Building on his work in Traditional Oral Epic and Immanent Art, the author aims to dissolve the perceived barrier between oral and written, creating a theory from oral-formulaic theory and the ethnography of speaking and ethnopoetics. He argues that a work's word-power derives from its performance and its implied traditional context.

Discusses the oral tradition as a theory of literary composition and its applications to Homeric and medieval epic.

P'ansori, the traditional oral narrative of Korea, is sung by a highly trained soloist to the accompaniment of complex drumming. The singer both narrates the story and dramatizes all the characters, male and female. Performances require as long as six hours and make extraordinary vocal demands. In the first book-length treatment in English of this remarkable art form, Pihl traces the history of p'ansori from its roots in shamanism and folktales through its nineteenth-century heyday under highly acclaimed masters and discusses its evolution in the twentieth century. After examining the place of p'ansori in popular entertainment and its textual tradition, he analyzes the nature of texts in the repertoire and explains the vocal and rhythmic techniques required to perform them. Pihl's superb translation of the alternately touching and comic "Song of Shim Ch'ong"—the first annotated English translation of a full p'ansori performance text—illustrates the emotional range, narrative variety, and technical complexity of p'ansori literature. The Korean Singer of Tales will interest not only Korean specialists, but also students of comparative literature, folklore, anthropology, and music.

When Jack Hitt set out to walk the 500 miles from France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, he submitted to the rigorous traditions of Europe's oldest form of packaged tour, a pilgrimage that has been walked by millions in the history of Christendom. Off the Road is an unforgettable exploration of the sites that people believe God once touched: the strange fortress said to contain the real secret Adam learned when he bit into the apple; the sites associated with the murderous monks known as the Knights Templar; and the places housing relics ranging from a vial of the Virgin Mary's milk to a sheet of Saint Bartholomew's skin. Along the way, Jack Hitt finds himself persevering by day and bunking down by night with an unlikely and colorful cast of fellow pilgrims -- a Flemish film crew, a drunken gypsy, a draconian Belgian air force officer, a man who speaks no languages, a one-legged pilgrim, and a Welsh family with a mule. In the day-to-day grind of walking under a hot Spanish sun, Jack Hitt and his cohorts not only find occasional good meals and dry shelter but they also stumble upon some fresh ideas about old-time zealotry and modern belief. Off the Road is an engaging and witty travel memoir of an offbeat journey through history that turns into a provocative rethinking of the past.

Greek and Roman epic poetry has always provided creative artists with a rich storehouse of themes: this volume is the first systematic attempt to chart its afterlife across a range of diverse performance traditions, with analysis ranging widely across time, place, genre, and academic and creative disciplines.

Textual criticism is vital to scholars of ancient sacred texts, whether they are studying the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Qur’an, or the scriptures of Hinduism, Buddhism, or Taoism. This book compares and contrasts the methodologies in different subfields and proposes a common ground for future textual scholarship.

Lincoln presents the writing of today's most gifted Native American authors, against an ethnographic background which should enable a growing number of readers to share his enthusiasm. Lincoln has lived with American Indians, knows them, and is respected by them; all this enhances his book.

"Discourse and Literature "boldly integrates the analysis of literature and non-literary genres in an innovative embracing study of discourse. Narrative, poetry, drama, myths, songs, letters, Biblical discourse and graffiti as well as stylistics and rhetorics are the topics treaded by twelve well-known specialists selected and introduced by Teun A. van Dijk.

This handbook offers the most comprehensive, analytic, and multidisciplinary study of oral traditions and folklore in Africa and the African Diaspora to date. Preeminent scholars Akintunde Akinyemi and Toyin Falola assemble a team of leading and rising stars across African Studies research to retrieve and renew the scholarship of oral traditions and folklore in Africa and the Diaspora just as critical concerns about their survival are pushed to the forefront of the field. With five sections on the central themes within orality and folklore – including engagement ranging from popular culture to technology, methods to pedagogy – this handbook is an indispensable resource to scholars, students, and practitioners of oral traditions and folklore preservation alike. This definitive reference is the first to provide detailed, systematic discussion, and up-to-date analysis of African oral traditions and folklore.

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.