Oral Formulaic Language in the Biblical Psalms"The original idea of examining the writings of the Old Testament for evidence of oral formulaic composition grew out of a number of conversations held a few years ago with a friend, Donald F. Chapin, now Associate Professor of English at the University of Alberta. He was at the time attending a seminar offered by Professor J. B. Bessinger in which, among other things, the oral style of Old English was being considered. In the course of these conversations I was introduced to the work of Milman Parry, A. B. Lord, and F. P. Magoun, Jr. My first investigations of the Old Testament, begun while I was studying at the University of Bonn, were directed towards the prophetic writings, but the results were not encouraging. At this stage, I had the opportunity of discussing the matter briefly with Professor Martin Noth. It was on his suggestion that I turned to the biblicat psalms, and I soon found that they presented very suitable material for the sort of study I had in mind. Shortly after this, Lord's book The Singer of Tales appeared, and it provided an invaluable guide on almost all aspects of oral formulaic composition" -- Preface. |
Contents
PREFACE vii | 3 |
The devices and characteristics of oral formulaic | 10 |
Oral formulaic composition and texts | 21 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
A. B. Lord biblical psalms Bowra C. R. Smith cola colon common composed device discussion element Emeneau epic Epic Poetry example fixed pairs formulaic language formulaic phrases formulaic system formulaic technique formulas and formulaic free substitution full line Gevirtz Growth of Literature Heroic Poetry Homer hymns Ibid impf 1 sg individual complaint lexical constants lexical items literary material Milman Parry N. K. Chadwick narrative poetry Note Old Testament oral composition oral formulaic composition oral formulaic language oral literature oral narrative oral poet oral poetry oral style oral tradition Parry and Lord Parry's pattern perf poetic structure preposition Psalmen Psalms 96 Russian Folklore Russian oral scholars Serbocroatian Singer Singer of Tales Sokolov songs suffix technique of oral texts theme traditional language verb words אדני אלהי אלהים אלי אליך אמרתי בך הארץ יבשו יהוה כי מלך ממני נפשי עלי ענני שמים שמך שמע תבל תפלתי