The Old English singer or poet could freely use traditional and conventional material, both formulas and themes, in creating new lyrics" (104).
Area: OE

Blaze Ristovski. "Oral Lyric Poetry of the Peoples of Yugoslavia." In The Folk Arts of Yugoslavia: Papers Presented at a Symposium (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, March 1976). Ed. Walter W. Kolar. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Tamburitzans Institute of Folk Arts. pp. 167-82.

A brief sociohistorical study of the lyric songs, or zenske pjesme, in SC oral tradition by a native scholar. Creates a five-part taxonomy on the basis of content: (1) ritual, (2) mythological and religious, (3) social, (4) lullabies and children's songs, and (5) patristic and revolutionary.
Area: SC

Jean Ritzke-Rutherford. "Formulaic Microstructure: The Cluster." In The Alliterative Morte Arthure: A Reassessment of the Poem. Ed. Karl H. Goller. Arthurian Studies, 3. London and Totowa: D.S. Brewer and Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 70-82, 167-69.

Posits a six-level schema for traditional structure in OE and ME alliterative poetry, with specific reference to the Alliterative Morte Arthure, consisting of formula, formulaic system, motif, type-scene, theme, and cluster, the last of which she introduces and defines as "a group of words, usually loosely related metrically and semantically, which is regularly employed to express a given essential idea without being restricted to a certain form or sequence, or to a certain number of lines" (p. 73). Claims that this new unit makes possible the direct demonstration of the Morte Arthure's roots in OE and early ME verse, as well as the isolation of formulaic elements based on French vocabulary. Traces the aesthetic quality of late OE and ME poems in part to the manipulation of traditional associations inherent in such clusters. See further the companion piece, Ritzke- Rutherford 1981b.
Area: ME, OE, CP

Jean Ritzke-Rutherford. "Formulaic Macrostructure: The Theme of Battle." In The Alliterative Morte Arthure: A Reassessment of the Poem. Ed. Karl H. Goller. Arthurian Studies, 3. London and Totowa: D.S. Brewer and Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 83-95, 169-71.

Complements Ritzke-Rutherford 1981a. Examines the Alliterative Morte Arthure poet's aesthetic manipulation of the formulaic theme of battle, maintaining that the individual use of the conventional is the key to the poem's art: "Ancient conventions, such as the formulaic type-scene of battle, are reduced ad absurdum by techniques of burlesque or contextual estrangement, but at the same time are deployed in a careful and elaborate design that recalls the intricate structures characteristic of the best poems of the Ricardian era, such as Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl" (p. 95).
Area: ME

Kevin Robb. "Greek Oral Memory and the Origins of Philosophy." The Personaist: An Interantional Review of Philosophy, 51:5-45.

A study of the AG oral mentality that assumes (1) the existence of composition and thinking that took shape under the aegis of oral patterns, (2) the educational apparatus as an oral system, and (3) the origins of philosophy as we know it in the abstract intellectual reaction against the oral mentality. The opening section on historical background covers developments in archaeology and textual criticism (including Parry's work) since the late nineteenth century, with descriptions of and comments on formulaic and thematic structure. In "The Technique of the Oral Poet" (14-22), he sketches both a synchronic picture of the singer weaving his narrative and a diachronic view of the tradition developing over time. In the third part, on the psychology of performance, he discusses "the prevalence of rhythmic speech over prose; the prevalence of the event' over the abstraction'; and the prevalence of the paratactic arrangement of parts... over alternative schema possible in other styles" (23). In sympathy with Havelock (1963), he interprets Plato's reaction against the poets as one against the oral mentality and its educative process.
Area: AG, CP

Kevin Robb. "Oral Bards at Mycenae: A Speculation." Coranto, 9, ii:8-16.

Argues from the cumulative evidence of eight generally accepted propositions on the relationship between Homer and oral tradition that "given the fact that less than four centuries after the collapse of Mycenae the Greeks re-emerge into historical daylight in possession of a complex and fully developed oral epic tradition, it is highly probable, though not subject to conclusive proof, that this epic tradition is of Mycenaean origin" (12). Mentions Parry's textual studies, the nature of "history" in oral tradition, and the transition to writing and its implications.
Area: AG

Kevin Robb, ed. Language and Thought in Early Greek Philosophy. La Salle, IL: Monist Library of Philosophy/The Hegeler Institute.

A collection of essays on the development of early Greek philosophy and language. Separately annotated are Adkins, Barnes, Havelock, Hershbell, Kahn, Kir, Margolis, Robb 1983b, and Willard.
Area: AG

Kevin Robb. "Preliterate Ages and the Linguistic Art of Heraclitus." In his Language and Thought in Early Greek Philosophy. La Salle, IL: Monist Library of Philosophy/The Hegeler Institute: 153-206.

Establishes the preliterate and protoliterate condition of Heraclitus' audience and argues that Heraclitus composed his works both with a maximum economy of words and with mnemonic devices. Suggests a possible Semitic influence on Heraclitus with respect to the form of his sayings, inasmuch as he uses parallelism to create a poetic unit and thus make it memorable for an oral audience. Examines the first fifteen fragments of Heraclitus as printed by Diels from the point of view of the density of oral compositional devices employed therein, concluding that Heraclitus intentionally used devices of mnemonic utility and persuasive euphony.
Area: AG

C.A. Robson. "The Technique of Symmetrical Composition in Medieval Narrative Poetry." In Studies in Medieval French Presented to Alfred Ewert in Honour of his Seventieth Birthday. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 26-75.

Proceeding from Rychner's (1955) observations on mnemonic and structural features in OF epic texts, he proposes a numerical system underlying the texts of various ME, OF, and MHG poems. Assumes a careful written reworking of oral tales.
Area: OF, ME, MHG, CP

Kenneth M. Roemer. "Native American Oral Narratives: Context and Continuity." In Smoothing the Ground: Essays on Native American Oral Literature. Ed. Brian Swann. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 39-54.

Concentrates on establishing a context for American Indian oral narratives through discussion of genre distinctions (creation stories, emergence narratives, migration tales, trickster stories, hero tales, accounts of journeys to other worlds, etc.), tribal differentiations, language and style, and types of repetition. Emphasizes the variety and vitality of such narratives, as well as their ability "to adapt creatively to the present" (52).
Area: AI

H.L. Rogers. "The Crypto-Psychological Character of the Oral Formula." English Studies, 47:89-102.

Bases his objections to the application of Parry-Lord oral theory to OE poetry on Parry's original definition of the formula, which he feels does not suit OE verse structure.
Area: OE

H.L. Rogers. "The Oral Composition of Epic: Some Current Ideas Examined." In Proceedings and Papers of the Tenth Congress of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association (AULLA) Held at the University of Auckland 2-9 February 1966. Ed. Peter Dane. Auckland: University of Auckland. pp. 193-201.

A critique of oral theory applied to OE verse (chiefly to Beowulf) and ON saga. Treats the assumptions of the term "epic," the possibility that literary elements of classical origin can exist alongside oral traditional elements in Beowulf, the suggestiveness but not necessarily the universal accuracy of the SC analogy, the need for caution in using comparative literary methods, the lack of an absolute division between oral and written poetry and culture, and the unsatisfactory nature of Parry's definition of the formula for OE verse.
Area: OE, ON, AG, SC, CP

G.P. Rose. "Odyssey 16.143-82: A Narrative Inconsistency?" Transactions of the American Philological Association, 102-509-14.

Disagress with Gunn's (1970) and Hoekstra's (1965:117, n.3) assertions that there is a narrative inconsistency in the scene of Telemachos' departure from Menelaos' palace in the Odyssey (15.144ff.). Sees the apparent "nod" not as evidence of oral composition but as a feature of Homeric characterization: "the interrupted departure puts the final, convincing touch on an amusing tension that has developed between Telemachos' impetuous eagerness to return home and Menelaos' persistent failure to incorporate this in his mind" (510).
Area: AG

Bruce A. Rosenberg. "The Morphology of the Middle English Metrical Romance." Journal of Popular Culture, 1:63-77.

After a Proppian motif analysis, he defines the ME romance as "an extended and elaborated tale of traditional origin concerned with the themes of Justice (crime and punishment), Love (fulfilled after one or more separations), and chivalric tests" (70). Invoking Baugh (1959), he argues that the recognition that these romances were recited orally should alter scholarly views on the role of the audience, textual fixity, and the medieval preference for copiousness over brevity.
Area: ME

Bruce A. Rosenberg. "The Oral Quality of Rev. Shegog's Sermon in William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury." Literatur in Wissenschaft u. Unterricht, 2:73-88.

Examines the sermon as an example of oral composition within a literary context. After a description of oral performance by folk-preachers whom he recorded in terms of stylistic features such as formulaic diction, parallelism, incremental repetition, theme, and story pattern, he analyzes the Faulknerian passage using similar criteria and finds it convincing in its (pseudo-)orality. Compares other literary sermons and the OE epic Beowulf.
Area: US, FP, AA, OE, CP

Bruce A. Rosenberg. The Art of the American Folk Preacher. New York: Oxford University Press.

A thorough description and analysis of the oral traditional style of the chanted folk sermon, emphasizing the preacher's dependence on formulaic phrases and on the participation of the congregation or audience. Notes the necessity of tradition-dependence (the redefinition of formulaic units for each tradition), defining formulaic systems as "groups of words, which, when recited, are metrically and semantically consistent, related in form by the repetition and identical relative placement of at least half the words in the group" (p. 53). In addition to the initial study, he includes a large sample of sermons (with some formulaic analysis) and a listing of the formulas of one preacher.
Area: US, FP, AA, CP

Bruce A. Rosenberg. "The Formulaic Quality of Spontaneous Sermons." Journal of American Folklore, 83:3-20.

Offers the oral tradition of American folk-preaching as a laboratory for studying oral-formulaic composition and as a still extant analog for medieval literature such as Beowulf. Discusses formula, theme, role of the audience (congregation), the results of a Parry-Lord formulaic analysis, and different sorts of repeated phrases. Stresses that a preacher's verbalization must be seen to be a process or creation rather than a rote memorization, in other words the result of phrase generation from a grammar of formulaic systems rather than verbatim recall. Also considers parallelism, clusters, and anaphora. Argues further that formulas must be understood in context, not in isolation, so that the continuity of composition can be assessed. Comments on the mnemonic role of the melody of chanting. Emphasizes that oral style and literacy are not mutually exclusive and notes that "to the conjecture that the Beowulf poet need not have been illiterate to compose in the formulaic style we have the support of findings in the field"(19).
Area: US, FP, AA, OE, CP

Bruce A. Rosenberg. "The Aesthetics of the Folk Sermon." Georgia Review, 25:424-38.

A discussion of the oral traditional aspects of the extemporaneous sermon composition of the American folk-preacher, including citations from actual recorded sermons. Places particular emphasis upon the preacher-audience interaction during the sermon and the manner in which a sermon's aesthetic qualities serve to enhance its goal of edification.
Area: FP

Bruce A. Rosenberg. "The Genre of the Folk Sermon." Genre, 4:189-211.

Discusses the methods by which folk preachers spontaneously and orally compose their sermons, with frequent reference to the work of Parry and Lord.
Area: US, FP, AA

Bruce A. Rosenberg. "The Psychology of the Spiritual Sermon." In Religious Movements in Contemporary America. Ed. Irving I. Zaretsky and Mark P. Leone. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 135-49.

Describes oral composition among folk-preachers in the "marginal" churches of the South and Southwest in psycholinguistic terms. Recognizes the importance of rhythm, patterned language, and narrative structure, as well as the active role of the audience.
Area: US, FP, CP

Bruce A. Rosenberg. "Folktale Morphology and the Structure of Beowulf: A Counterproposal." Journal of the Folklore Institute, 11:199-209.

Challenges D. Barnes' (1970) application of Proppian morphological analysis to Beowulf on the ground that the poem is not a folktale but (as it stands) a literary work. Argues against Barnes' claim that such analysis is exclusive in discovering truths otherwise unattainable and that Unferth must be a "donor" figure.
Area: OE, FK, CP

Bruce A. Rosenberg. "Oral Sermons and Oral Narrative." In Folklore: Performance and Communication. Ed. Dan Ben-Amos and Kenneth S. Goldstein. The Hague: Mouton. pp. 75-101.

Compares the folk-preacher's oral sermon to the SC oral epic sung by guslari and collected by Parry and Lord in order to determine if there is a basis for more general remarks about oral composition. Emphasizing the preacher's "stall," a retardation of the narrative in performance to gain time to consider the sermon's progress and conceive the next lines, he finds similarities in (1) heavily formulaic language, (2) thematic composition, and (3) mode of presentation. Considers Beowulf "the product of a literate talent" (p. 81). Describes different kinds of stalls in folk-preaching, OE verse, and SC epic and stresses the importance of traditional patterns to the audience. Suggests that oral-formulaic theory as presently constituted is inadequate to the task of explaining oral narrative and calls for a return to fieldwork.
Area: US, FP, AA, SC, OE, CP

Bruce A. Rosenberg. "The Formula: New Directions?" Folklore Preprint Series (Indiana University), 6, iv:1-9.

Contends that the oral formula has been so variously defined that the concept has lost its comparative utility. Questions the automatic assumption of simultaneous performance and composition, citing exceptions to the Parry-Lord orthodoxy. Suggests a semiotic approach and attention to actual recorded oral performances, such as the folk-preaching described and analyzed in Rosenberg 1970a et seq.
Area: TH, FP, SC, CP

Bruce A. Rosenberg. "The Genres of Oral Narrative." In Theories of Literary Genre. Ed. Joseph P. Strelka. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. (= vol. 8 of Yearbook of Comparative Criticism). pp. 150-65.

Proposes a dynamic theory of oral genres that takes into account the variables of oral performance within a tradition. Includes a description of four SC epic songs and an attempted taxonomy. Maintains that the genre of an oral performance "exists not in fixed form, as does the genre of a sonnet, hymn, or elegy, but as a rather fluid ideal because it is dependent on fluid forces which are constantly reshaping it: the mood of the audience, that of the performer, and all the accidents, misunderstandings, mistakes, and flaws that human communication is heir to" (p. 164).
Area: FK, SC, CP, TH

Bruce A. Rosenberg. "Oral Literature in the Middle Ages." In Oral Traditional Literature: A Festschrift for Albert Bates Lord. Ed. John Miles Foley. Columbus: Slavica Publishers. Rpt. 1983. pp. 440-50.

Champions the importance of folktale analysis in interpreting medieval texts and notes the variety of forms in oral literature and the need for additional work by field ethnographers, linguists, and psychologists.
Area: OE, FK, CP, TH

Bruce A. Rosenberg. "The Oral Performance of Chaucer's Poetry: Situation and Medium." Folklore Forum, 13:224-37.

Assumes that Chaucer's poetry was recited aloud to an aural audience at least as often as it was read silently and alone. Speculates about Chaucer's relationship with his audience, the role of that interaction in performance, and his status as storyteller.
Area: ME

Thomas G. Rosenmeyer. "The Formula in Early Greek Poetry." Arion, 4:295-311.

Distinguishes between "hard Parryism," strict adherence to the Parry-Lord doctrine as originally formulated, and a "soft" version which allows substitution to proceed under the aegis of aesthetic principles. Feels the lyric genre imitates Homeric diction consciously, that formulaic density does not prove Homer's orality, and that Hesiod's dictional peculiarities arise from his variant world view.
Area: AG

James L. Rosier. "The Uses of Association: Hands and Feasts in Beowulf." Publications of the Modern Language Association, 78:8-14.

An investigation of the Beowulf-poet's associative technique in composition which can be usefully compared to the oral-formulaic explanation. Cp. Beaty 1934 and Kintgen.
Area: OE

James L. Rosier. "Generative Composition in Beowulf." English Studies, 58:193-203.

Follows his earlier article (1963) in documenting instances of the associative or "generative" method of "contiguous recurrence of forms" (201), distinguishing it from formulaic composition and arguing for its preservation over time as a poetic mode.
Area: OE

James Ross. "The Sub-literary Tradition in Scottish Gaelic Song-Poetry: Part I. Poetic Metres and Song Metres." Eigse, 7:217-39.

Describes the complex blend of oral tradition and contemporary influences on a genre in the process of extinction.
Area: MI

James Ross. "Formulaic Composition in Gaelic Oral Literature." Modern Philology, 57:1-12.

Explores the formulaic and thematic quality of Gaelic oral poetry collected in recent times in the Western Isles of Scotland, adapting Parry's ideas and definitions to the prosody of the Irish material and suggesting the existence of "conceptual formulas" which vary more widely within the Gaelic verse forms. Notes possible connections with traditional prose tales.
Area: MI

D.J.A. Ross. "Old French." In Traditions of Heroic and Epic Poetry. Volume One: The Traditions. Ed. by A.T. Hatto. Publications of the Modern Humanities Research Association, 9. London: The Modern Humanities Research Association, pp. 79-133.

A general introduction to the Old French chanson de geste, which includes commentary on a period of oral-formulaic composition and oral transmission preceding the surviving texts (96-104).
Area: OF, CP

Luigi E. Rossi. "Gli oracoli come documento di imporvisazione." In I poemi epici rapsodici non omerici e la tradizione orale. Ed. by C. Brillante, M. Cantilena, C.O. Paves. Padua: Antenor, pp. 203-19.

Warns against an easy equation of "oral" and "improvised" and argues that "una certa formularità oraculare non prova una oralità autonoma degli oracoli" (216).
Area: AG

Catharine P. Roth. "The Kings and the Muses in Hesiod's Theogony." Transactions of the American Philological Association, 106:331-38.

Includes a description of the role of both oral transmission and traditional memory (Mnemosyne) in the preservation of early law codes and of the epic muse.
Area: AG, CP

Klaus Roth. "Zur mündlichen Komposition von Volksballaden." Jahrbuch für Volksliedforschung, 22:49-65.

An overview of the reception of Lord's theory of oral composition in folklore scholarship, particularly with respect to the ballad. Includes critical evaluation and an attempted synthesis of the more controversial points in the theory.
Area: FB, CP

Jerome Rothenberg, ed. Shaking the Pumpkin: Traditional Poetry of the Indian North Americas. New York: Doubleday.

An edition of "total translations" of American Indian oral poetry and prose that reflects the editor's belief in transcribing the entire experience of the works. Includes a listing by region and tribe (p. 402) and extensive commentaries (pp. 403-75), the latter often documenting performance conditions.
Area: AI, SAI, EK

Jerome Rothenberg. "A Dialogue on Oral Poetry with William Spanos." In The Oral Impulse in Contemporary American Poetry. Ed. William V. Spanos and Robert Kroetsch. Special number of Boundary 2, 3, iii: 509-48.

Emphasis on the contribution of oral tradition to contemporary consciousness, with special reference to modern American poetry.
Area: CN

Jerome Rothenberg and Dennis Tedlock, eds. Alcheringa/Ethnopoetics (biannual).

Perhaps the only periodical that consistently presents oral poetry and prose, in translation and often in the original languages, from all over the world. Special interest in Native American verbal art and in novel ways of typographically representing the performance dimensions of the material.
Area: AI, TH, CP

David C. Rubin. "Cognitive Processes and Oral Traditions." In Transmission and Form in Oral Traditions. Ed. Leo Treitler et al. In International Musicological Society: Report of the Thirteenth Congress (Berkeley 1977). Kassel: Barenreiter. pp. 173-80.

Describes forms of cognitive coding_echoic memory, naming, rhythmic structure, linguistic structure, motor coding, musical coding, and notation_and their relation to oral transmission.
Area: MU, TH

Carl A. Rubino and Cynthia Shelmerdine, eds. Approaches to Homer. Austin: University of Texas Press.

A collection of recent critical essays on Homer. Separately annotated are Austin, Bergren Lang, G. Nagy, and Simpson.
Area: AG

Antony Ruhan. "Preserving Traditions of Embalming Them? Oral Traditions, Wisdom, and Commitment." In Oral Tradition in Melanesia. Ed. by Donald Denoon. Port Moresby, New Guinea: University of Papua, New Guinea and Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. pp. 31-44.

Describes wisdom forms of the oral traditions of preliterate Melanesian peoples and discusses their changing roles in the respective cultures.
Area: ML

C.J. Ruijgh. L'Elément achéen dans la langue épique. Assen: Koninklijke Drukkerij Van Gorcum and Comp. Rpt. 1962.

Basing his work on that of Parry, he describes a Mycenaean phase of AG poetic tradition, finds certain Achaean or Mycenaean words in the Homeric texts, and shows that "l'emploi de ces mots achéens dans l'épopee ancienne était limité à des formules toutes faites, figurant à des places fixes dans le vers" (p. 167). Cites these formulaic usages as the best evidence for a Mycenaean oral tradition.
Area: AG

Thomas C. Rumble. "The Hyran-gefrignan Formula in Beowulf." Annuale Mediaevale, 5:13-20.

Argues for the Beowulf-poet's artistic use of traditional formulaic diction, particularly in the case of the hyran-gefrignan formula, which both appeals to the authority of tradition and creates suspense.
Area: OE

P.E. Russell. "Some Problems of Diplomatic in the Cantar de mio Cid and their Implications." Modern Language Review, 47:340-49.

On the basis of references to legal matters, he sees the Cid as a learned production outside and separated from the mainstream of popular, oral traditional poetry.
Area: HI

Joseph A. Russo. "A Closer Look at Homeric Formulas." Transactions of the American Philological Association, 94:235-47.

Broaches the possibility of formulaic systems that involve the same parts of speech, the same metrical word-types, and the same position in the line, but which do not require any of the same actual words. From this article springs the idea of syntactic frames (cp. Minton 1965).
Area: AG

Joseph A. Russo. "The Structural Formula in Homeric Verse." Yale Classical Studies, 20:219-40.

Distinguishes (1) the exactly repeated phrase, (2) the formulaic pattern or structure of metrical and syntactic but not verbal consistency, and (3) the originally created phrase. Concentrating on the second of these, he explains that "the bard composes by a stream of aural associations" (230). Feels that some structural formulas exert a local, synchronic influence while others have more distant relations elsewhere in the poetic corpus.
Area: AG

Joseph A. Russo. "Homer Against His Tradition." Arion, 7:275-95. Rpt. in German in Homer: Tradition und Neuerung. Ed. Joachim Latacz. Wege der Forschung, Band 463. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesell-schaft. pp. 403-27.

His major thesis is that, alongside the traditional features of the Homeric poems, one also finds numerous examples of "creative departure from the tradition" (278). At the level of scene he distinguishes among (1) straight verbal repetitions, (2) creatively handled typical scenes, (3) scenes handled so loosely as to give the impression of lack of dependence on a traditional form, and (4) almost total nonrepetition. Ends with emphasis on the tension between tradition and invention.
Area: AG

Joseph A. Russo. "The Meaning of Oral Poetry. The Collected Papers of Milman Parry: A Critical Re-assessment." Quaderni Urbinati di Cultural Classica, 12:27-39.

Reviews Parry's work briefly, finding the doctoral theses (1928a, b) satisfying in their reliance on hard evidence but the HSCP articles (1930, 1932) a "leap of faith" without the necessary proof. Argues that orality cannot be proven because total formularity cannot be demonstrated. Believes that Parryism, along with the prevailing view of intellectual history in ancient Greece, has fractured the unity of the poetic tradition by separating Homer from the lyric genre that follows. Suggests a wider view of oral culture akin to that of Havelock (1963).
Area: AG

Joseph A. Russo. "Is Oral' or Aural Composition the Cause of Homer's Formulaic Style?" 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. 31-71.

Explores four issues: (1) definition of the formula and different kinds of formulas, (2) questioning the necessary connection between Homeric formulas and compositional technique, (3) formulaic analysis of sample passages, and (4) the significance of Homer's formulaic style. Analyzes two passages, Odysseus' encounter with Argos and Hector's rebuke of Poulydamas, and finds a relatively low formulaic content. Maintains that certain levels of formularity are "aural" but not "oral." Feels formulaic structure and orality have no necessary interdependence because we have not succeeded in satisfactorily defining Homeric formularity. There is no reason for supposing that each tradition will exhibit the same amount or density of formulaic phraseology.
Area: AG

Joseph A. Russo. "How, and What, Does Homer Communicate? The Medium and Message of Homeric Verse." Classical Journal, 71:289-99. Rpt. in Communication Arts in the Ancient World. Ed. Eric A. Havelock and Jackson P. Hershbell. Humanistic Studies in the Communication Arts. New York: Hastings House. pp. 39-52.

Sees an ambiguity in Parry-Lord theory in that it does not distinguish between poetic composition that employs formulas and poetic composition which is completely dependent on formulas. Proposes five levels of regularity in Homer: meter, rhythm, diction, incident, and outlook. Develops an "aesthetic of regularity" and conceives of the epic's function in sociological terms.
Area: AG

Joseph Russo. "The Poetics of the Ancient Greek Proverb." Journal of Folklore Research, 20:121-30.

Shows that the Greek proverb is identifiable as a formal genre with distinct linguistic and stylistic features. Using the example of the Candaules and Gyges episode of Herodotus I.6ff., he demonstrates that a thorough knowledge of the proverb genre allows for a clearer interpretation of relevant passages.
Area: AG, FK

Joseph A. Russo and Bennett Simon. "Homeric Psychology and the Oral Epic Tradition." Journal of the History of Ideas, 29:483-98.

Portrays mental life in Homer as a common and public rather than private operation, contending that oral poetry encourages the traditional and communal and discourages the personal and the idiosyncratic. Recitation (oral performance) sets up a common field in which poet, audience, and characters meet and the boundaries among them are blurred. The performance of oral epic poetry is paralleled to the Homeric model of mind. See further Simon 1978.
Area: AG

Geoffrey R. Russom. "Artful Avoidance of the Useful Phrase in Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon, and Fates of the Apostles." Studies in Philology, 75:371-90.

Argues that the poets of these three poems consciously manipulated traditional diction and that oral theory cannot account for this practice. Feels that the best of the poets knew more of the tradition than was necessary for simple composition, and that they were in full artistic control of the compositional process.
Area: OE

Jean Rychner. La Chanson de geste: Essai sur l'art épique des jongleurs. Société de Publications Romanes et Françaises, 53. Geneva and Lille: E. Droz and Giard.

The classic account of the OF chansons de geste as oral traditional poems (composed by jongleurs or singers), with the notable exception of the Song of Roland, which he understands as a literary work. Especially relevant is the section on formulas and motifs (pp. 127-53), which documents traditional morphology in the genre. His methodology and argument derive from the work of Parry and Lord, as well as Murko and Jousse.
Area: OF, SC, AG, CP

Jean Rychner. "La Chanson de geste, épopée vivante." In L'Epopee vivante, a special issue of La Table ronde, 132:1-157, pp. 152-67.

Argues that the conventional distinction between creation and recitation cannot be applied to oral epic, but that the two intermix in performance. Discusses the traditional unity of the laisse, the adding style of individual as opposed to enjambed lines, themes or motifs, formulas, the role of the audience, and oral performance. Adheres closely to Parry-Lord theory and makes comparative reference to SC oral epic, noting that "sans les clichés, il n'y aurait pas de chansons de geste!" (p. 159).
Area: OF, SC, CP

Jean Rychner. "Observations sur le Couronnement de Louis du manuscrit B.N., fr. 1448." In Mélanges de línguistique romane et de philologie médiévale offerts à M. Maurice Delbouille, vol. 2. Ed. Jean Renson. Gembloux: Duculot. 2 vols. pp. 635-52.

Revises somewhat his 1955 thesis on the orality of OF chansons de geste (other than the Roland, which he considered the product of literate craftsmanship from the start). Accepts the idea that perhaps the chanson was integrally and fundamentally oral only in its lost antecedents and not in the texts which have survived to us: "mais il conserve l'essentiel d'une technique qu'il doit à ses origines orales comme à sa diffusion orale permanente" (p. 651).
Area: OF

David Rycroft. "Zulu and Xhosa Praise-Poetry and Song." African Music, 3:79-85.

A brief study of the vocal melodies associated with praise-poetry in these two oral traditions. Cp. Herzog 1940, 1951 and the articles in Transmission and Form in Oral Traditions, ed. Leo Treitler et al., in International Musicological Society: Report of the Thirteenth Congress (Berkeley 1977) (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1981).
Area: AF, MU

Faruk Sümer, Ahmet E. Uysal, and Warren S. Walker, trans. and ed. The Book of Dede Korkut: A Turkish Epic. Austin: University of Texas Press.

A work whose exact relationship to oral tradition is unknown, the fourteenth-century collected text having perished and the late sixteenth-century version being of doubtful origin. Some tales contained in the second edition still circulate in oral tradition. Notes that oral traditional structure, formulaic lines, and repetition characterize the piece (see espec. the introduction, pp. xviii-xxii).
Area: TK

William Merritt Sale. "Homeric Olympus and Its Formulae." American Journal of Philology, 105:1-28.

In an attempt to explain the existence in Homer of two sets of formulas denoting the home of the gods, he proposes, in the context of Parry's definition of the formula, that the ouranos-set of formulas evolved after the olympos-set in order to fill a metrical gap in the latter. Argues that, based upon occurrences of four formulaic sets, Olympos and Ouranos are one and the same, and that, since the formulaic method of expressing "Olympos" is the more highly developed, the concept of "Olympos-Ouranos" is a relatively late one.
Area: AG

Maria Salga. "Eléments textuels récurrents dans la poésie populaire mongole." Etudes mongoles, 5:81-85.

Notes the repetition of words, syntagms, phrases, and strophes both within a single oral text and from one poem to another, postulating a traditional repertoire of recurrent elements. Limits the survey in this article to elements that concern horses and which have a "valeur statistique." Illustrates the systemic qualities of the sample and the possibilities for generation of new variants.
Area: MN

Nancy K. Sandars. "Introduction" to her trans., The Epic of Gilgamesh. Harmondsworth: Penguin. pp. 7-56.

Throughout discussion she assumes recitation before commission to writing, and in her remarks on diction (pp. 45-48) she mentions the presence of repetition, stock epithets, and formulas. Feels that the retention of repeated passages "suggests an oral tradition alongside the written" (p. 46).
Area: SU

M. Santos Amaya. "Interpretacion estilistica de un tema del Poema del Cid mediante el analisis de formulas epicas." Educación (Bogotá), 25:79-101; 26:67-78.

Studies the theme of "el Cid y los Suyos" which pervades the work, using the eighth edition of Menéndez Pidal's critical text. In vol. 25 he interrelates themes, motives, and formulas, defining the last as "ciertas expresiones estereotipadas que se repiten con alguna frecuencia más o menos en las mismas condiciones sintácticas y que generalmente se encuentran en un hemistiquio total" (vol. 25, 80). Lists and analyzes the appearances, variants, and synonyms for Cid, Señor, Campeador, and Libiador. In vol. 26 he continues formulaic analysis with various expressions related to "Ganor Ganancia."
Area: HI

Franz L. Saran. Zur Metrik des epischen Verses der Serben. Rpt. New York: Kraus Reprint, 1968.

An early study of Serbian metrics based on the phonograph recordings of "Die Hochzeit des Banovic Michael" and "Heldentat des Rade von evo." One of the bases of later investigations of metrics and formulaic structure.
Area: SC

Gregor Sarrazin. "Beowulf und Kynewulf." Anglia: Zeitschrift für englische Philologie, 9:515-50.

Demonstrates verbal correspondence between Beowulf and the so-called Cynewulf poems, arguing common authorship. Sees a necessary relationship between the idea and its expression in words. An early contribution to the development of formulaic theory in OE (see further Foley 1980b).
Area: OE

Gregor Sarrazin. Beowulf-Studien. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte altgermanischer Sage und Dichtung. Berlin: Mayer and Muller.

A second, more exacting attempt (see Sarrazin 1886) to relate Beowulf and the Cynewulf canon through a survey of repeated or nearly repeated verses.
Area: OE

Gregor Sarrazin. "Parallelstellen in altenglischer Dichtung." Anglia: Zeitschrift für englische Philologie, 14:186-92.

Responds to Kail 1889, claiming that a stylistic trait or consistency is necessarily the mark of a single author and not, as Kail maintained, the general issue of a traditional Phrasenvorrat. Sarrazin's stubborn clinging to the tenets of the German Higher Criticism was a retarding influence on the evolution of formulaic theory.
Area: OE

Gregor Sarrazin. "Neue Beowulf-Studien." Englische Studien, 23:221-67.

A comparative study of Beowulf and Cynewulf's Andreas through shared diction. Inexact conception of repeated material, varying from phrases which show no similarity in expression (but only in idea) to the repetition of single words out of context. See espec. 259-64.
Area: OE

Henry M. Sayre. "David Antin and the Oral Poetics Movement." Contemporary Literature, 23:428-50.

A discussion of the antagonism between formalist academic poetry and avant-garde poetics, with particular attention to the theories and implications of David Antin's essay "Modernism and Postmodernism," the "first manifesto" of the oral poetics movement in America.
Area: CN

Claes Schaar. "On a New Theory of Old English Poetic Diction." Neophilologus, 40:301-5.

Opposes Magoun 1953a, arguing that "all formulaic poetry is oral" does not follow necessarily from "all oral poetry is formulaic." Claims that repeated phraseology was the result of literary borrowing. An early negative response to the advent of oral-formulaic theory in OE.
Area: OE

Claes Schaar. "The Old English Andreas' and Scholarship Past and Present." English Studies, suppl., 45:111-15.

In treating Rosemary Woolf's review of Kenneth Brooks' edition of Andreas, he discusses the OE traditional poetic diction and dismisses the findings of the Magoun school.
Area: OE

Wolfgang Schadewaldt. "Die epische Tradition." Rev. from his Der Aufbau der Ilias: Strukturen und Konzeptionen. Frankfurt am Main: Insel-verlag. pp. 26-38. Rpt. in Homer: Tradition und Neuerung. Ed. Joachim Latacz. Wege der Forschung, Band 463. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesell-schaft, 1979. pp. 529-39.

Argues for a literate Homer in the eighth century B.C. who was dependent on or relied on an oral tradition reaching back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries B.C., and who used this tradition to form his own Iliad. Presents a brief summary of characteristics showing how the Iliad possesses some features typical of oral poetry and others that are not related.
Area: AG

Robert E. Schecter. "A Propos the Drunken King: Cosmology and History." In The African Past Speaks: Essays on Oral Tradition and History. Ed. by Joseph C. Miller. Hamden, CN: Archon, pp. 108-25.

Renounces an unsophisticated literal reading of oral tales and treats the traditions as representations of real historical events and processes. Focuses on tales from the Luba and Lunda areas. Concludes that traditional historical literature only twists the facts in order to make the past conform more closely to accepted cosmological categories.
Area: AF

Seth L. Schein. The Mortal Hero: An Introduction to Homer's Iliad. Berkeley: University of California Press.

A review of the developments in Homeric scholarship in this century with particular stress on the positive and negative impolications of the oral tradition theory. Overview of the functions of the gods, war, death, and heroism in the poem and chapters on the character and role of Achilles and Hektor.
Area: AG

Harold Scheub. "The Technique of the Expansible Image in Xhosa Ntsomi-Performances." Research in African Literatures, 1:119-46.

An ethnographic and structural description of the ntsomi, a fantastic tale that serves the Xhosa as an oral storehouse of cultural knowledge. Analysis proceeds via his concepts of core-cliché and core-image, revealing how the teller expands basic traditional forms in performance.
Area: AF

Harold Scheub. "Translation of African Oral Narrative-Performances to the Written Word." Yearbook of General and Comparative Literature, 20:28-36.

Considers problems of medium, the role of the audience, nonverbal aspects of performance, the structure of image-sets, and the inexpressible whole of the tradition which serves as a context for each performance.
Area: AF

Harold Scheub. Bibliography of African Oral Narratives. Occasional paper no. 3. Madison: African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin.

A sparsely annotated listing of primary sources checked against standard references, with a cultural-linguistic index.
Area: AF, BB

Harold Scheub. "The Art of Nongenile Mazithathu Zenani, a Gcaleka Ntsomi Performer." In African Folklore, Ed. Richard M. Dorson. Garden City: Doubleday. pp. 114-42.

Discusses parallel image-sets, expansible images, core clichés, and other key features of oral performance among the Xhosa, using as illustration chiefly the narrative performances of this one informant.
Area: AF

Harold Scheub. The Xhosa "Ntsomi." Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Prefaces these selections from his collection of ntsomi from the Xhosa- and Zulu-speaking peoples of Transkei and Kwazulu with an account of transmission and apprenticeship, materials of composition, theme (his own sense of the term), the creative process, and repetition. Sees the composition of ntsomi as the expansion of traditional core-images within the compass of an overarching theme. Forty texts and translations follow.
Area: AF

Harold Scheub. "Oral Narrative Process and the Use of Models." New Literary History, 6:353-77.

Offers a dynamic view of oral narrative, in which the audience is engaged by familiar images and image-sets. Against this background the poet objectifies a given narrative, involving the audience in an aesthetic-didactic experience of the tale. Illustrated with southern African examples (mainly Xhosa, Mbundu, and Chaga).
Area: AF

Harold Scheub. "Body and Image in Oral Narrative Performance." New Literary History, 8:345-67.

Studies body movement (paralinguistic cues), the function of repetition, temporal elements, image sequences, and the interrelationship of these characteristics in an overall view of oral performance.
Area: AF

Mineke Schipper. "Oralité écrite et recherche d'identité dans l'oeuvre d'Amos Tutuola." Research in African Literatures, 10:40-58.

Examines the literary works of Amos Tutuola, a contemporary West African writer, against the background of the oral tradition that he draws upon for his language, proverbs, stories, descriptions, narrative situations, and supernatural events. Though created in a written medium, Tutuola's "oralité écrite" remains faithful to the traditional oral context out of which it grew.
Area: AF

Kerstin Schlyter. "La Littérature orale'." Ibero-Romanskt, 4:34-41.

Mainly a review of de Chasca 1967, this article also contains a brief history of the traditionalist-individualist controversy and the development of oral theory, with references to the work of Parry, Lord, and Notopoulos.
Area: HI, CP

Kerstin Schlyter. Les Enumérations des personnages dans la Chanson de Roland: Etude comparative. Etudes Romanes de Lund, 22. Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup.

Through a synchronic analysis of the names of characters in the extant Roland manuscripts, she derives stemmata, finds the Battle of Roncevaux the ancient nucleus of the poem, argues for the oral diffusion of the Chanson de Roland, and uncovers tripartition as a basic narrative structure. Making reference to Parry and Lord, she contends that the formulaic diction of the poem offers proof of its orality.
Area: OF, CP

Alois Schmaus. Studije o krajinskoj epici. Rad JAZU, knj. 297. Zagreb: Jugoslavenska Akademija Znanosti i Umjetnosti. pp. 89-247.

After a brief review of prior research and scholarship on SC epic, he describes the geographical boundaries of epic, the historical basis of the "border" or "krajinska" sub-genre and its cultural foundation, collections of such songs, and the various subjects treated in extant examples. Of greatest interest are the sections on stylistic principles, structure, and composition (pp. 115-218), which cover many aspects of traditional tectonics, from the story pattern of Return (treated later by Lord, e.g. 1960, and others) to formulaic phraseology. Includes a useful bibliography of literary and ethnographic studies in Serbo-Croatian. An excellent, thoroughgoing analysis of longer SC epic that has not been adequately appreciated in the West.
Area: SC

Alois Schmaus. "Episierungsprozesse im Bereich der slavischenVolksdichtung." Münchener Beiträge zur Slavenkunde, 4:294-320.

Primarily a study of the "epic-making" process in SC oral tradition, with comparative remarks on the Ukrainian duma and the Russian bylina. Examines and describes traditional units at all levels of structure, from phraseology to story pattern and cycle, making reference to the work of Parry and Lord among others.
Area: SC, RU, UK, CP

Alois Schmaus. "Ein epenkundliches Experiment." Die Welt der Slaven, 1:322-33.

Referring to Parry's "experiment" of prompting Avdo Medjedovic to sing the 12,000-line Wedding of Smailagic Meho (see Lord and Bynum 1974, Bynum 1974a), he argues that one needs to consider SC oral tradition not in isolation but in its geographical and chronological context.
Area: SC, CP

Alois Schmaus. "La Byline russe et son état actuel." In L'Epopee vivante, a special issue of La Table ronde, 132:1-157. pp. 114-27.

Making frequent comparative reference to SC oral epic, he offers a historical and analytical view of the bylina, of both its evolution and its present state. Notes that the earliest extant texts date from the second half of the eighteenth century (Rybnikov and Hilferding, 1859-71). Summarizes more recent collecting expeditions (1926-39), pointing out that the traditional bylina survives only rarely and only at the periphery of various Soviet states, where sociocultural change has been minimal. Distinguishes between the bona fide traditional singer (diseur) and the much more improvisationally bent novateur. Also documents modulations in the tradition through change in subject (to nonheroic stories), change in epic language, education and books, and reading/writing. Disparages the new cycles of noviny, songs which make use of traditional techniques but are not true examples of oral tradition.
Area: RU, SC, CP

Alois Schmaus. "Formel und metrisch-syntaktisches Modell (Zur Liedsprache der Bugarstica)." Die Welt der Slaven, 5:395-408.

Studies formulaic morphology, in both deseterac and bugarstica verse, as primarily a metrically defined phenomenon. Notes the opportunities for individual expression and local poetic dialects within the conservative traditional idiom.
Area: SC

R. Schmiel. "Metrically Interchangeable Formulae and Phrase-clusters in Homer." Liverpool Classical Monthly, 9, iii:34-38.

In comparing occurences of three pairs of equivalent formulae, the author illustrates the "suitability to the context is the best explanation for the choice of formula..." (37).
Area: AG

Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg. The Nature of Narrative. New York: Oxford University Press. Rpt. 1968, 1976, 1979).

In Chapter 2 ("The Oral Heritage of Written Narrative," pp. 17-56), they describe oral poetry in a variety of traditions as characterized by formulaic structure, narrative topoi, and an idiosyncratic rhetoric. They consider the OE Beowulf a genuine oral heroic epic and adhere closely to the Parry-Lord orthodoxy in general.
Area: OE, OF, AG, ON, OSX, BI, SC, CP

Manfred Gunter Scholz. "On Presentation and Reception Guidelines in the German Strophic Epic of the Late Middle Ages." New Literary History, 16:137-51.

Studies the application of marginal directions to readers in Middle Hight German manuscripts, suggesting that they may apply to lone readers as well as those reading for an audience, since the solitary reader may have actually sung the strophes to himself. Notes that the verbs hören and lesen are most frequently used in these directions when referring to the audience, and that sagen and singen appear most often in reference to the reciter.
Area: MHG

Anne H. Schotter. "The Poetic Function of Alliterative Formulas of Clothing in the Portrait of the Pearl Maiden." Sudia Neophilologica, 51:189-95.

Defining the alliterative formula as "a recurring collocation of alliterating words used to express a given idea" (189), she finds the patterned phraseology manipulable for aesthetic effect. Argues that conventional diction can in this way convey unconventional effects, as in the case of the maiden's portrait.
Area: ME

Richard J. Schrader. "Caedmon and the Monks, the Beowulf-Poet and Literary Continuity in the Early Middle Ages." American Benedictine Review, 31:39-69.

In the process of positing a classical and Christian background for OE poetry and especially for Beowulf, he finds the oral traditional features of OE verse not incompatible with a literate and monastic culture. Argues the pertinence of the old oral system of learning and composition in the monasteries, which had always existed alongside the written word, and imagines a "literate scop who wrote Beowulf" under the influence of classical epic.
Area: OE

Werner Schwarz. "Notes on Formulaic Expressions in Middle High German Poetry." In Mediaeval German Studies Presented to Frederick Norman. London: Institute for Germanic Studies, University of London. pp. 60-70.

A brief discussion of Parry-Lord oral theory and of formulas in the epic Dukus Horant and elsewhere in MHG. Traces a single phrase, liep als der lip, through poetry of the eleventh through fourteenth centuries, illustrating its morphology and shifts in meaning. Concludes that this and other formulas were (1) generally known and could be used without borrowing from a specific work, (2) familiar to poet and audience alike, and (3) modified with the onset of courtly poetry but reemerged with their older meaning after the demise of courtly verse.
Area: MHG

Werner Schwarz. "Die weltliche Volksliteratur der Juden." In Judentum im Mittelalter: Beiträge zum christlich-jüdischen Gespräch, Miscellanea Mediaevalia. Bd. 4, ed. P. Wilpert. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter. pp. 72-91. Rpt. in Voorwinden and de Haan 1979, pp. 213-37.

Using Parry's and Lord's writings as a basis, he argues that the Yiddish version of Dukus Horant, a fragment in Cambridge MS. T-S 10K22, is a written copy of an orally transmitted piece, specifically that it is the work of a Yiddish "singer" who either learned the technique of oral composition and transmission from a Christian counterpart or had the Christian singer dictate the poem to him.
Area: YI, MHG, CP

John Schwetman. "The Formulaic Nature of Old English Poetry: A Linguistic Analysis." Linguistics in Literature, 5, iii:71-109.

Basing his remarks on a transformational analysis of 10% of the OE poetic corpus, he contends that oral-formulaic theory is not able to explain the source of recurrent phraseology. Using Chomskyan synchronic methods exclusively, he examines supposed formulas and systems (citing Watts 1969 frequently for comparison) and finds the syntactic rules for a lexicon of formula-sized units too complex and the phraseological identity of lines or half-lines too often the product of different deep structures or different transformation rules. Feels that "since such similar collocations are naturally generated by the grammar when the same metrical and semantic conditions cooccur, the oral-formulaic theory seems an unnecessary complication" (98).
Area: OE

John A. Scott. The Unity of Homer. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rpt. New York: Bible and Tannen, 1965.

The classic Unitarian statement. Scott confronts the Analysts and argues for a single author Homer who composed both the Iliad and Odyssey. Of special interest is his contention over (or explaining away of) narrative inconsistencies, the major criteria_along with linguistic differences_for the Analysts' proposed denomination of compositional strata in the epics. Out of the Analyst- Unitarian controversy would emerge Parry's oral traditional theory, which provided new explanations of these phenomena.
Area: AG

William C. Scott. "A Repeated Episode at Odyssey 1.125-48." Transactions of the American Philological Association, 102:541-51.

Points out the two juxtaposed scenes of Telemachos' serving first Athena and then (by proxy) the suitors, commenting on their similarities in basic structure but differences in detail. Notes that the effect of such juxtaposition depends on the oral poet's audience, specifically on its expectation and traditional sophistication.
Area: AG

William C. Scott. The Oral Nature of the Homeric Simile. Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava, Suppl. 28. Leiden: E.J. Brill.

Assumes that, whether lettered or not, "Homer was thoroughly steeped in the language and techniques of oral verse-making and several conclusions may validly be drawn about his poetry as a reflection of the conditions of oral creation" (p. 11). After a review of previous scholarship on the similes, he examines their placement, subject matter, extension, and oral composition. Combines a thorough morphology of the Homeric simile with a consideration of audience and oral tradition.
Area: AG

Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole. The Psychology of Literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

A socio- and psycholinguistic study of literacy, based primarily on their fieldwork among the Vai and subsequent analyses of the data. Brief mention of orality and memory in ancient Greece and of Parry-Lord research. Of interest is Chapter 13 ("Studies of Memory," pp. 221-33), a linguistic analysis of the comparative recall ability of non-literates, monoliterates, biliterates, and schooled literates.
Area: AF, AR, CP

Stephen P. Scully. "The Bard as the Custodian of Homeric Society: Odyssey 3,263-272." Quardern Urbinati di Cultura Classica, n.s. 8:67-83.

Argues that Agamemnon chooses a singer (aoidós) rather than the more obvious hetaíros to guard his queen because the singer serves in the hero's absence as a surrogate king. Only the bard can perform this function: "in singing of the past, in oral poetry a generic and timeless past, a past that repeats itself formulaically and unconsciously in past, present, and future (the things that were, the things that are, and that will be), the singer/poet becomes a teacher and, in a sense, the constructor of his community" (78). As the nominal progenitor of oral epic poetry, which he sees in much the same way as do Havelock (espec. 1963) and Ong as a repository of culturally necessary information, the poet becomes a guardian for his society.
Area: AG

Raphaël Sealey. "From Phemios to Ion." Revue des études grecques, 70:312-55.

Reviews evidence concerning the persistence of oral composition through the Homeridae and the dating of the earliest uses of writing as an aid to poetic composition. Invoking Lord and Leumann to rebut standard Unitarian theories of the authorship and making of the Iliad, he concludes that the Homeric poems were written down in the same period in which the "book trade" arose in Greece, that is, about 550-450 B.C. Disputes certain parts of the Parry-Lord theory, especially the oral-dictated text hypothesis (see Lord 1953a).
Area: AG

Charles P. Segal. "Transition and Ritual in Odysseus' Return." La Parola del Passato, 22:321-42.

Sees the basic structure of the Odyssey as that of transition and return expressed through the ritualized style of oral tradition. Describes how themes (particularly those of sleep, bathing, purification, and threshold) and formulaic language embody recurrent ideas in a ritualized format and create a tension between that traditional fabric and the narrative progress of the poem.
Area: AG

Charles P. Segal. "The Embassy and the Duals of Iliad 9.182-98." Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 9:101-14.

Explains the troublesome dual inflections in this passage as Homer's conscious manipulation of formulaic diction to achieve an artistic end. Feels that an echo of the original insult of Achilles is achieved through the repetition of language, that "the ironic similarity of the two situations generates the repetition of the formulas, even at the expense of a certain strain" (105).
Area: AG

Charles P. Segal. The Theme of the Mutilation of the Corpse in the Iliad. Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava, Suppl. 17. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1971.

Studies Homer's artistic shaping of this traditional theme, understood as the "specific details of rending, tearing, disfiguring the body" (p. 2, n. 1) together with associated funerals and lamentations, in its three main occurrences in the Iliad. Following Nagler (1967), he describes a reservoir of associations and formulaic templates available to the poet and assesses his individual rendering of traditional materials in an original manner.
Area: AG

Charles P. Segal. "Andromache's Anagnorisis: Formulaic Artistry in Iliad 22.437-476." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 75:33-57.

Examines Andromache's recognition of Hector's fate with an eye to Homer's artistic use of formulaic language: (1) variation from existing formulas, (2) use of nonformulaic language, (3) local significance of generic repeated phraseology, and (4) reference to other sections of the poem through repetition. Finds the style responsive to individual manipulation while still echoic of unchanging values.
Area: AG

Charles P. Segal. "Eros and Incantation: Sappho and Oral Poetry." Arethusa, 7:139-60.

Explores the ritual, incantatory power of sound in ancientGreek lyric, specifically and chiefly in Sappho's phainetai moi. Making reference to the work of Parry and Lord, and especially of Havelock, on oral poetry and culture, he treats the oral/aural dynamics of Sapphic verse and studies the transition between Homeric epic and latter-day lyric. Although the evolution is complex, "the habits of oral tradition. . . remain deeply ingrained" and "reveal themselves externally in the deliberate echoing of epic phraseology and epic situations; but they are reflected, at a deeper level, in the poet's reliance upon the auditory, mimetic reflexes in oral performance, where insistent rhythm still evokes age-old incantation, where patterned sound, tempo,and ceremonial gesture can still work their magic" (157).
Area: AG

Charles P. Segal. "Tragédie, oralité, écriture." Trans. Vincent Giroud. In Généalogies de l'écriture: a special issue of Poétique, 50:131-54.

Starting from Havelock's (e.g. 1963) observations on the social reality of oral epic in the ancient Greek world, he discusses the evolution from orality to writing as linked to the passage from Homeric epic to tragedy. Views Homer's formulaic language as not simply a compositional idiom, but as a way of reaffirming the shared, monolithic value system of the Homeric "encyclopedia." Tragedy, on the other hand, reflects a fragmented, many-voiced outlook possible only with writing_only, that is, when the use of writing has distanced the audience and author from the work and introduced new modes of artistic creation. Comments on the text implied by tragedy, the social dimensions of the transition, the intermediate position of Pindar, andthe two kinds of "truth": "La vérité de la poésie orale est plus ou moins univoque; celle de la tragédie est multiple, divisée, fragmentaire et contradictoire" (142). Offers examples from various plays for his arguments. An impressive, forward-looking article.
Area: AG

C. Segre. "Tradizione fluttuante della Chanson de Roland?" Studi medievali, 3ó ser., 1:72-98.

Working from the collation of manuscript variants, he pronounces the poetic tradition of the Roland an elaboration of style rather than an evolving process of oral tradition.
Area: OF

Nabaneeta D. Sen. "Comparative Studies in Oral Epic Poetry and the Valmk Ramayana: A Report on the Balakanda." Journal of the American Oriental Society, 86:397-409.

After a brief review of Parry-Lord theory, she applies formulaic analysis to the text, finding approximately 30-50% formulaic phraseology over all standard types of stable formulas (noun-epithet, common actions, time, place). Also includes remarks on the tradition-dependent character of Sanskrit meter and system morphemes. Concludes that formulaic diction is indeed evidence of oral technique.
Area: SK

Nabaneeta D. Sen. "The Valmk Ramayana and the Raghuvamam: Stylistic Structure of Oral Poetry as Contrasted to Classical Poetry." Jadaupur Journal of Comparative Literature, 8:85-95.

After a capsule summary of Sen 1966 and review of Parry-Lord theory, she undertakes a stylistic comparison of the avowedly oral Valmk Ramayana: and Kalidasa's certainly literate Raghuvamam (Cantos XI-XII) in terms of (1) formulaic content of themes, (2) use of numbers, (3) use of epithets and structure of similes, and (4) other formulaic features. Concludes that the differences between the poems are those to be expected between an oral and a written mode of composition.
Area: SK

Nabaneeta D. Sen. "Thematic Structure of Epic Poems in the East and the West: A Comparative Study." In Actes du VIIe Congrés de l'Association Internationale de Littérature Comparée, vol. 2 (La Littérature Comparée Aujourd'hui: Théorie et Pratique). Ed. Eva Kushner and Roman Struc. Stuttgart: Erich Bieber. pp. 607-12.

Divides narrative themes into two groups, those belonging to a hero's life pattern and those belonging to the narrative itself, and charts their usage in the Ramayana, the Babylonian Enuma Elish, the Sumerian Gilgamesh, the Iliad and Odyssey, Beowulf, the MHG Nibelungenlied, the Chanson de Roland, the Finnish Kalevala, selected SC epic songs, the Byzantine Greek Digenis Akritas, the Cid, the Old Irish Ulster Cycle, and some Russian byliny. Finds a core of themes common to all material and shows that some Western epics differ more from one another than they do from the Ramayana.
Area: SK, BY, SU, AG, OE, MHG, OF, FN, SC, BG, HI, OI, RU, CP

Albert Severyns. Homère. II, Le Poète et son oeuvre. Brussels: Office de Publicité. Rev. ed. 1946.

Includes chapters on the Homeric Question, Homeric anachronisms, and the epic language, but most pertinent are the discussions of formulaic method ("La Métrique," pp. 49-61 and "Métrique et archaisme," pp. 62-72), in which he acknowledges Parry's work and illustrates formulaic style. Severyns' two companion volumes, I. Le Cadre historique (1943) and III. L'Artiste (1943) make passing reference to oral-formulaic structure.
Area: AG

Albert Severyns. "Homeric Formulas and Achaean History." Bucknell Review, 18:26-36.

Views Homeric formulas as cenotaphs of cultural meaning, some of them phrases from much earlier (even Mycenaean) times that preserve details that were archaic for, and probably not understood by, Homer. Because of the fidelity of tradition, which fossilizes time-bound formulas and creates an anachronistic pastiche in the language of epic, we can recover Mycenaean customs via Dark Age texts. Through a perusal of epithets, for example, he finds that "the costume of Homer's heroines is astonishingly reminiscent of the women before 1200 B.C. whose fiancés, brothers or husbands fought the Trojan War" (36).
Area: AG

Albert Severyns and Jules Labarbe. "La Poésie homérique." In L'Epopee vivante, a special issue of La Table ronde, 132:1-157. pp. 56-76.

Beginning with a short history of the Homeric Question, they describe the oral tradition that spawned the Iliad and Odyssey, concentrating on the oral audience, the singer (aoidós), the accompanying instrument, formulaic structure and the hexameter ("l'aède composait par formules, par groupes de mots tout faits et d'avance prêts à s'engrener dans l'hexamètre" (64), economy, the possibility of art within a formulaic idiom, the multidialectal Kunstsprache, the role of writing, the SC analogy, and the stages of composition and transmission. They conclude that "la diction formulaire traditionnelle rendait l'écriture superflue et meme ne s'en serait pas accommodée" (71).
Area: AG, SC, CP

William A. Shack and Habte-Mariam Marcos, trans. and ed. Gods and Heroes: Oral Traditions of the Gurage of Ethiopia. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

A dual-language collection of oral praise-poems about the gods and warrior-heroes of the Western Gurage of Ethiopia, with a brief contextual introduction.
Area: AF

Richard S. Shannon. The Arms of Achilles and Homeric Compositional Technique. Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava, Suppl. 36. Leiden: E.J. Brill.

Rehearses the history of the study of the hexameter in the introduction, maintaining that "in an oral poetic tradition, meter and formula develop as two aspects of a larger whole which is the formalized equivalent of a natural language" (p. 15). Working first at the level of theme, he attempts to show that art in the Homeric poems is traditionally inspired and integrated by studying the formulas associated with melíe (Achilles' ash spear) and their regulation by thematic patterns. Shows how "ornamental" or specialized description can extend beyond theme to phraseology. Closes with an emphasis on oral traditional techniques but is willing to admit literary techniques and written analogs if comparison proceeds cautiously.
Area: AG

Richard S. Shannon. "Response" to Russo 1976a. 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. 55-57.

Considers the types of methodologies employed by Homerists (descriptive vs. explanatory), cautioning against the over-avid use of comparative oral theory. Points out that the explanatory method is more suited to the study of living, well-collected oral poetries, while the descriptive or textual method is more appropriate for dead-language traditions such as Homeric epic.
Area: AG

Ram Karan Sharma. Elements of Poetry in the Mahabharata. Berkeley: University of California Press.

In the section on "Technique of Oral Poetry" (pp. 167-75), he finds certain features of the diction of the Mahabharata to be oral and explains the style from the point of view of oral traditional narrative. Includes remarks on poet, audience, and structure, together with examples of formulas from the text.
Area: SK

J. Shauli. "The Oral Women Poets of the Serbs." Slavonic and East European Review, 42:161-83.

An ethnographic and stylistic profile of the oral traditional lament (tuzbalica) sung by village women in Montenegro and other parts of Yugoslavia. Compare Kerewsky-Halpern 1981.
Area: SC

Austin J. Shelton. "Onojo Ogboni: Problems of Identification and Historicity in the Oral Traditions of the Igala and Northern Nsukka Igbo of Nigeria." Journal of American Folklore, 81:243-57.

Treats the problem of determining which Onojo Ogboni, a hero in the Igala and Igbo story cycles, is historical and which is mythological as an example of the more general distinction between history and tradition in oral narrative. Recommends carefully evaluating all aspects of the performance context, collating variants, and taking account of available external evidence. A member of the school of Vansina (espec. 1965).
Area: AF

J.T. Sheppard. "Zeus-Loved Achilles: A Contribution to the Study of Stock Epithets in Homer's Iliad." Journal of Hellenic Studies, 55:113-23.

Argues that epithets are sometimes used traditionally, but that Homer is also able to configure a series of epithets to suit a particular narrative context. Feels that Parry's concept of economy cannot account for this kind of artistic usage. In general, he aims at "a piece of truth, far more important than the half-truth preached by Mr. Milman Parry, who warns us that, unless we bow with him at Düntzer's shrine, intoning his new version of Kurt Witte's paradox, The Epic verse created Homer's style,' we run the risk of folly and extravagance in our interpretation" (116). One of the earliest negative responses to Parrys work.
Area: AG

J.T. Sheppard. "Great-Hearted Odysseus: A Contribution to the Study of Stock-Epithets' in Homer's Odyssey." Journal of Hellenic Studies, 56:36-47.

A companion argument (see Sheppard 1935) for consciously and artistically deployed formulaic epithets, with the immediate goal being "to add a pennyweight of common sense in favor of the view that the Telemachy was always what it purports now to be, the poet's introduction to his Odyssey" (37). Compare Calhoun 1933 and 1935.
Area: AG

Hugh Shields. "Oral Techniques in Written Verse: Philippe de Thaon's Livre de Sibile." Medium AEvum, 49:194-206.

A fascinating test case of an Anglo-Norman poet who is shown to be conversant with Latin rhetoric and writing and who at the same time uses jongleuresque, oral techniques to compose his verse. Defining the formula as "a group of six metrically organized syllables occurring once in Sibile and repeated at least once verbatim by Philippe," and the term formulaic as describing "his syntactical traits appropriate to the generation of a repertory of interrelated formulas" (200), he illustrates traditional phraseology in what is demonstrably a close translation from Latin. Notes that, with transferral to written literature, the formulas suffer a great functional loss but that the verbatim repetitions alone constitute fully 13% of the narrative. Views this hybrid work as "an acculturative experiment which could not be sustained or imitated, yet gives important evidence of the process by which a written tradition emerges from a cultural complex both written and oral, to the eventual deperdition of the oral" (203).
Area: ANR, OF, LT, CP

Hugh Shields. "Impossibles in Ballad Style." In The Ballad Image: Essays Presented to Bertrand Harris Bronson. Ed. James Porter. Foreword by Wayland D. Hand. Los Angeles: Center for the Study of Comparative Folklore and Mythology, pp. 192-214.

Points to adynaton as a stylistic feature of oral composition in many genres ranging from the Old French chansons de geste to 16th-century Spanish ballads. Reviews examples of embellishment deployed with a high degree of conventionality in the Scottish ballad tradition.
Area: FB , OF, HI, ST

Thomas A. Shippey. Old English Verse. London: Hutchinson University Library.

Describes oral-formulaic theory and suggests the coexistence of formulaic composition and writing, Latin rhetoric, and word-for-word translation. Envisions written texts produced formulaically and treats the prosodic dimensions of the formula. See espec. pp. 88-93, 96-98, 100-7, and 176-78.
Area: OE

Thomas A. Shippey. "Maxims in Old English Narrative: Literary Art or Traditional Wisdom?" In Oral Tradition, Literary Tradition: A Symposium. Proceedings, Symposia at the Center for the Study of Vernacular Literature in the Middle Ages, Odense University. Ed. Hans Bekker-Nielsen et al. Odense: Odense University Press. pp. 28-46.

Argues that the maxims in Beowulf are evocative of larger experience and skillfully used as educative and socially binding elements. Feels that they are most likely the product of "a culture which knows literacy and indeed venerates it, but still does most of its business orally and retains oral patterns of thought and rhetoric" (p. 36). Comparative comments on Genesis B and the MHG Nibelungenlied. A peremptory and rather amateurish attempt at dismissal of oral-formulaic scholarship.
Area: OE, MHG, CP

G.M.H. Shoolbraid. The Oral Epic of Siberia and Central Asia. Indiana University Publications, Uralic and Altaic Series, vol. 111. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

In Chapters 2 and 3 (pp. 18-59), he discusses various characteristics of the Burjet uliger (or epic poem) and its Turkish counterpart, including such aspects as oral performance, typical structure, the role of the audience, and the history of relevant fieldwork and scholarship.
Area: MN, TK, CP

Douglas D. Short. "Beowulf and Modern Critical Tradition." In A Fair Day in the Affections: Literary Essays in Honor of Robert B. White, Jr. Ed. Jack D. Durant and M. Thomas Hester. Raleigh: Winston Press. pp. 1-23.

A bibliographical survey of Beowulf scholarship over the last fifty years, including a summary of oral-formulaic criticism. Concludes that, although OE verse cannot be proven oral, the research done on its formulaic and thematic nature has been the most productive critical area in OE studies since mid-century.
Area: OE, BB

John R. Shriver. "Homeric Studies." Emory University Quarterly, 22:213-21.

A brief recounting of the history of the Homeric Question from the Alexandrians to modern times. Sees Schliemann's new science of archaeology and Parry-Lord oral theory as solutions to the Question.
Area: AG, SC, CP

Italo Siciliano. Les Chansons de geste et l'épopée: Mythes, Histoire, Poèmes. Biblioteca de Studi Francesi, Università di Torino, 3. Torina: Società Editrice Internazionale. Rpt. Geneva: Slatkine, 1981.

Heavily influenced by Bédier, he looks at the chanson de geste from an individualist standpoint. In Chapter 7 ("Grandeur et décadence de l'analphabète," pp. 137-99), he offers a long and careful critique of oral theory from Murko and Parry onward, arguing that the assumptions of the theory (as he puts it, "style formulaire 'donc' orale, style fluide 'donc' populaire, composition fragmentaire 'donc' collective, composition unitaire 'donc' savante," p. 199) are simplistic, and that we must give the poems their aesthetic due.
Area: OF

Eduard Sievers. "Formelverzeichnis." In his ed., Heliand. Halle: Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses. pp. 391-496.

In the synonymischer Teil he lists "formulas," by which he means essential ideas that do not necessarily correspond phraseologically, with cross-references to OE poems. In the systematischer Teil he includes phrases arranged by common grammatical categories, anticipating "syntactic formulas" as broached eighty to ninety years later (see, e.g., Cassidy 1965 and Russo 1963, 1966). The first formulaic analysis in medieval Germanic studies. Compare Vilmar 1862.
Area: OSX, CP

Richard Sigwalt. "The Kings Left Lwindi; The Clans Divided at Luhunda: How Bushi's Dynastic Origin Myth Behaves." In The African Past Speaks: Essays on Oral Tradition and History. Ed. by Joseph C. Miller. Hamden, CN: Archon, pp. 126-56.

Examines selected aspects of the original tradition surrounding the Mwoca dynasty. Argues that myths which comprise this tradition yield firm historical data. Concludes that "myth can help make our understanding of the past richer, but only with the tools of comparative ethnography and only if we admit that our goals are not to recover historical personages and specific events, but to understand the brad current of human change" (154).
Area: AF

Merle E. Simmons. "The Spanish Epic." In Heroic Epic and Saga: An Introduction to the World's Great Folk Epics. Ed. Felix J. Oinas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 216-35.

Reviews Hispanic research on the origins of epic, oral tradition, and textual transmission. Considers the role of the juglares in the development of epic and the contribution of Menéndez Pidal to critical theory.
Area: HI

Bennett Simon. Mind and Madness in Ancient Greece: The Classical Roots of Modern Psychiatry. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

In Chapters 4 ("Mental Life in the Homeric Epics," pp. 53-77) and 5 ("Epic as Therapy," pp. 78-88), he explores the collectivity of oral poet and audience, multiple identifications with epic characters and roles, and the active participation of the audience (along the lines sketched in Plato's Ion n). Sees the bard as a healer or therapist who involves a group in a shared review of what Havelock (1963 et al.) would call the "Homeric encyclopedia."
Area: AG

Bennett Simon and Herbert Weiner. "Models of Mind and Mental Illness in Ancient Greece: I. The Homeric Model of Mind." Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 2:303-15.

Explains the Homeric description of mental activity as a story or narrative. Argues that oral epic poetry acted as an educational institution which operated through a power to blur lines of individual identity, specifically by linking past, present, and future generations and thereby emphasizing continuity within the culture.
Area: AG

Richard Hope Simpson. "Mycenean Greece and Homeric Reflections." In Approachers to Homer. Ed. by Carl A. Rubino and Cynthia Shelmerdine. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 122-39.

A reassertion and defense of the tenet that the Achaean section of the Catalogue of the Ships in the Iliad is "a remarkably good poetic reflection of Mycenean Greece as so far revealed by archeology" (123). While observing that precision is not to be expected in Homeric descriptions, maintains that general inferences may be drawn, since Homer gives "the traditional details of people and places, as handed down by oral poets before him" (125).
Area: AG

Jacqueline Simpson. "The Lost Slinfold Bell: Some Functions of a Local Legend." Lore and Language, 4, i:57-67.

An analysis of a Sussex legend and its attendant motifs regarding a sunken church bell. Considering printed versions of the story which are "close to their oral sources and mercifully free from literary improvements'" (57), this essay discusses the significance of lost-bell legends which owe their appeal to a "coded message about the relationship of the secular and the sacred" (65) and applies its findings to the contemporary novel The Bell by Iris Murdoch.
Area: FK, BR

Hedi Sioud. "La Poésie orale tunisienne: Structure formulo-orale." Revue tunisienne de sciences sociales, 46:153-92.

Establishes Tunisian poetry as oral traditional poetry in the mold of Parry-Lord theory. Includes (1) a brief review of oral-formulaic principles, (2) an inventory of the various meters in Tunisian poetic tradition and a caveat on the tradition-dependent nature of prosody, (3) a description and illustration of formulaic structure, including verbatim repetition, semantic systems, and syntactic systems, the last of which he judges most useful to the composing oral poet, (4) notes on the act of oral composition from his own fieldwork in Tunisia, and (5) a structural analysis of sample poems to demonstrate thematic and formulaic patterns. Finds an average formulaic density (with systems included) of 46.7%, a figure based on a total of 611 hemistichs.
Area: TU

Hedi Sioud. "Rapports structuro-thématiques entre la poésie orale tunisienne et la poésie pré-islamique." Les Cahiers de Tunisie, 26:191-218.

Considers (1) oral-formulaic theory as applied to both pre-Islamic and Tunisian oral poetry, (2) similarities and differences between the two traditions, and (3) thematic patterns in three genres. Using the classic Parry-Lord definitions and stylistic analyses, he finds close similarities but not a straight genetic relationship between the two poetries. Explains the probable role of memorization (as opposed to oral-formulaic transmission) in the earlier period. Notes that the Tunisian dialect has so evolved syntactically that it is no longer possible to find a significant number of pre-Islamic formulas.
Area: TU, AR, CP

Kenneth Sisam. "Notes on Old English Poetry: The Authority of Old English Poetical Manuscripts." Review of English Studies, 22:257-68. Rpt. in his Studies in the History of Old English Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953, corr. rpt. 1962. pp. 29-44.

Observes that manuscript variants in OE verse seem not to be mainly scribal errors, "but as compared with the variants in classical texts, they show a laxity in reproduction and an aimlessness in variation which are more in keeping with the oral transmission of verse" (rpt., p. 34). Includes examples from the Ruthwell Cross/Dream of the Rood, texts of Caedmon's Hymn, and the Leiden Riddle/Exeter Riddle 35.
Area: OE

Kenneth Sisam. The Structure of Beowulf. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rpt. 1966.

This entire study is informed by the conviction that "Beowulf had a life outside books" (p. 4), namely that, however the poem came into being, it was sometimes recited from memory. In "Note A: The Transmission of Beowulf" (pp. 67-71), he argues that the poem was composed without writing and was transmitted orally by trained singers until recorded in manuscript. A largely conjectural monograph.
Area: OE

Stavro Skendi. "The South Slavic Decasyllable in Albanian Oral Epic Poetry." Word, 9:339-48. Rpt. in his Balkan Cultural Studies. East European Monographs, no. 72. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 59-71.

Shows that the Albanian versions of the oral epic songs about Mujo and Halil, which are also sung in Yugoslavia in SC, take the SC verse form (deseterac or decasyllable) rather than the common Albanian octosyllable. Infers that the SC meter was introduced into Albania with the stories of the two brothers via Hercegovina and the Sandzak, an intermediate area of present-day Yugoslavia. Briefly mentions that some of the formulas in the Albanian cycle "are identical to those of the South Slavic and at times suit the meter" (rpt., p. 66).
Area: SC, AB, CP

Stavro Skendi. Albanian and South Slavic Oral Epic Poetry. Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, vol. 44. Philadelphia: American Folklore Society. Rpt. New York: Kraus, 1969. Chapter 7 rpt. in his Balkan Cultural Studies. East European Monographs, no. 72. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. pp. 72-100.

Aware of Parry's writings as well as those of Meillet (esp. 1923), he argues in this important early study of Serbian and Albanian oral heroic poetry that formulaic composition played an important role in the transmission of epic songs (see espec. Chapter 10, "Verse and Formulas," pp. 168-97). Maintains that "these formulas in the beginning were individual expressions. They had to pass through a long road of development before they became fixed expressions. As they are a way of idealization, they had to correspond also to the ideals of the society in which they were created. Social selection gradually limited the circle of the individual expressions and consecrated those which society accepted." (p. 182).
Area: AB, SC, CP

Stavro Skendi. "The Songs of the Klephts and the Hayduks: History or Oral Literature?" In Serta Slavica Aloisii Schmaus: Gedenkschrift für Alois Schmaus. Ed. Wolfgang Gesemann et al. Munich: Rudolf Trofenik. pp. 666-73. Rpt. in his Balkan Cultural Studies. East European Monographs, no. 72. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. pp. 121-29.

Basing his remarks on the Greek klephtic songs (and those of the armatoloí) and on the SC martolosi and uskoci cycles, he shows that the oral songs already have a traditional framework into which historical facts and events are inserted. The songs of the klephts and hayduks are therefore not history, nor do they corroborate history. Argues that "the oral epic poetry may serve as a historical source only among the people who live still in prehistory, in tradition" (rpt., p. 127). Cp. Lord 1970.
Area: BG, SC, CP

Stavro Skendi. "Serbo-Croatian Heroic Songs and their Respective Milieus." Archiv für slavische Philologie, 9:261-79. Rpt. in his Balkan Cultural Studies. East European Monographs, no. 72. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. pp. 130-48.

A brief survey and history of SC junake pjesme, as they are known in the various collections since the first recorded examples in Petar Hektorovi's Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje from the sixteenth century. Includes mention of Murko's and Parry's activities.
Area: SC

Stavro Skendi, ed. Balkan Cultural Studies. East European Monographs, no. 72. New York: Columbia University Press.

Reprinted studies by Skendi on the language, folklore, and history of the Balkans. See further Skendi 1953, 1954, 1971, and 1977.
Area: SC, AB, BG, CP

Elizabeth S. Sklar. "The Battle of Maldon and the Popular Tradition: Some Rhymed Formulas." Philological Quarterly, 54:409-18.

In contending that the verse form of Maldon points toward the alliterative meter of ME verse rather than the older, "popular" OE line, she claims that Layamon and Maldon share some formulas and formulaic systems (in Parry's original sense). Sees rhyme as a diagnostic feature of such elements of diction. Posits that "their longevity suggests that such formulas were intrinsic to the popular tradition in a way that alliterative patterns and metrical patterns were not and could not be" (417).
Area: OE

Stefania Skwarczy[[ordmasculine]]ska. "Littérature écrite et littérature orale (leurs différences comme prémisses pour une théorie postulée de l'adaptation filmique d'oeuvres littéraires." In Actes du Ve Congrès de l'Association Internationale de Litterature Comparee. Ed. Nikola Banasevic. Belgrade and Amsterdam: Beogradski Grafiki Zavod and Swets & Zeitling