Oral Traditions and Songs Some may say that without a written language, literature cannot exist. However, to deny the oral traditions and songs of cultures prior to the existence of their written languages would deny the world some of the earliest literature of humankind. Whether passed down through oral or written means, literature consists of all stories, songs, and poetry every generation loves, inspires, and passes on. Early in life children are told stories by parents, siblings, grandparents
The Concert Experience and the Song as Oral Tradition Before the invention of written language that enabled the creation of book technology, the spoken word was the leading edge of communication. Spoken epic poetry such as the Iliad and Odyssey, the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, and the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh was the content of the speech medium. These epics were created as spoken pieces, and because listeners lacked an alphabet to commodify them (separate them from their performance), the tales had
African American Culture through Oral Tradition African American folktales have origins rooted in West African literary and cultural forms of expression. When Africans were taken from their homeland and brought to America as slaves, they also brought with them their individual cultures, languages and customs. However, their white slaveholders suppressed this part of their heritage in them. Thus they had to find other ways of expression, mainly story telling and songs. It is incredible to see how
Sundiata: A Case for Oral Tradition To recreate the past, historian use multiple kinds of sources to provide evidence for the events that occurred in the past. On such source, popularly used to recreate early African History, is Oral Tradition. Oral Tradition, as defined by Jan Vansina, is “verbal testimonies reported from the past: statements either spoken or sang.” For many years, the validity of Oral Tradition as a source was in question. In the recent years, the validity is no longer in question
AND ITS TEXTUAL EXPRESSION WITH REFERENCE TO ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: ORAL HEROIC POETRY, CHAUCER'S DEPICTION IN THE HOUSE OF FAME AND THE MODERN CONSTRUCTION OF THE CANON OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. YOU SHOULD FOCUS YOUR ANALYSIS ON THE INTERPLAY OF ORAL AND LITERARY TRADITIONS IN THESE CONTEXTS. Many critics have noted the complexities within Chaucer's The House of Fame, in particular, the complexities between the oral and the literary. The differences between these methods are constantly appearing;
readers we notice later on in the story the references made throughout the book that relate back to the introductory pages. Some of the main themes such as oral traditions, naming, and especially flight are introduced in the first six pages and are further developed in a very similar format throughout the book. One of the outstanding themes, oral tradition, is used to retell events throughout the book in a manner consistent with the beginning. On the first page we are introduced to an insurance agent by
The character of literary forms always evolves with the passage of times. Although African literature in its written form (as against the traditional oral form) has a relatively short pedigree, it has not failed to constantly renew itself by evolving, principally in its social functionality, either as an avenue to demonstrate a cultural point of view or a satirical vista. Consequently, this attribute is responsible for the peculiar aesthetics that particularizes the literature. Given the peculiarity
Runes and Magic in Beowulf and The Saga of the Volsungs In the Old English poem Beowulf and in the Icelandic The Saga of the Volsungs, a saga representing oral traditions dating back to the fourth and fifth centuries, we see the mention of runes, which were used with connotations of magic or charms. An unknown author wrote the The Saga of the Volsungs in the thirteenth century, basing his story on far older Norse poetry. Iceland was settled by the Vikings about 870-930, who took there
Beowulf Society The earliest known manuscript of Beowulf is thought to have been written in the tenth century, however, the poem had most likely been told as an oral tradition for centuries before that. In fact, the poem’s events date back to the sixth century. However, because there is only one manuscript of Beowulf still in tact very little is known about the poem or its author. The poem does, however, give us great insight into the culture of the people who composed and told this epic tale. Because
sense of oral tradition that has been passed on to him. Heaney describes his father as being “Just like his old man” linking himself to his own grandfather (3). Though he has not actively participated in his father’s laboring Heaney would have been able to hear the stories of working in the potato fields. As a result Heaney has learned the historical 1importance of the previous generation. Boland relates well with Heaney in terms of a tradition that in her case is more literary than oral. In her
sense of pride, patriotism, unity, motivation, and nostalgia, which can be found within these songs. The Military cadence is used to motivate, inspire, and foster company cohesiveness while keeping soldiers steps in time and hands down the rich oral traditions of the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air force. The cadence is a song sung when marching or running and the songs require a caller, who normally sets the pace and leads the formation. Like robots, the soldiers echoed their leader's sing-song" Jody
"Welsh, Breton the language of Brittany, in France- and the variants of Gaelic spoken in Ireland and Scotland are all Celtic languages"(Stokstad 485). Celtic Druids Evidence of their culture is basically archeological, it has also come from oral tradition, dating back to shortly before the fifth century AD. Knowledge of all the Druids besides the Celtic ones has been found from and around the third century BC to the fourth century AD. Blacksmithing was an important craft to the Celts. Tools of
The Cheese and the Worms Book Review The rise of literacy towards the end of the Middle Ages brought with it a torrent of individuals ready to think fro themselves and formulate their own theories and ideas regarding God and the Christian faith. For a long time, the church held a near monopoly on literacy and used this to maintain control over people’s lives and beliefs. While some of these new intellectuals created ideas that would forever change the way people envision themselves and their relation
Dialect and Dramatic Monologue of Curtain of Green Eudora Welty is not merely a brilliant writer, she is a brilliant and gifted storyteller. A product of the South's rich oral tradition, Welty considers the richness of local speech to be one of the greatest gifts that her heritage has to offer (Vande Kieft 9). Southern speech is characterized by talking, listening, and remembering. Welty, a great listener, based many of her stories on bits of dialogue overheard in her everyday life. However, Welty
Haitian-Americans before democracy and the horrible conditions that they lived in. Although it is a mistake to call the stories autobiographical, Krik? Krak! embodies some of Danticat's experiences as a child. While the collection of stories draw on the oral tradition in Haitian society, it is also part of the literature of diaspora, the great, involuntary migration of Africans from their homeland to other parts of the world; thus, the work speaks of loss and assimilation and resistance. The stories all seem
This essay is a pragmatic reading of moral and socio-political decadence in Femi Osofisan’s Midnight Hotel. It does this by analyzing ten out of twenty-five proverbs deployed in the text. In analyzing the proverbs, this essay observes that each has at least an ad hoc constituent which requires semantic modulation to get at the meanings of the proverbs. This modulation is not arbitrary, but contextually negotiated until the reader reaches his optimal relevance. Wilson and Carston argue that metaphors
Algonquian elders have traditionally transmitted important cultural information to the younger generations orally. This knowledge, imparted in the form of stories, includes the group's history, information on origins, beliefs and moral lessons. Oral tradition communicates rituals, political tenets, and organizational information. It is a vital element in maintaining the group's unity and sense of identity. Creation stories, for example, help to define for the listener a sense of how human beings relate
Children's Story Puss in Boots A close examination of the tale type 545-b (according to Aarne and Thompson) (1) reveals a well known, almost universal tale of man and animal helper. There are many consistencies between western tradition and Central Asian renditions. Several themes are parallel yet cultural influences vary some of the plot details. The political and social structures of the time in which these stories were told shape these details and lays the background for the story. The most
share the Idea of North in which the dream world is as important as the real world. This paper will demonstrate this typically Canadian characteristic of myth coexisting with reality, showing that explanations of identity given by myth and the oral tradition are at least as powerful as documented history. In order to understand how myth and history work to explain things and recover identity it is important to understand their similarities and differences. Myth and history are similar in that they
growing up on a reservation. Her stories showed how Native Americans reacted to the white man’s ways of running the land and changing the life of Indians. “Zitkala-Sa was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition” (back cover) is a great way to show that the author’s stories were based upon actual events in her life as a Dakota Sioux Indian. This essay will describe and analyze Native American life as described by Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories,