Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

John Gardner. The Construction of Christian Poetry in Old English. Literary Structures. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press.

In urging his conviction that OE poets were fully literate and acquainted intimately with classical and "native" rhetoric, he lambastes oral-formulaic theory (espec. pp. 123-25). Because of its literary sophistication he feels he "must throw out as unthinkable the notion that this poetry was orally composed; but there can be no doubt that, though written down from the first line forward, poems like Beowulf borrowed traditional oral devices" (pp. 124-25). Largely an untutored, careless exposition.
Area: OE