Oral Poetry Research Articles

Representations of Indian Ocean Ecologies, Heritage and Kinship in Banaadiri Fishing Poems and Owuor's The Dragonfly Sea

ABSTRACT This article brings Yvonne Owuor’s 2019 novel The Dragonfly Sea into conversation with nine Banaadiri fishing poems called geeraarro, a form of classical Somali oral poetry in the maanso category. I explore the ways in which ideas of labour, kinship, and cultural heritage are presented in the fishing poems created over generations by an Indian Ocean coastal community as compared to a novel based on an Indian Ocean Island community, written by a Kenyan writer, and published by a major US publishing house. Working through oral narrative structures, the novel and the poems explore the relationship between littoral communities and Indian Ocean ecologies. I model how the comparative analysis of radically different forms of literature can illuminate the relationship between story, poetry and ecological sensibility. It breaks down the barriers between orality and literacy through the use of a range of analytical approaches including close reading, close listening, textual and performance analysis.

Recognising Intertextuality in the Digital Corpus of Finnic Oral Poetry

While digital corpora have enabled new perspectives into the variation and continuums of human communication, they often pose problems related to implicit biases of the data and the limited reach of current methods in recognising similarity in linguistically complex data, especially in small languages. The digital corpus of historical Finnic oral poetry in alliterative tetrametre is characterised by significant poetic, linguistic and orthographic variation. At the extreme, a word may be written in hundreds of different ways. The current corpus comprises 189,189 poetic texts in six Finnic languages (Karelian, Ingrian, Votic, Estonian, Seto and Finnish) recorded in 1564–1957 by 5,287 recorders. It has a long curation history and significant bias towards some genres, poetic forms and regions that collectors have preferred. In this poetic tradition, an idea is typically expressed with several parallel, partly alternative poetic lines or motifs, and similar verse types may be used in different contexts. A manual attempt to find all the occurrences of widely used expressions or motifs in the corpus is an unattainable task. While the digital tools—starting from simple queries to more advanced methods—make it possible to aim at wider intertextual analyses, some part of relevant material is typically not reached. Thus, it becomes central to estimate the amount and quality of the relevant data that is not recognised with different methods. Here, we discuss two strategies for mapping intertextuality in the corpus: 1) proceeding with text queries and 2) recognising similar poetic lines computationally, based on string similarity. We compare these approaches with one another, and then proceed to compare theresults they yield with the existing type index and the results of manual early 20th-century research. While the methodological and theoretical foundations of this type of research no longer hold, and while our further interest lies in the intertextuality and variation rather than in the problematic concept of poem types, parts of earlier analyses may be used in evaluating the performance of digital approaches.

Folklore as a Medium for Cultural Renaissance in a Deculturised Society: Oral Poetry as Praxis

Every group of people bound together by common interest and purpose, whether literate or not, rural or urban, possesses a body of tradition and culture called folklore. This study fundamentally treats folklore as a medium for a cultural renaissance in deculturised African society. It explores the dearth of the traditional forms of knowledge that shape and give meaning to people's lives. Also, the study, through the analyses of some traditional African poetry, explores the dynamics of folklore on cultural education of values, morals, and the aesthetics of the culture of the people. Finally, the choice of oral poetry for cultural reaffirmation and the exploration of performance as a significant technique in oral tradition is presented in the discourse.

Arbor Mundi w tradycyjnej poezji ustnej z perspektywy staroislandzkiej i litewskiej

The article discusses the world tree as reflected in the Old Icelandic collection of poems the Poetic Edda and in Lithuanian folk songs. The author investigates the poetic diction of the selected sources of traditional oral poetry to disclose their symbolic meaning and connection to myth. The analysis focuses on the poetic manifestations of the world tree as a model of the cosmos and as an evergreen tree of life. The selected Eddic poems and Lithuanian folk songs reveal the significance of the world tree as a structural marker, which defines the relationship of the centre vs. periphery, i.e., the known (organised) vs. the unknown (chaotic) space. The emphasis on the tree’s upward orientation is viewed as an implication of its sacred status. The life-giving characteristics of the world tree are explored in relation to the image of dew, which symbolises the fertility and fecundity of nature in the Poetic Edda and the health and fertility of the bride in Lithuanian folk songs.

The life of Yäkolo-tämari in Gondär as Reflected in Contemporary Oral Poetry

ABSTRACT Oral poetry is an element of the cultural heritage of Gondär in Ethiopia. It formerly was a popular way for people to convey their inner thoughts, disappointments and observations. Using this untapped oral poetry collected through interviews in the community coupled with a life history study, this article attempts to analyse the lives and activities of yäkolo-tämari in the indigenous church education system in Gondär. Oral poetry collected through interviews was thematically categorised and analysed and was corroborated by the literature survey. It is found that the life of yäkolo-tämari is full of challenges that uplifted their dedication to new heights. Compared to students of ‘modern’ education, yäkolo-tämari encounters countless problems which affected their lives and educational careers. Nevertheless, the life of yäkolo-tämari is an ideal example of what it takes to achieve a purpose in life. Despite its historic contribution as the pioneer of education and knowledge production, traditional church education is not adequately supported by stakeholders. This historic institution is now endangered, with the number of students declining over time.

The comparative method in Adam Mickiewicz’s etymological ideas

In the fi rst half of the nineteenth century in his Paris lectures, Adam Mickiewicz defi ned the comparative method on three different levels: 1. cultural (the comparison of civilizations), 2. literary (the comparison of literatures) and 3. linguistic (the comparison of languages). However, it was language that became the principium comparationis, serving as the poet’s point of departure in all his major comparisons. Mickiewicz studied linguistics much more thoroughly than was necessary for the preparation of the lectures at the Collège de France. In the early 1840s, he became interested in the etymology of words. He expected this to enable him to discover the secrets of Slavic history and culture. As Mickiewicz claimed, it would be impossible to achieve on the basis of Slavic architecture and art, as they hardly existed, with the exception of oral poetry: fables, hymns, and legends. As with previous Slavic enthusiasts, Mickiewicz failed in his attempts at creating a mythos of this people’s former greatness and historic destiny based on its system of beliefs, for this very system could not be reconstructed. Accordingly, he tried to derive myth from language. Mickiewicz treated linguistics as the main means of comparing the roles that Slavs and other peoples played, or were supposed to play, in their history.

A Critique of Philosophical Shamanism

A Critique of Philosophical Shamanism

How to Read a Kopla? Comparative Cognitive Analysis of the Basque Kopla Zaharrak and the Moroccan Ayyus

ABSTRACT In this article, the author continues to apply cognitive reading to oral traditional poetry, addressing the kopla zaharra—a short improvisational poetic genre from the Basque Country that is now extinct. In order to understand how this genre once functioned, the author draws her experience in working with ayyu—a living poetic tradition from Morocco, which has a strikingly similar structure. The analysis sets out from the historical evidence showing that the kopla zaharra was indeed once an improvisational genre. She then explains the notions of frames, or topics or themes, and scripts, or possible scenarios manifested at least partly in form of formulaic language, which are triggered by these, to analyze the typical cognitive structure of the kopla zaharra. Her analysis shows that on the cognitive level the kopla zaharra offers a structure similar to the Moroccan ayyu, where the first two lines work to activate a frame and the last two lines generally complete a script. This confirms the conclusion that although ayyu and kopla zaharrak are separated by a wide cultural and linguistic rift, the cognitive mechanisms behind the process of their creation are highly analogous.

Lawino in the Library: Anthropology, Modernity, and the Profession of African Literature

AbstractThis essay examines the shadowy brokerage of literary and anthropological value during the era of decolonization and its connection to the institutionalizing of African literature. Drawing on original archival research, it recovers the conversation between the Ugandan poet Okot p'Bitek's major long poemSong of Lawinoand the Oxford Library of African Literature, a series of oral-literature anthologies edited by Okot's and Talal Asad's advisers at the Oxford Institute of Social Anthropology. Instead of reciprocating the series's temporal and hierarchical assumptions, which appropriate late modernist literary criticism's nostalgic veneration of the British past,Song of Lawinoreconfigures the protocols for the textual production of oral poetry by revising social anthropology's theories of time and matter. If accounts of the departmentalization of African literature portray it as a transfer of colonial paradigms to postcolonial contexts, this interfield account of the making ofSong of Lawinocalls for an alternative history.

The Physical Beauty of Women in Some Amharic Oral Poetry: Positive Look in Focus

The Physical Beauty of Women in Some Amharic Oral Poetry: Positive Look in Focus

Birds In The Words of Minstrels: Epics About Birds (A Comperative Review)

Türk sözlü şiir geleneğinin içerisinde yer alan âşık edebiyatının kökü İslamiyet öncesi sözlü kültür geleneğimizedayanmaktadır. Âşık tarzı şiir söyleme geleneğinde âşıkların irticalen şiir söylemesi, atışma yapabilmesi gibihususlar âşığın söz söylemedeki kabiliyetini göstermesi açısından öne çıkmaktadır. Âşıkların çeşitli meclislerdeözellikle âşık fasıllarında kendi yeteneklerini göstermeleri ve kendilerini kanıtlamaları gerekmektedir. Bumeclislerin bir parçası da âşıkların destan söyledikleri bölümdür. Âşıklar bu bölümde çeşitli konularda destanlarsöylemişlerdir. Çobanoğlu, âşık tarzı destanların konularına göre tasnifini yapmış, bunlardan bu çalışmadaincelenecek olan kuşlar hakkında söylenmiş/yazılmış destanlar bu tasnifin “Doğal Güzelliklerle İlgili Destanlar”başlığının altında yer alan “Hayvanlarla İlgili Destanlar” içinde yer almaktadır. Çalışmada geçmişten günümüzesöylenmiş/yazılmış “Kuşlar Destanı” metinleri bir araya getirilmiştir. Burada, öncelikle bu metinler şekil vemuhteva hususiyetleri yönlerinden tanıtılmıştır. Ardından destan metinleri karşılaştırmalı olarak değerlendirilmeksuretiyle âşıkların kuş destanlarını nasıl ve neden söyledikleri, bu metinlerin gelenek içinde nerede yer aldığı,âşığın kendi üslubunu gösterme ve kendi sanat gücünü kanıtlamada söylenen destanların rolü ortaya konulmayaçalışılmıştır. Çalışmada, daha önce Şükrü Elçin tarafından yayımlanmış olan Hengâmî’nin destanının bir eş metnibulunmuştur. Bu destan da çalışmanın sonunda metin tenkitli olarak yer almaktadır.

TOPONYMS OF THE UNIVERSE, CHANTING IT IN KYRGYZ POETRY, IN ORAL CREATIVITY AND IN FICTIONS

The study of the concept "Universe" is a topical issue of our time. The universe is a very interesting and mysterious object for mankind. There is no doubt that it is multifaceted, has its own laws and rules that are beyond the control of mankind. In this article, we will talk about the knowledge of the Kyrgyz about the universe, their views on its creation and existence, as well as how they sing about it in their works from time immemorial. For a more detailed study, let's compare and compare Kyrgyz oral works, poetry and fiction. In the course of our research, we find that the ability of the Kyrgyz to cognize the universe and discern its diversity is similar to many discoveries made in science. As a result of the study, we appreciate the ability of the ancient Kyrgyz to know the “universe” - “the world”, and we are aware of the rather large, rich life experience of our people.

A literary analysis of Yoruba-Ifá oral poetry and its implication for entertainment and cultural education in Nigeria

The article examines the potentials of Yoruba Ifá oral literature for entertainment and education, with an emphasis on the ways in which the desire for entertainment in narrative poetry can precede educational requirements. The study observes that Ifá narrative is an integral part of the complete Ifá divination process usually packaged in parable format. The inexhaustible nature of its source is affirmed by related studies done by Yoruba language and literature scholars. It is also observed that every attempt at translating any language to another often results in obliterating the imagery of the one being translated in the new presentation; hence, the study adopts the term transliteration. The literary stylistic devices employed in Ifá narratives are discussed; for easy reference, the study classifies the content of Ifá narratives into three principal genres; poetry, drama and music. This discourse is tailored to further appraise specific issues concerning the measurement and scoring Yoruba Ifá poetry using global parameters. The performance essence, as in dramaturgy, of the poetry is reserved for further investigation. Examples of Ese Ifá (Ifá verses) are subjected to repetition, parallelism and tonal counterpoint. The study affirms the applicability of Ifá oral literature to cartoon animation movies geared towards effective indigenization of the Yoruba child as a paradigm of the African child. The structure of the study is woven around folkism theory. The treatment adopts textual analysis in aesthetic evaluative style.

Piosenki – „poezja oralna cywilizacji przemysłowej”

Songs: “Oral Poetry of Industrial Civilization” The presented article poses a question about the limits of the art of lyricism, and more specifically about the methods of literary studies capturing certain specific or border phenomena that have emerged from it and gained an independent status, and the song/songs is one of such phenomena. Hence, the title of the study includes a quotation from an important work by Paul Zumthor, it is both the starting point and the thesis of the text. The thesis of the study is the judgment that songs can be called literature, provided that we clearly emphasize that they are not poetry, but oral poetry. It is a completely different entity from lyricism, it gained its own language, fully fledged in culture, it emerged from poetry, it evolved and became a new type of cultural text. The aim of the reflection is an attempt to take a closer look at this extraordinary adventure, which this evolution, and even revolution, has become, because it is the rapid expansion of rock music, the outbreak of counterculture in the second half of the 20th century, and with them – the incredible development of various types of songs. The article addresses, inter alia, the following issues: describes “helpful methodologies”, gives terminological suggestions and mentions the “technical” aspects of song studies. Selected examples of research perspectives are also given.

Singing to the Lyre in Renaissance Italy: Memory, Performance, and Oral Poetry. Blake Wilson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. xii + 474 pp. $135.

Singing to the Lyre in Renaissance Italy: Memory, Performance, and Oral Poetry. Blake Wilson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. xii + 474 pp. $135.

ORAL DISTILLATES AND POSTCOLONIAL TEMPER IN ADEMOLA DASYLVA’S SONGS OF ODAMOLUGBE

This paper engages the self-validating domain of orality as a valuable and potent field in the depiction of postcolonial Africa, in particular Nigeria. The paper accounts for orality as the authentic core of the mode of self-assertion, continued self-existence and the consistent (re)validation of how traditional societies structured their worldviews and cultural aesthetics. It argues that African writers still utilise the aesthetic provisions that their oral backcloth and oral past provide in the identification, (re)appraisal and the representation of the postcolonial situation in Africa. Engaging Ademola Dasylva’s Songs of Odamolugbe as primary text and data, the paper examines and explores features of Yoruba oral poetry and allied aggregates that the Yoruba traditional culture offers. This is clearly realized and apprehended in the crafting of the collection of poems and the overarching thematic foci and direction. These representations are captured within two extremes. Employing insights from postcolonial literary theory in its critique of the primary text, the paper situates the enervating frustrations, collapse of industry, economic inanities, atmosphere of fear, tensions, widespread underdevelopment, neocolonial excesses, prevalent hunger, deep-seated corruption and a general apathy to life and living as daily experienced in postcolonial Africa and Nigeria. As part of its finding, the paper attests that Dasylva’s Songs of Odamolugbe relishes a completed precolonial past where African communities maintained a communal cultural ownership of their existence and presided over their own affairs. It concludes that the poetry collection decries and rejects the morbid realities that characterize the postcolonial African experience.

Al᾽ eto ti Ljutice Bogdana - istorija i tradicija u tumačenjima jedne biografije

Among the songs from Vuk's collections, Ljutica Bogdan is best known as an opponent of Kraljević Marko. However, multiple lyrical-epic adaptations of international motives are connected to his name and family relations. In addition, older generations of scholars of Serbian oral poetry have sought to recognize the historical background from which Bogdan's character developed. On this occasion, a review of such approaches was presented. After the literary-historical synthesis, poems about Ljutica Bogdan were analyzed (older records, Vuk's corpus, material printed during the 19th century). The types of characterizations, conditioned by the poetics of the genre and the archaic layers of the Serbian tradition, which could give impulses for the construction of this poetic biography, are pointed out in this paper.

Жанрово-стилевое своеобразие украинской народной думы и вопросы ее современного изучения

Among the epic genres of Ukrainian folklore, duma occupies a special place. Genetically connected with such traditional genres as bylina (epic story), lamentation, spell and other earlier varieties of folk oral poetry, it spreads mainly in the 17th and 18th centuries. However, later, it continues to exist in folklore and actively influences the literary process that can be vividly observed in the works by Taras Shevchenko and other writers of the 19th century. Contemporary authors productively employ and develop characters, motifs and style profoundness of this ancient genre. Genesis of duma to our time remains an actual problem. Its persistence in the tradition of Kievan Rus culture has been pointed out by M. Maksymovych, M. Hrushevsky and other researchers. The poetics of dumas, particularly their artistic structure, has been explored quite substantially, although this research is far from exhaustive. What strikes one’s eye right from the first acquaintance with dumas is the non-strophic composition. This uninhibited verse flow, as if not limited by anything, distinctively echoes an unceasing flow of life. Resembling the dynamics of recreated highly dramatic events, it contributes to emotional expressiveness, as well as to meditative reflections of their poetic comprehension. At the same time, F. Kolessa, followed by other researchers, noticed more or less detached periods (tirades, fragments) of this generally free non-strophic flow. These periods clearly represent a specific structure of such verse. They principally have quite an appreciable prosodic tint in a musical text, and also their own specifics in a verbal text. This specificity — primarily by the example of concrete works — is expected to become the subject matter of thorough research. A subtle combination of long and shorter lines, alternation between diverse regular rhythms and no less diverse rhythms of a free, often queer nature — all this gives a particular vividness to the texts of dumas. These are the evidence of that uniqueness, which was discussed by T. Shevchenko in regard to Ukrainian duma, and to which many researchers drew our attention. However, this unquestionable uniqueness doesn’t contradict the genetic and typological bond of Ukrainian folk dumas and world epic tradition.

Необрядовая лирика народов Дагестана: сбор, изучение и публикация

The folklore of the peoples of Dagestan is distinguished by high artistic merit and diverse cognitive information. It has acquired special significance in recent years in connection with the increased interest of peoples in their historical and cultural origins, in ethnic traditions, as well as in connection with those ethnopolitical and ethnocultural processes of our time, which, as you know, are most intensively and ambiguously manifested in the Caucasus. The folklore monuments of the peoples of Dagestan vividly illustrate not only the closest interethnic ties within this region, but also the relationship and mutual influence with the oral and poetic creativity of other ethnic groups of the Caucasus: Abkhazians, Adygs (Adyghes, Kabardians, Circassians), Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Balkars and Karachais, Vainakhs (Chechens and Ingush), Georgians, Ossetians, Russians.The article deals with the issue of collecting, publishing and scientific analysis of one of the most developed and widespread areas of oral and poetic creativity of the peoples of Dagestan — non-ritual lyrics. Songs performed outside the rite belong precisely to that area of folklore, which among the peoples of Dagestan gives an uneven picture of development. The commonality of the poetic tradition and the figurative system of non-ritual lyrics does not exclude the originality of the oral poetry of a particular ethnic group, the presence of shades that highlight the originality of the folklore of the Avars, Dargins, Lezgins, Kumyks, Laks, etc.

Folk-religious views of nomadic «Sal-seri»

The «serilik» tradition is of great importance in the history of the cultural heritage of nomads, including the culture of the Kazakh people. «Sal-seriler» is the spiritual image of the Kazakh Steppe, which adheres to the traditions, has a universal human value, is rich in educational and educational heritage. The article considers the work of the Kazakh «Sal-Seri», which combines a wide variety of Arts in the history of the culture of the nation, the art of speech, that is, the art of poetry, singing, composition, improvisation, eloquence and eloquence on the basis of historical, cultural and literary sources. The scientific and creative work of the Masters of the word in the history of national literature, the culture of language, the system of artistic thinking, the national spirit and consciousness, and the national and spiritual values are presented philosophically. Most of the spiritual culture of the Kazakh people was repressed, banned, and the names of many prominent figures, cultists and followers of cultural traditions were forgotten. Their return to the people, their involvement in cultural life creates the need for a holistic understanding of the eternal spiritual values created by them, which has every reason to take its rightful place in universal culture. A huge role in the socio-political and spiritual life of Kazakhs of the XV-XIX centuries was played by representatives of oral poetry – poets, zhyrau, sal and seri. «Sal and Seri» through his work is a connecting beginning of the spiritual experience of the people, accumulating a repetition of the experience of previous generations. As a public figure, «Sal and seri», worried about the future, became enemies to all the authorities – both their rich and their colonialists. «Sal-seri», which expressed a progressive mood, reflected moral, ethical, sociocultural, philosophical and historical ideas and knowledge in a new way in their works, served as defenders of the interests of the people. If the artistic heritage of «Sal-Seri» is a special type of creativity, then their image is a vivid reflection of the national mentality.