LEADER 03757nam 2200661Ia 450 001 9910452655103321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a1-283-88999-4 010 $a0-8122-0295-3 024 7 $a10.9783/9780812202953 035 $a(CKB)2550000000104558 035 $a(OCoLC)794702137 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10576099 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000676317 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11396798 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000676317 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10677342 035 $a(PQKB)10884851 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3441659 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse3143 035 $a(DE-B1597)448939 035 $a(OCoLC)979622733 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780812202953 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3441659 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10576099 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL420249 035 $a(OCoLC)842614143 035 $a(EXLCZ)992550000000104558 100 $a19990217d1999 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aHomo Narrans$b[electronic resource] $ethe poetics and anthropology of oral literature /$fJohn D. Niles 210 $aPhiladelphia $cUniversity of Pennsylvania Press$dc1999 215 $a1 online resource (291 p.) 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 $a0-8122-2107-9 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references ([237]-264) and index. 327 $tFrontmatter -- $tContents -- $tIllustrations -- $tList of Abbreviations -- $t1. Making Connections -- $t2. Somatic Communication -- $t3. Poetry as Social Praxis -- $t4. Oral Poetry Acts -- $t5. Beowulf as Ritualized Discourse -- $t6. Context and Loss -- $t7. The Strong Tradition-Bearer -- $tConclusion: Wordpower Wells from Deep in the Throat -- $tNotes -- $tWorks Cited -- $tAcknowledgments -- $tIndex 330 $aIt 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. 606 $aStorytelling 606 $aOral tradition 606 $aFolk literature 608 $aElectronic books. 615 0$aStorytelling. 615 0$aOral tradition. 615 0$aFolk literature. 676 $a398.2 700 $aNiles$b John D$0443563 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910452655103321 996 $aHomo Narrans$985645 997 $aUNINA