Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Patricia Arant. "The Intricate Web: Thematic Cohesion in Russian Oral Traditional Verse Narrative." In Oral Tradition Literature: A Festschrift for Albert Bates Lord. Ed. John Miles Foley. Columbus: Slavica Publishers, rpt. 1983. pp. 123-41.

Studies the binding forces within themes drawn from more than 5000 lines of Rjabinin's byliny: repeated prepositions, alliterating cola, syntactic parallelism, repetition of a single word over a sequence of lines. Emphasizes the fluidity and yet the conservativism of traditional compositional devices, accounting for movement forward as well as a characteristic "retarding" tendency.
Area: RU