Edited by Mary Louise Lord after the author's death, The Singer
Resumes the Tale focuses on the performance of stories and poems
within settings that range from ancient Greek palaces to Latvian
villages. Lord expounds and develops his approach to oral literature
in this book, responds systematically for the first time to
criticisms of oral theory, and extends his methods to the analysis of
lyric poems. He also considers the implications of the transitional
text - a work made up of both oral and literary components.
Elements of the oral tradition - the practice of storytelling in
prose or verse, the art of composing and transmitting songs, the
content of these texts, the kinds of songs composed, and the poetics
of oral literature - are discussed in the light of several
traditions, beginning in the ancient world, through the Middle Ages,
to the present. Throughout, the central figure is always the singer.
Homer, the Beowulf poet, women who perform lyric songs, tellers of
folktales, singers of such ballads as "Barbara Allen," bards of the
Balkans: all play prominent roles in Lord's book, as they have played
central roles in the creation of this fundamental literature.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-252) and index.
Foreword / Gregory Nagy -- Preface / Mary Louise Lord -- 1. The
Nature and Kinds of Oral Literature -- 2. Oral Traditional Lyric
Poetry -- 3. Homer and the Muses: Oral Traditional Poetics, a Mythic
Episode, and Arming Scenes in the Iliad -- 4. Beowulf and Oral Epic
Tradition -- 5. The Formula in Anglo-Saxon Poetry -- 6. The Theme in
Anglo-Saxon Poetry -- 7. The Ballad: Textual Stability, Variation,
and Memorization -- 8. Rebuttal -- 9. Two Versions of the Theme of
the Overnight Visit in The Wedding of Smailagic Meho -- 10. The
Transitional Text.
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