The articles in 'Oral Art Forms and Their Passage into Writing' investigate what happens when oral texts are removed from their original medium and written down. The present collection examines the complex relationship between the oral and the written and the problems of textualization. Taking their point of departure in the theories of orality and literalization as well as the preserved texts and their transmission, the individual contributors, experts from the fields of Old Norse, Old English, Latin and Homeric studies as well as from later Serbian and Norwegian folklore, explore the commonalities and differences in the process of literalization within the medieval world as well as in recent times.
Author(s): Else Mundal, Jonas Wellendorf (eds.)
Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 248
City: Copenhagen
Else Mundal / Introduction 1
Theodore M. Andersson / From Tradition to Literature in the Sagas 7
Gísli Sigurðsson / Orality Harnessed: How to Read Written Sagas from an Oral Culture? 19
Tommy Danielsson / On the Possibility of an Oral Background for 'Gisla saga Súrssonar' 29
Minna Skafte Jensen / The Oral-Formulaic Theory Revisited 43
Lars Boje Mortensen / From Vernacular Interviews to Latin Prose (ca. 600-1200) 53
Anna Adamska / Orality and Literacy in Medieval East Central Europe: Final Prolegomena 69
Sonja Petrović / Oral and Written Art Forms in Serbian Medieval Literature 85
Graham D. Caie / 'Ealdgesegena worn': What the Old English 'Beowulf' Tells Us about Oral Forms 109
Olav Solberg / The Scandinavian Medieval Ballad: From Oral Tradition to Written Texts and Back Again 121
Jonas Wellendorf / Apocalypse Now? The 'Draumkvæde' and Visionary Literature 135
Bernt Øyvind Thorvaldsen / The Eddic Form and Its Contexts: An Oral Art Form Performed in Writing 151
Bergsveinn Birgisson / What Have We Lost by Writing? Cognitive Archaisms in Skaldic Poetry 163
Guðrún Nordal / The Dialogue between Audience and Text: The Variants in Verse Citations in 'Njáls saga's' Manuscripts 185
Ljubiša Rajić / Mixing 'oratio recta' and 'oratio obliqua': A Sign of Literacy or Orality? 203
Else Mundal / Oral or Scribal Variation in 'Vǫluspá': A Case Study in Old Norse Poetry 209
