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Homo Narrans : The Poetics and Anthropology of Oral Literature / John D. Niles.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2010]Copyright date: ©1999Description: 1 online resource (296 p.) : 15 illusContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780812221077
  • 9780812202953
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 398.2 21
LOC classification:
  • GR72.3
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
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
Summary: 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.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780812202953

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

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

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.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jun 2020)