Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Robert L. Kellogg. "Oral Literature." New Literary History, 5:55-66.

Understands the performer in an oral tradition as a kind of "reader" of the whole, unexpressed tradition (itself the "author" and the performed version the "work"). Advocates reading medieval works such as the Song of Roland, Beowulf, the Nibelungenlied, and Njals Saga as versions of ideal works which existed in oral tradition and were later put in final form. Compares Chaucer's poems and suggests widening the critical scope of concepts like authorship, traditional versus original, and "literature."
Area: CP, TH