Oral Tradition

Oral Tradition

An open-access journal devoted to the study of the world’s oral traditions, past and present.

Volume 36, Number 1

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Editor’s Column

This latest issue of Oral Tradition arrives somewhat later than the editors had hoped. It took us some time to…

“It Has Not Yet Become Pacified”: Kings, Hunting, and the Murder of the Father in Sanskrit Epic

Emily Blanchard West

Oral Tradition, 36/1 (2023):3-36 The Mahābhārata and Ramāyaṇa present us with eight primary and embedded narratives in which an archer…

Type-Token Ratio and Entropy as Measures to Characterize a Forgery of Oral-Formulaic Epics

David L. Cooper, Demetry Ogoltsev, Michal Ondrejcek

Oral Tradition, 36/1 (2023):37-62  The Queen’s Court and Green Mountain Manuscripts (Rukopisy královédvorský a zelenohorský, together abbreviated “RKZ” in Czech)…

Driva Qele / Stealing Earth: Oral Accounts of the Volcanic Eruption of Nabukelevu (Mt. Washington), Kadavu Island (Fiji), ~2,500 Years Ago

By Loredana Lancini, Patrick Nunn, Meli Nanuku, Kaliopate Tavola, Taniela Bolea, Paul Geraghty, Rita Compatangelo-Soussignan Oral Tradition, 36/1 (2023):63-90  Introduction…

Temporal Patterning and “Degrees of Orality” in Occitan and French Oral Narrative

Janice Carruthers, Marianne Vergez-Couret

Oral Tradition, 36/1 (2023):91-122 Introduction This article explores tense usage and tense-switching in the temporal structuring of Occitan and French…

Ethnopoetic Transcription and Multimodal Archives: Toward a More Comprehensive Approach to Slam Poetry Scholarship

Cara Losier Chanoine

Oral Tradition, 36/1 (2023):123-48 Slam is a relatively young genre of poetry, created in 1985 by a Chicago construction worker…

About the Authors

Oral Tradition Volume 36, Number 1 Taniela Bolea Born and bred in Ravitaki Village on the main island of Kadavu, Taniela…

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Adélékè Adéẹ̀kọ́

Moradewun Adejunmobi

Ainhoa Agirreazaldegi

K.E. Agovi

Sa’idu Babur Ahmed

Xabier Aierdi

Ingrid Åkesson

Chiji Akoma

Elizabeth Shanks Alexander

Alla Alieva

1986
1986
2022
2022

1986 — 2022

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Volume 35, Issue 2
Oral Tradition among Religious Communities in the Iranian-Speaking World by Estelle Amy de la Bretèque
Volume
35
Date
October 2022
Volume 35, Issue 1
The Oral Style of Regveda by George E. Dunkel
Volume
35
Date
December 2021
Volume 34, Issue 1
Back in the Foundation: Chauvinistic Scholarship and the Building Sacrifice Story-Pattern by Dorian Jurić; Unraveling the Knot: a Microethnography of the Use of Proverbs, Proverbial Language, and Surrogate Languages in...
Volume
34
Date
December 2020
Volume 33, Issue 1
Oral Tradition and the Dead Sea Scrolls by Shem Miller; Oral Tradition and the Dead Sea Scrolls by Shem Miller; An Examination of the Poetics of...
Volume 33, Issue 1
Volume
33
Date
December 2019
Volume 32, Issue 1
Eall-feala Ealde Sæge: Poetic Performance and “The Scop's Repertoire” in Old English Verse by Paul Battles, Charles D. Wright; Between the Oral and...
Volume 32, Issue 1
Volume
32
Date
March 2018
Volume 31, Issue 2: Parallelism in Verbal Art and Performance
Parallelism in Verbal Art and Performance: An Introduction by Frog, Lotte Tarkka; Remembering and Recreating Origins: The Transformation of a...
Volume 31, Issue 2: Parallelism in Verbal Art and Performance
Volume
31
Date
October 2017
Volume 31, Issue 1
Diachronic Homer and a Cretan Odyssey by Gregory Nagy; The Tale of Meleager in the Iliad by Jonathan Burgess; The Transformation of Cyavana: A Case...
Volume 31, Issue 1
Volume
31
Date
March 2017
Volume 30, Issue 2: Authoritative Speech in the Himalayas
Words of Truth: Authority and Agency in Ritual and Legal Speeches in the Himalayas by Anne de Sales, Marie Lecomte-Tilouine; Authoritative Modes of...
Volume 30, Issue 2: Authoritative Speech in the Himalayas
Volume
30
Date
October 2016
Volume 30, Issue 1
The Ch’orti’ Maya Myths of Creation by Kerry Hull; Traditional Poetry in Contemporary Senegal: A Case Study of Wolof Kasak Songs by Cheikh Tidiane Lo...
Volume 30, Issue 1
Volume
30
Date
March 2016
Volume 29, Issue 2: Transmissions and Transitions in Indian Oral Traditions
Transmissions and Transitions in Indian Oral Traditions: An Introduction by Kirin Narayan; “Who am I . . . what significance do I have?” Shifting...
Volume 29, Issue 2: Transmissions and Transitions in Indian Oral Traditions
Volume
29
Date
October 2015
Volume 29, Issue 1
Why Jews Quote by Michael Marmur; Voices from Kilbarchan: Two versions of “The Cruel Mother” from South-West Scotland, 1825 by Flemming G. Andersen...
Volume 29, Issue 1
Volume
29
Date
March 2014
Volume 28, Issue 2: Archives, Databases, and Special Collections
Orality and Technology, or the Bit and the Byte: The Work of the World Oral Literature Project by Mark Turin; Noting the Tunes of Seventeenth-Century...
Volume 28, Issue 2: Archives, Databases, and Special Collections
Volume
28
Date
October 2013
Volume 28, Issue 1
Text and Memory in the “Oral” Transmission of a Crime and Execution Ballad: “The Suffolk Tragedy” in England and Australia by Tom Pettitt; In and Out...
Volume 28, Issue 1
Volume
28
Date
March 2013
Volume 27, Issue 2
Sounding Out the Heirs of Abraham (Rom 4:9-12) by Nina E. Livesey; Sensing “Place”: Performance, Oral Tradition, and Improvisation in the Hidden...
Volume 27, Issue 2
Volume
27
Date
October 2012
Volume 27, Issue 1
Managing the “Boss”: Epistemic Violence, Resistance, and Negotiations in Milman Parry’s and Nikola Vujnović’s Pričanja with Salih Ugljanin by Slavica...
Volume 27, Issue 1
Volume
27
Date
March 2012
Volume 26, Issue 2: Festschrift for John Miles Foley
Foreword by Joseph Falaky Nagy; Introduction and Tabula Gratulatoria by R. Scott Garner, Lori Ann Garner; Juxtaposing Cogadh Gáedel re Gallaib with...
Volume 26, Issue 2: Festschrift for John Miles Foley
Volume
26
Date
October 2011
Volume 26, Issue 1
Revenge of the Spoken Word?: Writing, Performance, and New Media in Urban West Africa by Moradewun Adejunmobi; Singing Dead Tales to Life: Rhetorical...
Volume 26, Issue 1
Volume
26
Date
March 2011
Volume 25, Issue 2
“Like Cords Around My Heart”: Sacred Harp Memorial Lessons and the Transmission of Tradition by Kiri Miller; “Writing” and “Reference” in Ifá...
Volume 25, Issue 2
Volume
25
Date
October 2010
Volume 25, Issue 1: Oral Tradition in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Oral Tradition in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: Introduction by Werner H. Kelber, Paula Sanders; Response from an Africanist Scholar by Ruth Finnegan; Torah on the Heart: Literary Jewish Textuality Within Its...
Volume
25
Date
March 2010
Volume 24, Issue 2: Sound Effects
Sound Effects: The Oral/Aural Dimensions of Literature in English Introduction by Chris Jones, Neil Rhodes; The Word Made Flesh: Christianity and Oral...
Volume 24, Issue 2: Sound Effects
Volume
24
Date
October 2009
Volume 24, Issue 1
The Southern Sardinian Tradition of the Mutetu Longu: A Functional Analysis by Paulu Zedda; Presentation Formulas in South Slavic Epic Song by David...
Volume 24, Issue 1
Volume
24
Date
March 2009
Volume 23, Issue 2
Reading Aloud in Dickens’ Novels by Tammy Ho Lai-ming; (Re)presenting Ourselves: Art, Identity, and Status in U. K. Poetry Slam by Helen Gregory; Defendiendo la (Agri)Cultura: Reterritorializing Culture in the Puerto...
Volume
23
Date
October 2008
Volume 23, Issue 1
Of Time, Honor, and Memory: Oral Law in Albania by Fatos Tarifa; Narrative Structure and Political Construction: The Epic at Work by Florence Goyet; The Authority of the Spoken Word: Speech Acts in Mark Twain’s A...
Volume
23
Date
March 2008
Volume 22, Issue 2: Basque Special Issue
eCompanions by John Miles Foley, Mark Jarvis; Basque Oral Poetry Championship by John Miles Foley; A Sociological Study of Sung, Extempore Verse...
Volume 22, Issue 2: Basque Special Issue
Volume
22
Date
October 2007
Volume 22, Issue 1: Bob Dylan’s Performance Artistry
Introduction by Catharine Mason, Richard Thomas; Dylan and the Nobel by Gordon Ball; The Streets of Rome: The Classical Dylan by Richard Thomas; A Face like a Mask and a Voice that Croaks: An Integrated Poetics of Bob...
Volume
22
Date
March 2007
Volume 21, Issue 2
Throwing Stones in Jest: Kasena Women’s “Proverbial” Revolt by Helen Yitah; The Devil’s Colors: A Comparative Study of French and Nigerian Folktales by Françoise Ugochukwu; A Meme-Based Approach to Oral Traditional...
Volume
21
Date
October 2006
Volume 21, Issue 1
Neoanalysis, Orality, and Intertextuality: An Examination of Homeric Motif Transference by Jonathan Burgess; “Blasts of Language”: Changes in Oral Poetics in Britain Since 1965 by Peter Middleton, Nicky Marsh, Victoria...
Volume
21
Date
March 2006
Volume 20, Issue 2: Performance Literature (2)
The How of Literature by Ruth Finnegan; The Culture of Play: Kabuki and the Production of Texts by Andrew Gerstle; Performance, Visuality, and...
Volume 20, Issue 2: Performance Literature (2)
Volume
20
Date
October 2005
Volume 20, Issue 1: Performance Literature (1)
“Fellow Townsmen and My Noble Constituents!”: Representations of Oratory on Early Commercial Recordings by Richard Bauman, Patrick Feaster; Shellac...
Volume 20, Issue 1: Performance Literature (1)
Volume
20
Date
March 2005
Volume 19, Issue 2
“Lord of the Iron Bow”: The Return Pattern Motif in the Fifteenth-century Baloch Epic Hero Šey Murīd by Sabir Badalkhan; Oblique Performance...
Volume 19, Issue 2
Volume
19
Date
October 2004
Volume 19, Issue 1
Anglo-Saxon Charms in Performance by Lori Ann Garner; Myth and Literary History: Two Germanic Examples by Joseph Harris; The Germanic Heldenlied and the Poetic Edda: Speculations on Preliterary History by Edward R...
Volume
19
Date
March 2004
Volume 18, Issue 2: Synopses of Oral Traditions (2)
Pan-Hispanic Oral Tradition by Samuel G. Armistead ; Oral Traditions in Greater Mexico by Marcia Farr; Folktales by Isabel Cardigos; Portuguese Narrative Poetry by J. J. Dias Marques; Oral Tradition: A Definition by...
Volume
18
Date
October 2003
Volume 18, Issue 1: Synopses of Oral Traditions (1)
The People’s Poetry by Steve Zeitlin; The Poem Performed by Felice Belle; The Heike in Japan by Elizabeth Oyler; Japanese Noh and Heike katari by Shelley Fenno Quinn; Japanese Oral Tradition by Sybil Thornton; Performed...
Volume
18
Date
March 2003
Volume 17, Issue 2
No One Tells You This: Secondary Orality and Hypertextuality by Michael Joyce; The Social and Dramatic Functions of Oral Recitation and Composition in Beowulf by John M. Hill; Rites of Passage and Oral Storytelling in...
Volume
17
Date
October 2002
Volume 17, Issue 1
The Case of the Gospels: Memory’s Desire and the Limits of Historical Criticism by Werner H. Kelber; Homespun Homerics in the Kingdom of Aeolus: Ninu Murina in Stromboli by LindaAnn Loschiavo; On the Use and Abuse of...
Volume
17
Date
March 2002
Volume 16, Issue 2: Chinese Oral Traditions
A Preliminary Analysis of the Oral Shamanistic Songs of the Manchus by Song Heping; The Bard Jusup Mamay by Lang Ying; Nakhi Tiger Myth in its Context by Bai Gengsheng; A Brief Account of Bensen Ülger and Ülgeren...
Volume
16
Date
October 2001
Volume 16, Issue 1
Orality and Basque Nationalism: Dancing with the Devil or Waltzing into the Future? by Linda White; I Control the Idioms: Creativity in Ndebele Praise Poetry by H.C. Groenewald; Milman Parry and A. L. Kroeber...
Volume
16
Date
March 2001
Volume 15, Issue 2
Konodai senki: Traditional Narrative and Warrior Ideology in Sixteenth-Century Japan by Sybil Thornton; On the Linguistic Properties of Formulaic Speech by Koenraad Kuiper; Body, Performance, and Agency in Kalevala Rune...
Volume
15
Date
October 2000
Volume 15, Issue 1
Beowulf as Epic by Joseph Harris; Thor’s Visit to Útgarðaloki by John Lindow; Ex Ovo Omnia: Where Does the Balto-Finnic Cosmogony Originate? by Ülo Valk; The Narrator’s Voice in Kalevala and Kalevipoeg by Thomas A...
Volume
15
Date
March 2000
Volume 14, Issue 2
“Ah ain’t heard whut do tex’ wuz”: The (Il)legitimate Textuality of Old English and Black English by Michael Saenger; A Treasury of Formulaic Narrative: the Persian Popular Romance Hosein-e Kord by Ulrich Marzolph; Epea...
Volume
14
Date
October 1999
Volume 14, Issue 1: Hebrew Oral Traditions
Jewish Folk Literature by Dan Ben-Amos; The Fixing of the Oral Mishnah and the Displacement of Meaning by Elizabeth Shanks Alexander; Literary Composition and Oral Performance in Early Midrashim by Steven D. Fraade; Oral...
Volume
14
Date
March 1999
Volume 13, Issue 2
Cultural Assimilation in Njáls saga by Craig R. Davis; The Creation of the Ancient Greek Epic Cycle by Ingrid Holmberg; A Comparative Study of the Singing Styles of Mongolian and Tibetan Geser/Gesar Artists by Yang...
Volume
13
Date
October 1998
Volume 13, Issue 1: Native American Oral Traditions: Collaboration and Interpretation
“There Are No More Words to the Story” by Elsie P. Mather, Phyllis Morrow; Coyote and the Strawberries: Cultural Drama and Intercultural Collaboration by Barre Toelken, George B. Wasson; Collaborative Sociolinguistic...
Volume
13
Date
March 1998
Volume 12, Issue 2
Annotated Bibliography 1986-1990 by Catherine Quick; Mongolian Oral Epic Poetry: An Overview by Chao Gejin; Two Performances of the “Return of Alpamish”: Current Performance-Practice in the Uzbek Oral Epic of the...
Volume
12
Date
October 1997
Volume 12, Issue 1: South Asian Oral Traditions
“A Flowering Tree”: A Woman’s Tale by A. K. Ramanujan; Negotiated Solidarities: Gendered Representations of Disruption and Desire in North Indian Oral Traditions and Popular Culture by Gloria Goodwin Raheja; Two Houses...
Volume
12
Date
March 1997
Volume 11, Issue 2
The Mechanism of the Ancient Ballad: William Motherwell’s Explanation by Mary Ellen Brown; Who Heard the Rhymes, and How: Shakespeare’s Dramaturgical Signals by Burton Raffel; Orality and Literacy in the Commedia dell...
Volume
11
Date
October 1996
Volume 11, Issue 1: Epics Along the Silk Roads
Transformations of Epic Time and Space: Creating the World’s Creation in Kalevala-metric Poetry by Lotte Tarkka; Kudaman: An Oral Epic in the Palawan Highlands by Nicole Revel; Epics in the Oral Genre System of Tulunadu...
Volume
11
Date
March 1996
Volume 10, Issue 2
Word, Breath, and Vomit: Oral Competition in Old English and Old Norse Literature by Robin Waugh; Generic and Racial Appropriation in Victoria Howard’s “The Honorable Milt” by Jarold Ramsey; Oral Register in the Biblical...
Volume
10
Date
October 1995
Volume 10, Issue 1
Perspectives on Orality in African Cinema by Keyan Tomaselli, Maureen Eke; The Three Circuits of the Suitors: A Ring Composition in Odyssey 17-22 by Steve Reece; Hermeneutic Forever: Voice, Text, Digitization, and the ‘I...
Volume
10
Date
March 1995
Volume 9, Issue 2
Performing A Thousand and One Nights In Egypt by Susan Slyomovics; Homer’s Style: Non-Formulaic Features of an Oral Aesthetic by Joseph Russo; Forrest Spirits: Oral Echoes in Leon Forrest’s Prose by Bruce A. Rosenberg...
Volume
9
Date
October 1994
Volume 9, Issue 1: African Oral Tradition
On the Sense and Nonsense of Performance Studies Concerning Oral Literature of the Bulsa in Northern Ghana by Rüediger Schott; Silent Voices: The Role of Somali Women’s Poetry in Social and Political Life by Zainab...
Volume
9
Date
March 1994
Volume 8, Issue 2
Rap Music: An Interview with DJ Romeo by Debra Wehmeyer-Shaw; La fraticida por amor: A Sixteenth-Century Spanish Ballad in the Modern Oral Tradition by Madeline Sutherland; Homer and Roland: The Shared Formular Technique...
Volume
8
Date
October 1993
Volume 8, Issue 1
Alterities: On Methodology in Medieval Literary Studies by Ursula Schaefer; Homer and Roland: The Shared Formular Technique, Part I by William Merrit Sale; Theocritus and Oral Tradition by James B. Pearce; The...
Volume
8
Date
March 1993
Volume 7, Issue 2
Narrative Proverbs in the African Novel by Emmanuel Obiechina; Repetition as Invention in the Songs of Vuk Karadžić by Svetozar Koljević; Homer and Oral Tradition: The Type-Scene by Mark W. Edwards; Beowulf: The Monsters...
Volume
7
Date
October 1992
Volume 7, Issue 1
Oral Poetry and the World of Beowulf by Paul Sorrell; Innervision and Innertext: Oral and Interpretive Modes of Storytelling Performance by Joseph Sobol; The Combat of Lug and Balor: Discourses of Power in Irish Myth and...
Volume
7
Date
March 1992
Volume 6, Issue 2-3: Serbo-Croatian Oral Tradition
Macedonian Folk Poetry, Principally Lyric by Tome Sazdov; The Legend of Kosovo by Jelka Ređep; Continuity and Change in Folk Prose Narrative by Nada Milošević-Ɖorđević; Special Serbo-Croatian Issue Introduction by John S...
Volume
6
Date
May 1991
Volume 6, Issue 1
Serial Defamation in Two Medieval Tales: The Icelandic Oelkofra Thattir and the Irish Scela Mucce Meic Datho by William Sayers; Compound Diction and Traditional Style in Beowulf and Genesis A by Jeffrey Alan Mazo; The...
Volume
6
Date
January 1991
Volume 5, Issue 2-3: South Pacific Oral Traditions
“Head” and “Tail”: The Shaping of Oral Traditions among the Binandere in Papua New Guinea by John D. Waiko; Profile of a Composer: Ihaia Puka, a Pulotu of the Tokelau Islands by Ineleo Tuia, Allen Thomas; Wry Comment...
Volume
5
Date
May 1990
Volume 5, Issue 1
Worlds Apart: Orality, Literacy, and the Rajasthani Folk-Mahabharata by John D. Smith; Marcel Jousse: The Oral Style and the Anthropology of Gesture by Edgard Richard Sienaert; Preface to The Dialect of the Kara-Kirgiz...
Volume
5
Date
January 1990
Volume 4, Issue 3
Song, Ritual, and Commemoration in Early Greek Poetry and Tragedy by Charles Segal; Oral Verse-Making in Homer’s Odyssey by William C. Scott; Formulaic Diction in Kazakh Epic Poetry by Karl Reichl; Improvisation in...
Volume
4
Date
October 1989
Volume 4, Issue 1-2: Arabic Oral Traditions
Oral Traditions of the Prophet Muhammad: A Formulaic Approach by R. Marston Speight; “Tonight My Gun is Loaded”: Poetic Dueling in Arabia by Saad A. Sowayan; Palestinian Improvised-Sung Poetry: The Genres of Hidā and...
Volume
4
Date
January 1989
Volume 3, Issue 3
Lord of the Singers by Jeff Opland; Before Textuality: Orality and Interpretation by Walter J. Ong; Oral Life and Literary Death in Medieval Irish Tradition by Joseph Falaky Nagy; Ninna-nanna-nonsense? Fears, Dreams, and...
Volume
3
Date
October 1988
Volume 3, Issue 1-2
Oral Text: A South Indian Instance by Richard M. Swiderski; Oral Tradition and Welsh Literature: A Description and Survey by Brynley F. Roberts; Oral-Formulaic Research in Old English Studies: II by Alexandra Hennessey...
Volume
3
Date
January 1988
Volume 2, Issue 2-3: Hispanic Balladry
The Judeo-Spanish Ballad Tradition by Samuel G. Armistead , Joseph H. Silverman; Survival of the Traditional Romancero: Field Work by Ana Valenciano; Hunting for Rare Romances in the Canary Islands by Maximiano Trapero...
Volume
2
Date
May 1987
Volume 2, Issue 1: Festschrift for Walter J. Ong
Rahner on Sprachregelung: Regulation of Language? Of Speech? by Frans Jozef van Beeck; A Remark on Silence and Listening by Paolo Valesio; Orality and Literacy in Matter and Form: Ben Franklin’s Way to Wealth by Thomas J...
Volume
2
Date
January 1987
Volume 1, Issue 3
The Message of the American Folk Sermon by Bruce A. Rosenberg; The Oral-Formulaic Theory in Middle English Studies by Ward Parks; Oral-Formulaic Research in Old English Studies: I by Alexandra Hennessey Olsen...
Volume
1
Date
December 1986
Volume 1, Issue 2
Homer and Oral Tradition: The Formula, Part I by Mark W. Edwards; Australian Aboriginal Oral Traditions by Margaret Clunies Ross; Orality in Medieval Irish Narrative: An Overview by Joseph Falaky Nagy; The Collection and...
Volume
1
Date
May 1986
Volume 1, Issue 1
The Manner of Boyan: Translating Oral Literature by Burton Raffel; Oral Tradition and Biblical Studies by Robert Culley; Performed Being: Word Art as a Human Inheritance by Frederick Turner; The Oral Traditions of Modern...
Volume
1
Date
January 1986

Oral Tradition Journal

Email

journal@oraltradition.org

Address

Boylston 223, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States

Also see

Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature

ISSN

E-ISSN 1542-4308

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