Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

William Whallon. "Old Testament Poetry and Homeric Epic." Comparative Literature, 18:113-31.

Argues (1) that Old Testament and Homeric poetry are oral-formulaic, recalling the functional equivalence among the OT word-pair, AG formulaic epithet, and OE kenning from Whallon 1963; (2) that the proper context of many OT phrases is oral traditional; (3) that OT poetry has a single, uniform style ascribable to oral tradition; and (4) that "on the basis of style, the Hebraic mind or world view cannot be distinguished from the intelligence behind the Odyssey or Iliad" (113).
Area: BI, HB, AG, CP