An Assessment of Narrative Genres in Kurdish Folklore (Epos, Bayt and Narrative Songs)

Abstract

In recent years, Kurdish folklore has seen extensive research and significant progress in analysis and classification. However, despite the magnitude and abundance of Kurdish folklore, scientific studies on the definition, differentiation, and determination of literary boundaries in oral literature genres have been inadequate. The most problematic issue in studies on Kurdish folklore has been the identification of specific genres and what to call them. The narrative genres are especially prone to obfuscate definitive genres and literary boundaries. Narrative types are long Kurdish narratives: epos (epic), bayt (with metres), and narrative songs (storytelling). Although the narrative types are divided into plain verse, plain prose, and verse-prose, plain prose is not examined in this article the aim of which is to introduce narrative genres per se, determine their literary boundaries, and reveal their characteristics. For this, the forms of epos, bayt, and narrative songs are compared and their similarities and differences are determined in terms of content, shape, performer, motif, theme, geography, and cultural region.