John Miles Foley offers an innovative and straightforward approach
to the structural analysis of oral and oral-derived traditional
texts. Professor Foley argues that to give the vast and complex
body ...of oral "literature" its due, we must first come to terms with
the endemic heterogeneity of traditional oral epics, with their
individual histories, genres, and documents, as well as both the
synchronic and diachronic aspects of their poetics. Until now, the
emphasis in studies of oral traditional works has been placed on
addressing the correspondences among traditions-shared structures
of "formula," "theme," and "story-pattern." Traditional Oral
Epic explores the incongruencies among traditions and focuses
on the qualities specific to certain oral and oral-derived works.
It is certain to inspire further research in this field.
The major purpose of this book is to illustrate and explain the fundamental similarities and correspondences between humankind's oldest and newest thought-technologies: oral tradition and the ...Internet. Despite superficial differences, both technologies are radically alike in depending not on static products but rather on continuous processes, not on "What?" but on "How do I get there?" In contrast to the fixed spatial organization of the page and book, the technologies of oral tradition and the Internet mime the way we think by processing along pathways within a network. In both media it's pathways--not things--that matter. _x000B__x000B_To illustrate these ideas, this volume is designed as a "morphing book," a collection of linked nodes that can be read in innumerable different ways. Doing nothing less fundamental than challenging the default medium of the linear book and page and all that they entail, Oral Tradition and the Internet shows readers that there are large, complex, wholly viable, alternative worlds of media-technology out there--if only they are willing to explore, to think outside the usual, culturally constructed categories. This "brick-and-mortar" book exists as an extension of The Pathways Project (http://pathwaysproject.org), an open-access online suite of chapter-nodes, linked websites, and multimedia all dedicated to exploring and demonstrating the dynamic relationship between oral tradition and Internet technology._x000B_
In recent decades, the evidence for an oral epic tradition in
ancient Greece has grown enormously along with our ever-increasing
awareness of worldwide oral traditions. John Foley here examines
the ...artistic implications that oral tradition holds for the
understanding of the Iliad and Odyssey in order
to establish a context for their original performance and
modern-day reception.
In Homer's Traditional Art , Foley addresses three
crucially interlocking areas that lead us to a fuller appreciation
of the Homeric poems. He first explores the reality of Homer as
their actual author, examining historical and comparative evidence
to propose that "Homer" is a legendary and anthropomorphic figure
rather than a real-life author. He next presents the poetic
tradition as a specialized and highly resonant language bristling
with idiomatic implication. Finally, he looks at Homer's overall
artistic achievement, showing that it is best evaluated via a
poetics aimed specifically at works that emerge from oral
tradition.
Along the way, Foley offers new perspectives on such topics as
characterization and personal interaction in the epics, the nature
of Penelope's heroism, the implications of feasting and lament, and
the problematic ending of the Odyssey . His comparative
references to the South Slavic oral epic open up new vistas on
Homer's language, narrative patterning, and identity.
Homer's Traditional Art represents a disentangling of
the interwoven strands of orality, textuality, and verbal art. It
shows how we can learn to appreciate how Homer's art succeeds not
in spite of the oral tradition in which it was composed but rather
through its unique agency.
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.
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