03757nam 2200661Ia 450 991045265510332120200520144314.01-283-88999-40-8122-0295-310.9783/9780812202953(CKB)2550000000104558(OCoLC)794702137(CaPaEBR)ebrary10576099(SSID)ssj0000676317(PQKBManifestationID)11396798(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000676317(PQKBWorkID)10677342(PQKB)10884851(MiAaPQ)EBC3441659(MdBmJHUP)muse3143(DE-B1597)448939(OCoLC)979622733(DE-B1597)9780812202953(Au-PeEL)EBL3441659(CaPaEBR)ebr10576099(CaONFJC)MIL420249(OCoLC)842614143(EXLCZ)99255000000010455819990217d1999 uy 0engurcn|||||||||txtccrHomo Narrans[electronic resource] the poetics and anthropology of oral literature /John D. NilesPhiladelphia University of Pennsylvania Pressc19991 online resource (291 p.) Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph0-8122-2107-9 Includes bibliographical references ([237]-264) and index.Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- List of Abbreviations -- 1. Making Connections -- 2. Somatic Communication -- 3. Poetry as Social Praxis -- 4. Oral Poetry Acts -- 5. Beowulf as Ritualized Discourse -- 6. Context and Loss -- 7. The Strong Tradition-Bearer -- Conclusion: Wordpower Wells from Deep in the Throat -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Acknowledgments -- Index It would be difficult to imagine what human life would be like without stories—from myths recited by Pueblo Indian healers in the kiva, ballads sung in Slovenian market squares, folktales and legends told by the fireside in Italy, to jokes told at a dinner table in Des Moines—for it is chiefly through storytelling that people possess a past.In Homo Narrans John D. Niles explores how human beings shape their world through the stories they tell. The book vividly weaves together the study of Anglo-Saxon literature and culture with the author's own engagements in the field with some of the greatest twentieth-century singers and storytellers in the Scottish tradition. Niles ponders the nature of the storytelling impulse, the social function of narrative, and the role of individual talent in oral tradition. His investigation of the poetics of oral narrative encompasses literary works, such as the epic poems and hymns of early Greece and the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, texts that we know only through written versions but that are grounded in oral technique.That all forms of narrative, even the most sophisticated genres of contemporary fiction, have their ultimate origin in storytelling is a point that scarcely needs to be argued. Niles's claims here are more ambitious: that oral narrative is and has long been the chief basis of culture itself, that the need to tell stories is what distinguishes humans from all other living creatures.StorytellingOral traditionFolk literatureElectronic books.Storytelling.Oral tradition.Folk literature.398.2Niles John D443563MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910452655103321Homo Narrans85645UNINA