Traditional Oral Epic: The Odyssey, Beowulf, and the Serbo-Croatian Return Song

by John Miles Foley

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.

Genres: History

680 pages, Paperback

First published December 2, 1990

About the author

John Miles Foley (1947 – 2012) was a scholar of comparative oral tradition, particularly medieval and Old English literature, Homer and Serbian epic. He was the founder of the academic journal Oral Tradition and the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition at the University of Missouri, where he was Curators' Professor of Classical Studies and English and W. H. Byler Endowed Chair in the Humanities.

Reviews

[Blake Hausladen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A professional work by a professional. I approached it with the goal of learning some the formative components of a successful decasyllable poem, and the reasons one language over another would prefer such cadence. Others could and would draw far more from this text.