The Singer of Tales in Performance

By John Miles Foley

Book Overview

Both living oral traditions and texts with roots in oral tradition share a context in which the speaker performs for an audience, either real or implied. John Foley argues that the methods and strategies of traditional oral expression-of 'the singer of tales'-persist into the realm of texts. This study dissolves the perceived barrier between 'oral' and 'written', creating a composite theory from oral-formulaic theory and the ethnography of speaking and ethnopoetics. Foley highlights both the idiom of the oral work, which is at once traditional and individual, and the realm of performance, which gives 'the tale' its expressive force.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0253209315
• ISBN13: 9780253209313
• Release Date: May 1995
• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.2"