Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Roger D. Abrahams. "License to Repeat and Be Predictable." Folklore Preprint Series (Indiana University Press), 6, iii:1-13.

Accuses Parry-Lord theorists of employing a naive notion of memory and of not adequately providing for the many kinds of oral literature to be found in various parts of the world. The emphasis on generic variety is salutary, but the pseudo-scientific analysis according to Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind is reductive and distracting.
Area: TH