Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Alain Renoir. "The Old English Ruin: Contrastive Structure and Affective Impact." In the Old English Elegies: New Essays in Criticism and Research. Ed. Martin Green. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. pp. 148-73.

An analysis of The Ruin in terms of audience response as based on its knowledge of the Old English rhetorical tradition and archetypal paradigms embodied in the elegies and elsewhere. Suggests that the poem's power derives from the fact that its expression of the relationship between splendor and decay is "unexpected and therefore noticeable" (154). Adduces examples of such differentiation in the poem's diction, syntax, and rhetorical patterns.
Area: OE