Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Patricia Arant. "Formulaic Style and the Russian Bylina." Indiana Slavic Studies, 4:7-51.

Application of Parry-Lord theory to the bylina and a review of collections and singers. Finds a formula distinctive to the Russian tradition, with a syllabically irregular line, moveable caesura, much variation in the verbal component, an interplay between melody and meter, syntactic patterns, and syllable or word-groups around primary accents. Argues that "we can expect less possibility for exact repetition because of the loose verse structure" (18). From sample analyses she concludes that the half-line unit is more useful to the composing singer than the whole line. Studies the formulaic system and the "terrace" (after Austerlitz 1958), and offers revised concepts for formulaic structure sensitive to the bylina prosody: characteristics include fixed position of phrases, grammatical declension of phrases, key word substitution, syntactic parallelism,and acoustic patterns. The inaugural article on oral theory in Russian.
Area: RU