Oral Narrative Process and the Use of Models

Abstract

MAGE, THE BASIC MATERIAL of oral narrative art forms, mediates between audience and reality. It is so constructed and manipulated in performance that it shapes the audience's perception of the real. Image is composed of words that are given a unique framework by means of rhythm, for example, and intonation and gesture, by body movement which tends to dance, verbal drama which tends to song. Image is a visualized action or set of actions evoked in the minds of the audience by verbal and nonverbal elements arranged by the performer, requiring a common experience of images held by both artist and audience, the artist seeking by a judicious and artistic use of images to shape that experience and to give it meaning. The performer can have little effect on his audience if its members do not share with him certain experiences of traditional images; he depends on those common experiences, for the oral narrative is a communion between artist and audience on the one hand and the con-