Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

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