De l’oralité à l’écriture la poésie orale dans le théâtre macédonien « du quotidien »

Abstract

It is difficult to establish the origin of Slavic oral poetry. There is a lack of documents concerning the settlement of Slavs in the Balkans. At the origin of this art there is a syncretism of rhythms of work, of bodies (dance), of melody and of words. Then, under the influence of different periods of social development, a gradual separation of elements occurs.Singing is dissociated from work, the text takes a more and more important place in songs, choruses appear, then one soloist emerges in the chorus: the coryphée. Then the chorus splits up into epic singing and poetic dialogues (lyrical singing). One singer who is at the same time musician and dancer, turns to singer-poet. Music is dissociated from dance and singing from music. Words (text) are separated from singing.These stages are also those of the evolution of traditional, feudal and patriarchal societies. Orality gets supplanted by writing, leaving however definite marks of the passage from one to another in different modes of literary expression. We shall focus our interest on theatre, more precisely on Macedonian theatre of ‘life’ or of the ‘quotidian’ (1848-1950) which is on half-way between oral and written expression. We shall study modalities of insertion of oral poetry, i.e. of short forms, into dramatic texts, not for illustrating the point nor to camp the setting, but as integral part of narrative discourse and its structure.