Oral Epic Tradition Research Articles

Синьцзян-ойратские сказители: хранители эпической традиции «Джангара»

Introduction. Despite quite a number of Jangar-related issues have been duly studied, questions pertaining to existence, continuity (transmission) and preservation of the Xinjiang Oirat epic tradition, biographies of jangarchis and their repertoires remain somewhat insufficiently answered by Russia-based folklorists and, thus, seem as relevant enough. Goals. The article attempts an academic insight into the storytelling tradition of Xinjiang Oirat jangarchis, considers geographical borders of the epic, determines the role of a storyteller as bearer, keeper and performer of the epic heritage inherent to China’s Oirats. Materials and methods. The descriptive and comparative methods prove most instrumental in exploring the storytelling tradition of Xinjiang Oirats. The narratives examined are related editions in Oirat (Clear Script), Mongolian, and Kalmyk. Conclusions. Analysis of the Xinjiang Oirat storytelling tradition shows that the Jangar Epic was widely present in all ethnic groups of Xinjiang Oirats — the Torghut, Olet, Tsakhar, Khoshut, Zakhchins, and Uryankhai — throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, each population to have had renown jangarchis of their own with extensive repertoires numbering at least ten (and more) Jangar epic songs. The identified lines and patterns of transmission were clan-oriented. So, many jangarchis learnt epic narratives from storytellers of their clan — fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and brothers. The epic tradition was also contributed to by talented female storytellers who — having been unable to participate in meetings and contests since women were traditionally banned from epic storytelling — would recite texts in the family circle and teach storytelling to their children and grandchildren. In mid-to-late 20th century, the Xinjiang Oirat oral epic tradition started being paralleled by a written one.

Синьцзян-ойратские сказители: хранители эпической традиции «Джангара»

Introduction. Despite quite a number of Jangar-related issues have been duly studied, questions pertaining to existence, continuity (transmission) and preservation of the Xinjiang Oirat epic tradition, biographies of jangarchis and their repertoires remain somewhat insufficiently answered by Russia-based folklorists and, thus, seem as relevant enough. Goals. The article attempts an academic insight into the storytelling tradition of Xinjiang Oirat jangarchis, considers geographical borders of the epic, determines the role of a storyteller as bearer, keeper and performer of the epic heritage inherent to China’s Oirats. Materials and methods. The descriptive and comparative methods prove most instrumental in exploring the storytelling tradition of Xinjiang Oirats. The narratives examined are related editions in Oirat (Clear Script), Mongolian, and Kalmyk. Conclusions. Analysis of the Xinjiang Oirat storytelling tradition shows that the Jangar Epic was widely present in all ethnic groups of Xinjiang Oirats — the Torghut, Olet, Tsakhar, Khoshut, Zakhchins, and Uryankhai — throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, each population to have had renown jangarchis of their own with extensive repertoires numbering at least ten (and more) Jangar epic songs. The identified lines and patterns of transmission were clan-oriented. So, many jangarchis learnt epic narratives from storytellers of their clan — fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and brothers. The epic tradition was also contributed to by talented female storytellers who — having been unable to participate in meetings and contests since women were traditionally banned from epic storytelling — would recite texts in the family circle and teach storytelling to their children and grandchildren. In mid-to-late 20th century, the Xinjiang Oirat oral epic tradition started being paralleled by a written one.

Жыраулар поэтикасындағы «шынайы адам» концептісі

Zhyrau are Akyns – storytellers of a special art who create and disseminate the oral poetic creations of the people. The oral epic tradition existed in ancient Greece, Arabia, among the Turkic peoples and until the 40-50s of the XX century – in Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. The main feature of the Zhyrau poetic tradition is that the legends are passed down from generation to generation orally rather than in writing. The worldview in Zhyrau poetry is determined by universal human values such as life and death, joy and sorrow, homeland, which are revealed in the conceptual intentions of the national consciousness, namely the concepts of a perfect human being, the creation of the world and the fatherland.The article is devoted to the understanding of Sufism in the work of Kazakh zhyrau, especially the numerous zhyrau of Western Kazakhstan. The authors note that in the study of Sufism there are still no systematic studies that show the role of Sufism in the spiritual and moral development of a person, his cultural and intellectual development. Among the European scholars to whom the authors refer, there are contradictory opinions about the main postulates of Sufism.The authors state that the concept of ‘kamili insan’, a perfect person, is one of the main purposes of the teachings of Sufism, the attainment of full human individuality through spiritual purification, asceticism and a person’s rejection of material values. In addition, other important terms of Sufism such as zіkіr, pіkіr etu, shukіr etu, taubaga kelu, taglym, and iman are subjected to philosophical, theological, historical, cultural and semantic analysis in the article. Poetic texts of zhyrau-akyns served as illustrative material for this analysis.

Sibinjanin Janko i Kosovo - istorija, tradicija i legenda

The aim of the paper was to provide historical background of the so-called second battle of Kosovo that has occurred in October 1448, as well as the oral tradition that came out from the battle. In the battle, Janos Hunyadi (Sibinjanin Janko in the Serbian oral epic tradition) fought and lost against the Turks at the very same place where prince Lazar had encountered the same enemy in 1389. From the historical point of view, the most important facts about this event are the following: Hunyadi led the army of Hungarians, Czechs, Germans, Poles and other Christians who had encountered the Ottoman army of Sultan Murat II; the Christians were defeated; Janko's nephew Szekely Janos lost his life; and Hunyadi himself escaped. Later on, Hunyadi became one of the most prominent heroes of the Serbian folk tradition and epic songs about heroic deeds. Beside him, Janos Szekely, who governed Slavonia and Croatia also become an epic legend, under the name of Sekula Banović. A part of the tradition of the battle of Varna, which took place in the year 1444, also came into the tradition of the Kosovo battle, from which emerged one complex oral memory of the heroic fights against the Ottoman conquerors. Even though there are a lot historically vague facts, even a lot of fictional characters, the tradition of Hunyadi's valiant clashes with the Turks on the field of Kosovo has remained and survived through different epochs.

Motyw winy Heleny w tradycji epickiej i w dyskursie

The paper takes up the issue of Helen’s guilt for the outbreak of the Trojan war present in the Iliad and in the oral epic tradition. It puts forward a thesis that in order to blame others or to free themselves from blame epic heroes employ the typical in oral culture technique of conducting disputes. Like other characters in the Iliad, Helen, is also under constant social pressure which seeks to find her guilty and, in effect, to activate a mechanism of making a scapegoat of her. To defend herself, she risks self-accusations in order to make it impossible for other people to bring a charge against her. Helen cares about her good opinion in the Trojan society and particularly in the circle of women.

Kobzar Songs and Dumy of the 1930s – 1950s: Between Amateurism and Folk Tradition

The analysis of the authors’ songs and dumy, created by kobzars and lirnyky in the 1930s – 1950s is submitted in the article. The materials for the analysis include the sound records preserving in the IASFE record library. The recordings have been made in expeditionary and studio conditions. This study is aimed at the ascertaining the affinity of these works with folklore and the reason why they have not become an organic part of the oral epic and song tradition. The events of the 20th century are glorified in most of these works: the so-called October Revolution, Civil and Patriotic War, a happy collective farm life and the outstanding socialism projects. The performers have glorified the leaders Lenin and Stalin, the Soviet army, the «great» achievements of the Soviet government, the reunification of Ukrainian lands in 1939, etc. The Bolsheviks have tried by all means to place kobzars at the service of Soviet power and made them create «new heroic Soviet epos». This is the beginning of the tragedy of Ukrainian kobzarstvo and the destruction of the kobzar tradition. The kobzars Yehor Movchan and Volodymyr Perepeliuk have been endowed with a special musical talent. The events of the Second World War are covered in many works by Yehor Movchan. The duma On the Events in the Village of Protopopiv refers to the shooting of the villagers and the forcible deportation of young people to Germany. The author has used successfully folk melody and the structure of dumy. It includes the beginning, the ending, multiple repetitions, free meter. However, the text of the duma itself has nothing common with the oral epic tradition. This is indicated by the absence of folklore formulas in it, their replacement by newspaper stamps of the Soviet period. Therefore, despite its musical affinity with the Ukrainian folk epos, duma is still of artificial and literary nature, resembling an agitation leaflet in style. Though Yehor Movchan other songs are close to the folklore tradition, they have not become its property because of a completely opposite content to folk works. They have glorified and exalted what the people satirize and curse. The events poetized in them have contradicted the historical truth. The heritage of Hryhorii Ilchenko is a typical example of an «artificial fabrication of a new epos» in order to create the so-called «Soviet people’s dumy». His repertoire is marked by a large number of created for the stage specially original songs that have nothing common with folk epics. In particular, such forgery of folklore is A Duma on a Widowed Mother. The mechanisms of duma creation are described in the article. All this is only a superficial pastiche of folklore, primitive and artificial. The same applies to the ballads by Volodymyr Perepeliuk. Thus, most of the authors songs have quite an indirect relation to the oral folk tradition. That’s why they haven’t become and can’t become its property.

중앙아시아 구전 서사시 전통에서 카자흐 아큰이 포괄하는 의미와 다중적 사회기능

고대 서사시 전통을 현재까지 원형상태로 이어오고 있는 카자흐스탄의 소리꾼 아큰에 관한 본 연구는 근현대 문학에 내재 된 국내 서사시 원형 연구에도 이바지할 것이라는 가설에서 시작되었다. 그것은 쥐르문스키가 주장한 국가나 민족 간에 문화는 끊임없이 반복적으로 상호작용한다는 관점에 기반한 것이다.BR 아큰 예술의 중요한 특징 중의 하나는 투르크 소리꾼 전통에서 특별한 의미를 지닌 “즉흥성”이다. 그것은 한국의 마당놀이 전통에서 볼 수 있듯이 연주 내내 청중과 긴밀하게 소통할 수 있는 그들만의 기법이다. 그러나 아큰은 노래 이외에 여러 가지 사회적 역할을 담당하고 있다. 아큰은 서사시로 겨루기(айтыс)를 치러야 하는 소리꾼이지만 각 종족의 대표선수이자 대변자이기 때문이다. 모든 아큰은 자신의 종족을 찬양하고 상대방 종족의 약점들을 찾아내어 그것을 공격해야 한다. 하지만 종족 간의 겨루기는 오히려 자신들의 약점을 뒤돌아볼 수 있게 하는 자체 정화 기능이 있다. 또한, 겨루기는 공정함을 강조하고 반목을 배척하는 공동체 정신을 함양하고, 관객이 배워야 할 내용도 환기한다는 점에서 학교의 기능을 담당하고 있다. 이 점에서 아큰의 서사시는 사회악을 자율적으로 제재하는 미학적 공권력의 수단이 되고 있다. 그것은 사회정의를 확립하는 틀이기도 하다. 여기에 카자흐 명창으로 꼽을 수 있는 아큰들의 미학적 기능이 작동해왔음을 가늠할 수 있다.

Oral Epics Along the Silk Road: The Turkic Traditions of Xinjiang

Along the Silk Road(s) from north-western China (Xinjiang) to western Anatolia we find a number of shared oral epic traditions. For many oral epics a continuous line from the Uyghurs of Xinjiang to...

The folk song аs the most important component at the Turkmen epic art

Складывавшийся на протяжении тысячелетий духовный и культурный потенциал туркменского народа воплотился в творениях народного творчества, произведениях музыкального и художественного искусства. Яркую страницу в богатом наследии туркмен представляет живая эпическая традиция, носителями которой являются бахши-дестанчи. До сегодняшнего во всех уголках Туркменистана слушатели с большим воодушевлением воспринимают выступления эпических сказителей, в репертуаре которых сохранились многочисленные народные дестаны, а также главы монументальной героической эпопеи «Гёроглы».Цель статьи – проследить исторические предпосылки зарождения и пути формирования эпических жанров туркмен. Представленный в работе историко-хронологический метод исследования позволяет воссоздать общую панораму развития туркменского эпического сказительства, дать характеристику сказительского искусства в его современном бытовании, а также выявить значение народной песни, являющейся движущей силой туркменских эпосов и дестанов. Эпическая песня концентрирует в себе весь контекст жанра. Суть эпического интонирования проступает в мелодике народной песни и исполнительских особенностях бахши-дестанчи. Отличительная для каждой локальной школы манера исполнения эпоса придает искусству туркменских сказителей стилистическое разнообразие и обогащает его самобытными красками. Стиль каждого дестанчи глубоко индивидуален, вместе с тем, он прочно связан с незыблемыми исполнительскими традициями. При всем стилевом многообразии, структурная основа песен, их месторасположение в сказании и драматургическое развитие, а также традиционные прозаические формулы и поэтические повторы-клише, специфические гортанные украшения исполнителей свидетельствуют о близости устной традиции различных эпических школ. Преемственность основных компонентов музыки и стиля влияет на наследование музыкального напева от наставника, что также говорит о прочной опоре сказителя на складывавшуюся столетиями традицию. Она не препятствует проявлению индивидуального начала, но удерживает исполнителя в четко ограниченном русле. Поэтому, исполнение эпоса считают его воссозданием в пределах музыкально-стилевой традиции. Как видим, развитие эпической песни, а также живое бытование туркменского эпоса движет и поддерживает традиция. Пока есть традиция, существует и эпическое наследие туркмен. The spiritual and cultural potential of the Turkmen people, which has been developing for thousands of years, has been embodied in the works of folk art and music. A living epic tradition represented by bakhshi-destanchi is a bright page in the rich heritage of the Turkmen people. Until today, in all corners of Turkmenistan, listeners feel very enthusiastic about the performances of epic storytellers. Their repertoire includes numerous folk destans, as well as the chapters from the monumental heroic epic “Gorogly”.The purpose of the article is to trace the historical background of the origin and formation of Turkmen epic genres. The historical and chronological research methodology recreates the general panorama of the development of the Turkmen epic storytelling, characterizes this art in its modern existence, and identifies the importance of folk songs, which are the driving force of Turkmen epics and destans. The epic song focuses on the whole context of the genre. The essence of epic intonation comes through the folk melodies and features of bakhshi-destanchi performance. The distinctive style of local schools’ epic performance enriches the art of Turkmen storytellers with stylistic diversity and original colors. The style of each destanchi is deeply personal; however, it is closely connected to the sacred performance traditions. With all stylistic diversity, the structural basis of the songs, their location in the legend and dramatic development, as well as traditional prose formulas and poetic repetitions-clichés, performers’ specific faucal decorations indicate the proximity of various schools to the oral epic traditions. The continuity of the main components of music and style affects the inheritance of the musical tune from their master, which also speaks of the century-old traditional basis of the narrator. It does not prevent the manifestation of the individual beginning, but it keeps the performer in a clearly limited channel. Therefore, the performance of the epic is its reconstruction within the musical and stylistic tradition. As you can see, the development of the epic song, as well as the living existence of the Turkmen epic, moves and supports the tradition. While there is a tradition, the Turkmen epic heritage continues to exist.

A case study of linguistic parallelism in Sakha epos

The article discusses the linguistic phenomenon of syntactic parallelism, which has prevalent occurrence in the epic poetry of the Sakha (Yakut) people. Although numerous studies on the language and poetics of Olonkho are available, this particular topic still remains largely understudied from a purely linguistic point of view. The article presents an attempt to fill in this lacuna. In order to achieve this goal, it presents a detailed case study of the occurrence and usage of syntactic parallelism in Innokentij Timofeev-Teploukhov’s Olonkho Kuruubaj Xaannaax Kulun Kullustuur “Badtempered Coltishly Frolicsome Hero” which is the first Olonkho recorded in a versified form. A detailed study of this Olonkho allows us to reveal and identify the main features of this striking phenomenon and organize them in a systematic way. In addition, some tentative reasons behind the emergence of this phenomenon in relation to oral epic tradition are offered.

ORAL EPIC TRADITIONS IN CHINA

There have been rich oral epic traditions in China from the remote past, disseminated among ethnic minority peoples, with three dominant types, namely, heroic epics, creation epics, and origin epics. Scholarly works in epic studies can be traced back to a few centuries ago, with both foreign and domestic scholars’ involvement. Over the past two decades, a new paradigm in epic studies has been shifting from mainly literary concerns towards folkloristic researches in many directions, labelled by some scholars as a “paradigm shift of epic studies”

Fan fiction, early Greece, and the historicity of canon

The historicity of canon is considered with an emphasis on contemporary fan fiction and early Greek oral epic traditions. The essay explores the idea of canon by highlighting historical variance, exposing wider conceptual isomorphisms, and formulating a revised notion of canonicity. Based on an analysis of canon in early Greece, the discussion moves away from the idea of canon as a set of valued works and toward canon as a practice of containment in response to inherent states of surplus. This view of canon is applied to the practice of fan fiction, reestablishing the idea of canonicity in fluid production environments within a revised, historically specific understanding in early oral traditions on the one hand and in digital cultures and fan fiction on the other. Several examples of early epigraphic Greek texts embedded in oral environments are analyzed and assessed in terms of their implications for an understanding of fan fiction and its modern contexts.

The Sirat Bani Hilal Digital Archive

The primary purpose of the Sirat Bani Hilal Archive (http://www.siratbanihilal.ucsb.edu) is to preserve and make accessible online, to both scholars and the general public, materials related to the Arabic oral epic tradition of Sirat Bani Hilal (the epic of the Bani Hilal Bedouin tribe). The archive was created with the assistance of a yearlong Digital Innovation grant from the American Council of Learned Societies (2008-09) and is now a permanent collection in the holdings of the Davidson Research Library at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The core of the archive is a body of audio recordings, photographs, and field notes from research conducted by Dwight F. Reynolds (Professor, Arabic Language and Literature, UCSB) in Egypt in 1982-83, 1986-87, 1988, 1993, and 1995.1

Монологизам или дијалогизам епског гласа: хегелијанске и функционалне теорије епског жанра

This article advocates for the reconsideration of some of the most influential theoretical discussions on epic and its generic features, such as those offered by Hegel, Lukacs and Bakhtin. The Hegelian approach to epic, it is argued, also informed later scholars, such as the Chadwicks or Bowra, to posit an evolutionary model that considers oral traditions without long poems as somewhat inferior to Ancient Greek or Vedic, and to require a more complex and advanced social and national framework as the prerequisite for the birth of such long epics as the true realisation and embodiment of epic genre. As I will argue further, these generic distinctions were mostly formulated on a rather small sample of Homeric epics, and the material collected from various oral traditions in more recent times clearly shows the limitations of the earlier theoretical models. I will therefore advocate for a more inclusive, functional generic definition that takes into consideration the specific context in which epic functions in a particular oral tradition. The last section of this paper offers some implications of the theoretical discussion on the Serbian oral epic tradition, in particular to implicitly Hegelian national-romantic attempts to unify short separate songs about Kosovo or Marko Kraljevic into great Iliad-like epic poems.

Challenges in Comparative Oral Epic

Challenges in Comparative Oral Epic John Miles Foley (bio) and Chao Gejin (bio) Introduction (by Chao Gejin, November 2012) The present paper was composed by the late John Miles Foley and myself more than ten years ago, during the time I held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Missouri granted by the Ford Foundation. We met frequently on campus, discussing issues covering a wide range of topics, especially oral epic traditions. During these conversations, we recognized the need to write something in response to significant challenges in epic studies that would illustrate the richness and diversity of epic traditions in particular. With these goals in mind, we started to work on this piece together two or three afternoons each week throughout the summer of 2001, sitting side by side, composing paragraph by paragraph, and incorporating examples and scholarship from our respective experiences and backgrounds. We moved forward steadily and eventually fulfilled our plan. A Chinese version of this article appeared in 2003 in a collection of papers focusing especially on Oriental Literature.1 At the time, it provoked reflections on basic dimensions of epic poetry and, furthermore, facilitated multiple ways of understanding epic, moving beyond a purely Homeric criterion of epic poetry. At a personal level as well as professional, I highly regard this paper because it reflects both our long-term friendship and our common interests. John made his first trip to China soon after I returned to Beijing. He delivered lectures in our institute, conducted field trips to Inner Mongolia, and visited a number of scholars working on related research. As a result of these early collaborations, his own compositions began to include additional Mongolian examples, such as the singers Choibang and Losor, among others. From then on, he visited China regularly. He was the first speaker to initiate the yearly “IEL International Seminar Series on Epic Studies and Oral Tradition Research,” and he held appointments within the Institute of Ethnic Literature, most notably as chief advisor of the “Center for Oral Tradition Research.” It was a great misfortune that our newly designed program on oral tradition and the Internet with partners in Missouri, Helsinki, and Beijing was interrupted by John’s unexpected absence. Still, the blueprint of this international program will be followed and fulfilled without a doubt. His cutting-edge thoughts will continue to shed light on our explorations. In Mongolian epic tradition a true Baatar (“hero”) would never truly pass away. John is, by any measure, just such a Baatar, and he, too, shall be with us forever. An Overview of the Study In this paper we propose to examine some fundamental issues in comparative oral epic. Our investigation will proceed across four epic traditions widely separated in space and time. Two of them, the Mongolian and South Slavic epic, are or were recently still living and therefore observable by fieldworkers. The other two, the ancient Greek and Old English epic traditions, are preserved only in manuscript form. Although no comparative treatment can ever claim to be exhaustive or universal, we feel that these four witnesses represent considerable diversity and collectively offer a chance to forge a suitably nuanced model for oral epic. We welcome responses from scholars in other fields, especially Africanists, as we all search for ways to understand the international phenomenon of oral epic.2 In order to provide a clear path through this complex subject, we propose a five-section structure, with each section keyed by a question that reflects an issue of contemporary importance. Thus the paper will begin by asking “What is a poem in oral epic tradition?” Scholars have argued from many different perspectives about the large-scale organization of oral epic; are the smaller tales integral parts of a single whole, facets of a single gemstone, or simply individual narratives that collectors have assembled into “anthologies” based on a literary model? On a slightly smaller scale, we will then consider the question of “What is a typical scene or theme in oral epic tradition?” The focus here will be on those recurrent passages, such as the arming of a hero or the boast before battle, that epic bards use as “large words” in their tale-telling...

Rethinking the Orality-Literacy Paradigm in Musicology

literacy-orality problematic, which has been debated from Plato to Postman, has focused on how the visuality of the literary medium affects the aurality of the oral medium. Recent research by John Miles Foley has addressed the particular advantages in using the most modern technology of the Internet to simulate and explore the oldest technology of orality, thereby calling into question our continued reliance on textually based media in orality research when electronic media provide a more effective vehicle for scholarly investigations into oral forms. 1 But how does this discussion relate specifically to the act of music-making? Is there an interface between a musical orality and a musical literacy? Musicologists have treated the question of the musical dimension of orality in such works as Yoshiko Tokumaru and Osamu Yamaguti’s The Oral and the Literate in Music (1986), Stephen Erdely’s research on the musical dimension of Bosnian epics (1995), Bruno Nettl’s collection of cross cultural research on the topic of improvisation (1998), Karl Reichl’s compilation of music research in a wide-ranging number of oral epic traditions (2000), and Paul Austerlitz’s work on the “consciousness” of jazz (2005), but less attention has been given to the link between the visual technology of notation and its effect on the oral-aural processing of music. 2 Scholars of medieval music have been at the forefront in addressing the connection between oral performance and the emergence of notation. Leo Treitler’s work during the latter half of the twentieth century that considered the visual-aural link in medieval music was groundbreaking, culminating in the recent collection of seventeen of his foundational essays on medieval chant (Treitler 2003). Seminal works by Susan Boynton (2003), Kenneth Levy (1998), Peter Jeffery (1992), and other medievalists have also contributed considerably to the discussion of orality and literacy in the music of the Middle Ages. In addition, Anna Maria Busse Berger’s recent book, Medieval Music and the Art of Memory (2005), highlights the change in performance practice and composition with changes in medieval notation practices (250-51). Busse Berger asks why musicologists have been slow to address the role of memory and notation in music, and then follows with a thorough and thought-provoking analysis of the interaction

The Tuzu Gesar Epic: Performance and Singers

The Tuzu Gesar Epic:Performance and Singers Wang Guoming (bio) Translated by Li Xianting Click for larger view View full resolution Wang Yongfu performing the Tuzu Gesar. Photo by Wang Guoming. The Uniqueness of the Tuzu Gesar Different minority groups have different versions of the Gesar epic. Their respective forms differ from the Tibetan version in content, structure, characters, events, and actual performances. This kind of variety is common in Asian oral epic traditions. The Tu people are a unique minority who reside in northwest China with a total population of 200,000. The Gesar epic of this group is found mainly in Tu communities in Gansu and Qinghai provinces. The Tuzu Gesar is performed as a combination of verse and prose. It also shows some differences from the Anduo dialects of Tibetan. As a result of phonetic changes, the Tuzu Gesar has its own structure and follows strict procedures and performance rules. Many native scholars and experts have studied this tradition. Click for larger view View full resolution For a long time, the Gesar epic performances have mixed stories, myths, proverbs, and quotations through the medium of prose and verse, as well as combinations of chanting and recitative. The Tu people have no written language, and more and more performers are passing away. Currently Wang Yongfu, who is 79 years old and lives in the Zhucha village, Tiantang town, in Tianzhu, is the only performer in China who can sing the entire Tuzu Gesar epic. The Combination of Verse and Prose Because Tuzu is a spoken language with no written system, the Tuzu Gesar is unique in its pattern and content. When performed, the verse sections are sung in Tibetan, and there is no limit on the order of rhymes and lines. After the Tibetan exposition, the performer then interprets the epic in the Tu language. Instead of explaining the action literally, he adds ancient Tuzu cultural stories, uniting the bilingual presentation. To represent the linguistic makeup of this material, I have adopted the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to make a complete and scientific record of the Tuzu Gesar, and have translated the result to both the Tibetan and the Mandarin languages. As for the prose part, I have recorded the sounds in IPA and translated it word-for-word into Mandarin. This process preserved the materials in original and scientifically sound form. In this way, the Tuzu Gesar is presented as a multi-ethnic production with rich Tu cultural characteristics. It reflects the great influence of the Tibetan Gesar on other ethnicities, and foregrounds and clarifies its unique content and pattern. The Tuzu Gesar fully illustrates the Tu people's creativity in dialogue with other ethnic cultures. How did the Tuzu Gesar develop its current performative pattern? There are two explanations. First, the Tu are a unique minority in northwest China. For centuries, they frequently communicated with other groups, including the Han, Tibetan, Hui, and Mongolian peoples. The Tu have been significantly influenced by other ethnic groups, and not only by their languages but also, to varying extents, by their customs, religion, literatures, and arts—especially by Tibetans. Tuzu folk literature consists mainly of various special myths, legends, folktales, narratives, ballads, proverbs, and fables, all of which are depictions of Tu social history. These have been passed down through oral performance, and the Tuzu Gesar is the most representative of the overall cultural heritage. Second, when initially introduced into the Tu area, the Tuzu Gesar was much the same as the Tibetan version, with verse and prose portions performed in Tibetan. In most cases, when an ethnic culture is introduced to other areas and peoples, it is changed and transformed by the folk performers who adapt it to their daily life, basic concepts, social environment, and aesthetic needs. In this way the transformed cultural product is appreciated for generations. Tu epic performers have imported Gesar into a mother-tongue tradition. Keeping the original Tibetan verses, the performers also added native heroic stories and other content with Tu cultural characteristics. Under such circumstances, the Tuzu Gesar circulated throughout the Tu area, and a Gesar version with unique characteristics developed and was passed down to the current era with its...

Théorie de l'oralité et analyse stratigraphique du texte homérique : le concept de « poème traditionnel »

Iliad and Odyssey as Traditional Poems The Oral-Theory and the stratigraphie analysis of the Homeric text are not truly incompatible. The only hermeneutic model that can adequately explain the genesis of the Iliad and the Odyssey is the concept of "traditional poem" as it was defined by Gilbert Murray. The "traditional poem" is a work which a specific culture sees as its primary pedagogical instrument, a canonic point of reference. Hence, this culture preserves it and hands it down over centuries but, at the same time, keeps adding to it and reworking it to make it always adequate to its needs, which inevitably change with the passing of time. An exhaustive demonstration of this assumption, tested with absolute philological rigor not only on the Homeric poems but also on the Bible and especially on some of its books, such as Judges, can be found in Murray s work The Rise of the Greek Epic, the first edition of which came out in 1907, the fourth in 1934. In my opinion, this work has too often been neglected by recent critics, unfortunately including scholars of the Parrian trend who, if they had taken it into account, would probably never have associated such penetrating analyses of the technique of oral epic poetry with such a banal solution of the Homeric Question (the Iliad and the Odyssey as extempore texts, a happy day dictated by a single rhapsode for a single registration). But how was this ever-growing traditional text progressively fixed within an archaic oral culture like that of Greece? Two alternative -or possibly even complementary- explanations come to mind: 1) The first and more obvious one was suggested by Murray himself: an ever broader and more complete stock of copies was used as a source for public recitations by individual bards, or especially renowned bardic schools, or some of the Panhellenic religious centers where rhapsodic contests were regularly held. If so, the Peisistratid edition would represent only one of the final links of the chain. 2) It cannot be ruled out, however, that the text may have been fixed also, or even completely, by memory. It is well known that most exponents of the oral school believe that the oral epic tradition was founded exclusively on improvisation, not memorization, and that the notion itself of a rigid text is peculiar to literary cultures. A decisive influence in this direction was exercised by the theorization proposed by M. Parry and A. Lord on the basis of their field investigations among Yugoslavian bards, exponents of a still living tradition. However, other, equally valid comparative evidence shows that, in some oral cultures, while improvisation is also practiced, especially prestigious songs are learned by heart and repeated rather faithfully. It is precisely this type of memorization that may have progressively developed from a certain period onward in specific milieus of Archaic Greece for the purpose of preserving the Iliad and the Odyssey more faithfully. These two ways of fixing the text can be regarded as either alternative or complementare: it is plausible that both were at work in different times and places, only to interact later under circumstances that it would be absurd to attempt to reconstruct in any but the most general terms. Different Homeric texts were gradually fixed in different places. Ours goes back to one or more of them. For a long time, recitations based on a canonic text must have coexisted with freer improvisations drawing on the stories of Achilles'1 Menis and Odysseus'1 Nostos.

"Reading" Homer through Oral Tradition

Twentieth-century research demonstrated that Homer's Iliad and Odyssey began as part of an ancient Greek oral tradition, and were passed down by word of mouth through generations of oral poets before and for some time after the invention of the alphabet. As the twenty-first century dawns, the modern (re)discovery of these unwritten origins is exerting an enormous influence on how we understand and teach the poems, presenting new answers to the ages-old "Homeric Question"–Who was Homer?–and suggesting comparisons with living oral epic traditions on five continents. By paying attention to the trademark structures and idiomatic values of Homer's language, the bequest of oral tradition, we can "read" the poems more faithfully. The perspective from oral tradition solves such stubborn and longstanding challenges as the heavy repetition of phrases and scenes, as well as the non-chronological order and anti-climactic ending of the Odyssey. Oral tradition can also show how Penelope emerges as a full-fledged hero–in some ways even more central a figure than her husband Odysseus.

Petar II Petrović Njegoš and Gjergj Fishta: Composers of National Epics

While most modern theorists of nationalism emphasize the role of intellectuals “creating nations out of nationalism” (Gellner, 1983) or imagining the community of nations (Anderson, 1991), I argue that another role of intellectuals may also be equally as valid: the role of the poet as adapting existing communities, and the trappings of those communities, into the shape and appearance of a modern nation. Using the examples of the Montenegrin poet Petar II Petrović Njegoš and the Albanian poet Gjergj Fishta and their epics The Mountain Wreath (1847) and The Highland Lute (1939), I argue the continuation of their literary epics to the oral epic traditions which formed an important basis for Montenegrin and Northern Albanian communities.