Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Joseph A. Dane. "Finnsburh and Iliad IX: A Greek Survival of the Medieval Germanic Oral-Fo rmulaic Theme, The Hero on the Beach." Neophilologus, 66:443-49.

Denies the validity of the "Hero on the Beach" theme (as posited first in Crowne 1960), arguing that it amounts to a description forced upon the unrelated instances and that "the continuity of tradition, supposedly a conclusion, is in fact an assumption that precedes the search for evidence" (443). His method consists of comparing the Finn episode in Beowulf with Phoenix's speech in Book 9 of the Iliad and of seeing both as generate d by larger structures within each individual text rather than "merely fixed components of an autonomous theme in the baggage of an oral poet" (444). Polemics largely without rigor.
Area: OE, AG, CP