Oral Tradition Volume 23, Number 2October 2008
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Table of Contents
Reading Aloud in Dickens’ Novels
by Tammy Ho Lai-ming
This paper explores the ways in which Dickens’ writing style was influenced by the Victorian practice of reading aloud. Because of this practice he portrayed his characters’ speeches in a notably oral-, aural- and performance-oriented style. To assist readers in reproducing the unique voices of many of his characters, Dickens employs explicit markers such as phonetic spelling, narrative comments, and unusual punctuation. These markers encourage the creation of a vivid oral performance for an audience, and are clear signs that the speeches should be dramatically performed.
(Re)presenting Ourselves: Art, Identity, and Status in U. K. Poetry Slam
by Helen Gregory
The introduction of poetry slam into the U. K. in the mid-1990’s offers an intriguing window into the development of the art worlds and identities of slam participants, as these poets strive to reconcile the introduction of this new, potentially lucrative, foreign art with their own identities as authentic British artists. This paper explores how slam prompts participants in the U. K. performance poetry scene to reassess definitions of performance art, as well as their own identities as artists.
Defendiendo la (Agri)Cultura: Reterritorializing Culture in the Puerto Rican Décima
by Joan Gross
Through the improvisation of songs based on a sixteenth-century Spanish poetic form in contemporary Puerto Rico, singers symbolically reterritorialize Puerto Rican culture, returning it to its agrarian roots. Cultural reflexivity, born of a series of cultural displacements, has led to both the rigidification of the
décima form and an emphasis on the Puerto Rican countryside and rural lifestyle in its lyrics. The article focuses on 58 verses that were improvised for a contest outside of Comerío.
Karelia: A Place of Memories and Utopias
by Outi Fingerroos
Karelia is a vast inhabited area in northern Europe. The Winter War of 1939-40 and the so-called Continuation War (1941-44) were both followed by the loss of large areas of Karelia to the Soviet Union in 1944 and the resettlement of 407,000 Karelians in different parts of Finland. This article focuses on how a lost Karelia has been constructed as a utopian place in Finland after the wars of 1939?44. I present an interpretation that is defined on the one hand by the experience of place in Karelian exiles’ reminiscences, and on the other hand by an ideological dream of the restoration of Karelia that persists in Finland.
The Anxiety of Writing: A Reading of the Old English Journey Charm
by Katrin Rupp
The performative and practical character of the Old English
Journey Charm clearly places it within an oral tradition. When the charm is written down, however, the performative power of its speaking subject loses strength. By extension, the entire poem loses its original spell because its performative gestures are replaced by semiotic representations on the page. Arguably aware of this process, the scribe incorporated fears associated with his disempowering activity.
Thrênoi to Moirológia: Female Voices of Solitude, Resistance, and Solidarity
by Andrea Fishman
This essay examines the relationship among gender, lamentation, and death in the Greek lament tradition by comparing ancient Greek literary representations of women in mourning from Euripides’
Suppliants to documented examples of women’s ritual laments for the dead from modern-day rural Greece—specifically Inner Mani and Epiros. The author explores the aesthetics of pain, lament as social protest, and the function of lament for creating solidarity among women mourners.
The Metamorphosis of an Oral Tradition: Dissonance in the Digital Stories of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada
by Lorenzo Cherubini
Digital storytelling, a form of short narrative told in the first person and enhanced by visual text and symbolic imagery, is considered as an extension of the oral tradition of storytelling and represents a continuation of what Aboriginal peoples have been doing from time immemorial. By applying a reflexive ethnographic framework to selected digital stories from the Omushkegowuk area in Ontario, Canada, a critical interpretation emerged—namely, the sense of profound dissonance inherent in Aboriginal peoples’ cultural, civil, symbolic, and spiritual paradigms resulting from the exploitation of Western colonial influence. I also discuss how the elders’ references throughout the stories shape altruistic truths and intrinsic value statements, requiring an imaginative interpretation from those on the cultural periphery of these oral traditions.
