The Kalevala and the World's Traditional Epics (review)

Abstract

The Kalevala and World's Traditional Epics. Studia Fennica Folkloristica. Edited by Lauri Honko. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2002. When a folk-literary scholar, not herself an expert in poetry, digs into thick texture of this substantial volume on Kalevala and traditional epics, she is very soon enveloped in a quite rare elsewhere in folk-literary scholarship. Not only do scholars proudly proclaim elitism of their object of research, but they also imply that research of epics is an elite branch among varieties of folk-literary study. Most of them situate their research across boundary of literature and oral tradition. Their study is thus most pertinent to all who want to critically examine constructed dimension of category of folk literature in general, and specifically oral literature. One need only read a few stanzas or lines of any piece of poetry to sense poetic refinement and skill invested in creation of poetry. Only seldom does one encounter that level of sophistication in folk prose, and then only in specific forms of folktale that tend to straddle written-oral divide. I am reminded of a discussion I had with late editor of this volume, Lauri Honko, after we had been listening to a brilliant paper on urban legends delivered by one of our colleagues. Honko congratulated himself on having access to such textual riches as Finnish laments or South Indian epics, which he rated much higher than somewhat-in his eyes-banal oral narratives of modern urban cultures. The volume encompasses twenty-eight essays by twenty-seven authors. Honko himself contributed both a theoretical introductory essay and a more traditional comparative study of epics in eastern Baltic region. The essays break down thematically as follows: Kalevala across borders (five essays); European traditional epics (six essays); American and African traditional epics (two essays); Asian epics (six essays); and traditional epics of eastern Baltic region (nine essays). On whole they reflect intensified interest and common work done by scholars in last two decades, led and inspired by Honko himself through epic network he initiated within framework of Folklore Fellows International. Another important and leading figure in field is his close colleague John Miles Foley, founder and editor of Oral Tradition, who has contributed to volume an article that deals with metonymic character of oral with reference to an assumed pool of (113; cf. Honko, Textualizing Sin Epic [Folklore Fellows Communications 264], 1998; Textualization of Oral Epics, 2000). Although dynamics between persistence of traditional forms as textual rhetoric (120) and arena (121) may seem to be yet another refinement of competence-performance complex (e.g., Briggs, Competence in Performance: The Creativity of Tradition in Mexicano Verbal Art, 1998), Foley formulates astutely what seems to be at present a dominant intuition in studies: the old model of Great Divide between orality and literacy has entirely given way in most quarters, pointing toward accompanying demise of absolutist dichotomy of performance versus document (121). That may also provide generalizing perspective that makes this volume as a whole worthwhile reading for all folk-literary scholars and probably textual scholars, without distinguishing between genre and mode. Thus good or bad news, depending on one's point of view, or maybe no news at all, is fact that so-called Homeric question has definitely not disappeared or been rendered irrelevant by recent scholarship. In this sense assumption that A. B. Lord laid down in his Singer of Tales (1960), whereby oral-formulaic theory was to put an end to debate whether Iliad and Odyssey were textual culmination of an oral tradition of generations or rather stroke of a unique genius, Homer, has been disproved. …