Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Gabriel Germain. "Du Conte à l'épopée: l'exemple de l'Odyssée." In L'Epopée vivante, a special issue of La Table ronde, 132:77-88.

Treats the continuing influence of folktales in the oral epic narrative of the Odyssey, which he believes owes a good deal developmentally to antecedent contes merveilleux. Especially with respect to characterization, which evolves out of generic types in the folktale toward highly wrought personages in the epic, "il se pourrait donc que l'Odyssée représente un cas assez rare d'invasion folklorique massive dans l'épopée" (p. 86).
Area: AG, FK