Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Francis P. Magoun, Jr. "Bede's Story of Caedmon: The Case History of an Anglo-Saxon Oral Singer." Speculum, 30:49-63.

Explains Bede's famous account of the "miracle" of the cowherd Caedmon's learning to compose Christian poetry as a description of a traditional oral singer coming of age in his craft. Sees the phenomenon as quite unmiraculous, for "whatever he did hear would have been composed in the traditional manner out of the standing reservoir of formulas and themes and in conformity with the traditional metrical patterns according to which alone the singers could have sung" (57). Having internalized the poetic idiom of the OE heroic narrative tradition, Caedmon simply applied it to a new purpose: the composition of Christian poems.
Area: OE