Context and the Emerging Story: Improvised Performance in Oral and Literate Societies
Thérèse de Vet
This article derives from recent fieldwork in Bali and offers an alternative methodology that may shed new light on the…
Welsh Saints’ Lives as Legendary Propaganda
Owain Edwards
Although some medieval legends may have naturally evolved from folklore, others, including the legend of St. David of Wales, are…
De-composition in Popular Elizabethan Playtexts: A Revalidation of the Multiple Versions of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet
Lene Petersen
Petersen addresses the ways in which Shakespeare’s early play-texts have been transmitted from the sixteenth century forward. With specific reference…
From Journalism to Gypsy Folk Song: The Road to Orality of an English Ballad
Tom Pettitt
This essay provides an ingenious analysis of indigenous and enduring folksongs within the Gypsy oral tradition in England. It traces…
When the Text Becomes the Teller: Apuleius and the Metamorphoses
Susan Gorman
This article analyzes Apuleius’ Metamorphoses and the ways in which it enacts storytelling on both a contextual and a formal…
A Spanish Bishop Remembers the Future: Oral Traditions and Purgatory in Julian of Toledo
Nancy P. Stork
Stork considers Bishop Julian of Toledo and his seventh-century creation of one of the most influential works on Purgatory, the…
The Authority of the Spoken Word: Speech Acts in Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Marie Nelson
This article begins by noting Mark Twain’s decision to invest in the Paige typesetting machine rather than Alexander Graham Bell’s…
Narrative Structure and Political Construction: The Epic at Work
Florence Goyet
This article explores the idea that the construction of meaning lies at the very foundation of oral or “oral-derived” texts,…
Of Time, Honor, and Memory: Oral Law in Albania
Fatos Tarifa
Former Albanian ambassador to the United States, Tarifa provides a historical account of the role of oral tradition in the…
