Oral-Formulaic Theory: Annotated Bibliography

Alan D. Deyermond. "The Singer of Tales and Mediaeval Spanish Epic." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 42:1-8.

Primarily a reaction to Lord 1960, to a lesser extent to L. Harvey 1963. Discusses narrative inconsistency, interrelation among texts, def ects in manuscripts, oral transmission, and learned influence, suggesting that "it is thus not inconceivable that in twelfth- to fourteenth-century Spain a poem, learned or partly learned in origin, could have been handed to juglares for diffusion and re- creation at each performance" (7). Proposes this explanation as a way of explaining the signs of both oral and learned transmission and of fitting the description of the SC guslari and their craft. Calls for formulaic analyses and thematic investigation s of the Spanish poems before more confident statements are made.
Area: HI, CP