Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Michael J. Jeffreys. "The Literary Emergence of Vernacular Greek." Mosaic, 8, iv:171-93.

On the analogy of Homeric poetry and medieval literature such as Beowulf and the Chanson de Roland, and specifically in relation to their formulaic density, meter, and traditional diction, he posits that twelfth-century Demotic Greek literature emerged from an oral tradition. This assumption of an oral phraseology solves the problem of linguistic vacillation between katharevousa and demotike: the poetic language "permitted the combination of incompatible linguistic levels, and kept the texts free from dialect forms" (193).
Area: BG, CP