2 results
Orality
- Edited by Brian Murdoch, University of Stirling, Malcolm Read, University of Stirling
-
- Book:
- Early Germanic Literature and Culture
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 March 2023
- Print publication:
- 27 September 2004, pp 103-120
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Oral Traditions
In The Context Of Literary History, “orality” refers to traditions of oral performance of works which may also be literary works, or which may resemble literature. The widely used tag “oral literature” is a contradiction in terms, and is in several respects too problematic to be helpful. It is better to speak of oral verse, oral narrative traditions, oral epic and so forth. However, in a literary history which looks back to the beginnings one must take into consideration the production of literature before it took on written form. Long before the advent of writing, the careful assembly of words into sophisticated verbal productions was an art form that shaped and reflected the cultures in which it emerged, and in these oral poetic and narrative traditions we seek the origins of our literatures. And even in a highly literate society such as that in which we live today, many forms we might bracket as literature are written for oral performance, or indeed need not be written at all: obvious examples are public speaking, drama, storytelling, and various forms of poetry and song. Thanks to its permanence, the written word lends itself readily to analysis, and in literary studies we tend therefore to think of it as the norm, oral forms being a sub-category, variant or even a poor imitation. In reality the opposite is true. Human language evolved solely to meet the needs of oral communication, and writing, even formal and highly stylized writing, imitates speech. The poetic muse arose in the earliest cultures as a result of the fascination with the possibilities of the spoken word, and the modern reader processes literature using cerebral faculties developed for the reception of speech. Oral performance and literature are the two sides of linguistic art, but orality has both a historical and a logical priority.
It follows that an appreciation of oral dynamics is necessary for an understanding of both the origins and the functionality of literature. In the medieval context we are interested here in three main areas of investigation. First, in the nature of pre-literature, of ancient oral verse, narrative and performance, and the way in which it shaped the character also of the earliest vernacular writings. Second, in the polarization between written and spoken art in a partially literate medieval society, with the concomitant implications for social groupings and power structures.
Historical Writing in and after the Old High German Period
-
- By R. Graeme Dunphy, German at Stirling University
- Edited by Brian Murdoch, University of Stirling, Scotland
-
- Book:
- German Literature of the Early Middle Ages
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 05 February 2013
- Print publication:
- 01 March 2004, pp 201-226
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Medieval Historiography
MEDIEVAL HISTORICAL WRITING did not arise in a vacuum. The classical Greek and Latin historians had already established a tradition with its own standards and norms, which were to continue to be influential well into the modern era. However, in the late classical period a process of selection took place that determined which ancient writers would be available to the medieval reader. Some of those whom we regarded as the greatest Greek and Latin historians (from the fifth century B.C. to the first of our era) were all but forgotten in the Middle Ages. Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, and Tacitus were virtually unknown, and even Julius Caesar received remarkably little attention as a historian when one considers the great interest shown in him as an object of historical study. But others were read. The Greek works of Josephus (first century A.D.) were popular in Latin translation, and the monumental Ab urbe condita (From the foundation of Rome) of Livy (59 B.C.–A.D. 17) was enormously influential, though it was almost exclusively read in a summary version. Sallust, Lucan, and Suetonius (from the first century B.C. to the second century A.D.) were also familiar, as was Justinus's abridgement of Pompeius Trogus, a third-century version of a universal history written at the time of Augustus. These were important as sources of historical material, but also as roots of the historiographic tradition itself.