Epics and Oral Poetry

Last update: 03 Oct 1994 12:01
First version: Before 3 October 1994

---

Recommended (examples):
• Norman Cohn (trans.), Gold Khan
• Vladimir Nabokov (trans.), The Song of Igor's Campaign

Recommended (presumptuous):
• Ariosto, Orlando Furioso
• Homer [I realize that there is still a little controversy in classifying these as oral epics, but...]
  • Iliad
  • Odyssey
• John Milton, Paradise Lost
• Vergil, Aenid

Recommended (about):
• Albert Lord, The Singer of Tales
• Franco Moretti, The Modern Epic

To read:
• Margaret Beissinger, Jane Tylus, and Susanne Wofford (eds.), Epic Traditions in the Contemporary World: The Poetics of Community
• C. M. Bowra, Heroic Poetry
• Steven C. Caton, "Peaks of Yemen I Summon": Poetry as Cultural Practice in a North Yemeni Tribe
• John Colarusso, Nart Sagas from the Caucauses: Myths and Legends from the Circassians, Abazas, Abkhaz, and Ubykhs
• John Miles Foley, Traditional Oral Epic: The Odyssey, Beowulf, and the Serbo-Croatian Return Song [Alternate link]
• A. Bartlett Giamatti, The Earthly Paradise and the Renaissance Epic
• Gisli Sgurdsson, The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition: A Discourse on Method
• José M. González, The Epic Rhapsode and His Craft: Homeric Performance in a Diachronic Perspective
• J. B. Hainsworth, The Idea of Epic
• Guida M. Jackson, Traditional Epics: A Literary Companion
• Kalevala
• Albert Lord, Epic Singers and the Oral Tradition
• Dean A. Miller, The Epic Hero
• Donald L. Philippi, Songs of Gods, Songs of Humans: The Epic Tradition of the Ainu [cf.]
• Ward Parks, Verbal Dueling in Heroic Narrative: The Homeric and Old English Traditions
• Karl Reichl, Singing the Past: Turkic and Medieval Heroic Poetry
• Calvert Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics