Singer of Tales in Performance (Voices in Performance & Text S.) - Softcover

Foley, John Miles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0253209315 ISBN 13: 9780253209313

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 1995

Synopsis

Building on his work in "Traditional Oral Epic and Immanent Art", John Foley dissolves the perceived barrier between "oral" and "written," creating a composite theory from oral-formulaic theory and the ethnography of speaking and ethnopoetics. He argues that a work's "word-power" derives from its real performance and its implied traditional context. Foley applies the concept of word-power to a wide range of genres-including Serbian charms, the Homeric Hymns, and the Anglo-Saxon hagiography Andreas, uncovering the expressive roots of oral-derived traditional works to recover both the performance event and the traditional context.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Both living oral traditions and texts with roots in oral tradition share a context in which the speaker performs for an audience, either real or implied. John Foley argues that the methods and strategies of traditional oral expression-of 'the singer of tales'-persist into the realm of texts. This study dissolves the perceived barrier between 'oral' and 'written', creating a composite theory from oral-formulaic theory and the ethnography of speaking and ethnopoetics. Foley highlights both the idiom of the oral work, which is at once traditional and individual, and the realm of performance, which gives 'the tale' its expressive force.

Edition details

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0253209315
• ISBN 13: 9780253209313
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256