Abstract
Romanticism does two contradictory things to the notion of authorship. The notion of ‘oral epic’ is prima facie an oxymoron. Hasanaginica and its extraordinary reception trajectory demonstrates how the preoccupation with ‘nationally’ authentic popular culture was in fact a matter of transnational networks and European taste. This chapter first presents the case itself, and then situates it on the pre-romantic connection between ‘ancient epic’ and ‘oral fragment’. It suggests how these issues can be traced across a network of philologists and literati that reaches back from romantics like Merimee, Karadzic and Grimm to Herder, Macpherson, and ultimately Vico. The chapter illustrates a specimen of a local ballad, about the tragic fate of the wife of Hasan-Aga, a local warlord. The influence of Vico over romantic historicism by way of Herder is discussed. Keywords:Hasanaginica; oral epic; romantic historicism
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