The Problem of an Oral Poetics

Rainer Friedrich

(Dalhousie University)

Milman Parry's epoch-making work on the Homeric diction, opening as it did the new field of oral poetry within comparative literature,[1] took Homer out of his traditional comparative context and placed him firmly in a new one. Hitherto Homer had been compared with Vergil and Milton. This, the oralists said, is to compare apples with oranges: it is the kind of comparison that obscures rather than illuminates. Homer's schematized diction, it was argued, reveals him as an oral poet. So the oralists bid Homer to part company with the pen-poets and join that of the oral singers of tales in Yugoslavia, Crete, Russia, Africa, and wherever else oral poetry is still alive.

Soon a new canon of criticism was demanded: an oral poetics. As A.B. Lord stated:

Surely one of the vital questions now facing Homeric scholarship is how to understand oral poetics, how to read oral traditional poetry. Its poetics is different from that of written literature because its technique of composition is different.[2]

These programmatic sentences echo similar ones by J.A. Notopoulos. The Homeric poems, he had argued, had been misread and misjudged by Unitarians and Analysts alike: the former had falsely praised them for their alleged organic unity, the latter had falsely criticized them for their alleged lack of the same. This was the inevitable result of what Notopoulos termed "Procrustean criticism." By this he meant

Aristotle's Poetics, a poetics based on, and formulated for, written literature, which, when applied to oral poetry, is said to turn of necessity into a Procrustean bed. Consequently, he introduced his first outline of an oral poetics as "a prolegomenon to the formulation of... a non-Aristotelian Poetics."[3]

This attitude towards the Aristotelian Poetics is echoed in Lord:

We have exercised our imagination and ingenuity in finding a kind of unity, individuality, and originality in the Homeric poems that are irrelevant. Had Homer been interested in Aristotelian ideas of unity, he would not have been Homer, nor would he have composed the Iliad or Odyssey.[4]

For the most succinct presentation of the principles of an oral poetics and for bringing out its anti-Aristotelian orientation, the Brechtian antithetical tables suggest themselves as most useful[5]:

ARISTOTELIAN LITERATE POETICS	NON-ARISTOTELIAN ORAL POETICS
'hypotaxis'	'parataxis'[6]
ORGANIC UNITY	INORGANIC UNITY[7]
the work a totality interweaving the parts according to probability and/or necessity	the work the sum of its parts paratactically strung together
integrity of the whole	perfection of the parts
unity of action	multiplicity of actions
coherent plot	'flexible plan of themes and episodes'[8]
hierarchic distinction of mythos and epeisodia:	equal status of themes and episodes:
subordination of epeisodia to mythos	isonomia of theme and episode
parts mutually dependent and consistent with one another	independence and discreteness of parts
narrative telos-directed	retardations and leisurely tempo of narrative
causal connections of parts	additive ('paratactic') connections, complemented by framing device of ring-composition, and interconnective device of foreshadowing
'purgation of the superfluous'	oral ' horror vacui': diversity and abundance of detail
digressions accidental	digressions essential
doublets and repetitions avoided	doublets and repetitions necessary
inconsistencies are flaws	inconsistencies are tolerated (since unavoidable)
action has beginning, middle, and end	the action can commence at any point (hamothen, medias in res); is open-ended and designed for continuation
characterization interweaving the typical and individual	'characterization meaningless',[9] as oral poetry deals with traditional generic types
AUTHOR = esthetic subject	AUTHOR = a function of tradition
his text: fixed	his text: a 'pliable Protean substance'[10]
individual style (aiming at unique expression & variation)	traditional style working with formulas & type-scenes characterised by repetition
poetic invention and original elaboration	poet bound to traditional themes and their ornamentation
individual poetic conception of work	traditional groupings of themes and their standard sequences

The oral poetics seems to be everything Aristotle's Poetics is not. Yet the negative fixation on Aristotle, striking as it is, should not be allowed to create the impression that the oral poetics is little more than Aristotle's Poetics turned on its head. The oral poetics is a true corollary to Parry's theory of oral composition-in-performance in that its categories adequately reflect the exigencies and limitations this form of composition imposes upon the poet's artistry. Besides being the logical extension of Parry's argument, the oral poetics is also shaped by Notopoulos's and Lord's experiences as field workers on contemporary oral poetry in the Balkans.

The oral poetics was first put to effective use in the demolition of the exalted picture of the demiurge Homer which Aristotle and the traditional Unitarians are said to have painted.[11] However, it was also more properly designed for the positive task of a fresh and adequate appreciation of Homer's (and other poets') work as oral poetry, unencumbered by the legacy of the "Procrustean criticism" of the Unitarian and analytic schools. Here the oral poetics did not work so well: when it came to practical literary criticism of Homer, many self-proclaimed Parryists were strangely reluctant to apply the new poetics. After proclaiming their belief in the oral Homer, Homerists would proceed to interpret Homer applying the canon of traditional literary criticism. This prompted Lord to warn that unless Homerists were willing "to understand oral poetics" and "learn from the experience of other oral traditional poetries... 'oral' is only an empty label and 'traditional' is devoid of sense. Together they form merely a façade behind which scholarship can continue to apply the poetics of written literature."[12]

Lord certainly has a point. C.H. Whitman (Homer and the Heroic Tradition, 1958) is but an extreme example: after having declared

himself a Parryist, as orthodox as one can be, he applies to the Homeric epic the canon of the New Criticism. It is very well for Lord to decry such inconsistency (or opportunism) on the part of Homerists; yet this does not hide the fact that these inconsistencies reflect a real difficulty. The oral poetics, derived as it is from Parry's theory of oral composition, does touch many aspects of the Homeric epic; but not all, and not even the most significant ones. The Homeric epic seems to be recalcitrant to a reduction to an oral poetics that postulates a concept of unity which, as Norman Austin noted, "barely reaches the grammar school level of conception and execution."[13] Even the authors of the oral poetics have at times difficulties reconciling their theory with their actual criticism.

A case in point is an inconsistency in Notopoulos that goes right to the core of his oral poetics. The oral epic of longer compass is a "chronographic epic," characterised by Th. Kakridis in terms of the clarity and simplicity of its linear arrangement of the narrated events in their chronological order: it would correspond to the concept of the epic as a flexible plan of themes and episodes paratactically strung together to form a work of inorganic unity. Kakridis opposes to this type of epic what he terms the "dramatic epic," a form morphologically more advanced by virtue of its "integral structure".[14] The Iliad embodies this type of epic: it is clearly the Homeric epic of Aristotle's Poetics. After having given Aristotle's Poetics short shrift as the fons et origo of "Procrustean criticism," Notopoulos should be expected to reject for the Iliad the notion of the dramatic epic with its integral structure. Yet surprisingly, he adopts Kakridis's characterization of the Iliad in these Aristotelian terms, going as far as to concede that Aristotle's Poetics is "valuable... for grasping the dramatic character of the Homeric epics." He hastens to add that it "does not give ground for basing an oral poetics on it."[15] Notopoulos does nothing to assimilate his insight into the dramatic character of the Homeric epics (the Aristotelian

view) with his non-Aristotelian oral poetics. He does not even seem to be aware of this jarring contradiction. If Notopoulos is right, as he seems to be, about an oral poetics, and Kakridis (and Aristotle) are right about the dramatic character of the Homeric epic, then the Homeric epic must be beyond the reach of an oral poetics. An oral poetics cannot account for the dramatic character and the integral structure of the Iliad; on the contrary, it has to deny these qualities. When it comes down to practical literary criticism of the Homeric epic, the principles of an oral poetics seem to be honoured more in the breach than the observance.[16] Here it is well to remember that the notorious Procrustes was the happy owner of two beds. Could it be that an oral poetics, when applied to the Homeric epic, has the effect of Procrustes' short bed?

Another leading oralist, J.B. Hainsworth, has recognized the dramatic quality of the Homeric epic as the crucial problem for an oral poetics. He is profoundly ambivalent about a non-Aristotelian oral poetics. Yet his ambivalence adequately reflects an objectively ambiguous situation and has the additional virtue of stating the unresolved problems with great clarity. On the one hand, Hainsworth warns, "a simple transfer of the methods of criticism from written to oral literature is too naive." (Would such a transfer be legitimate if simple-mindedness and naivety were avoided?) On the other hand, "the greater architecture of the (Homeric) poems appears to be unlike typical oral poetry. It is more like drama and therefore more amenable to the canons of orthodox (i.e. Aristotelian, R.F.) criticism." On the one hand, "Aristotle's distinction of mythos and epeisodia introduces an element of status, as if the digressions were less important than the indispensable elements. But the plan of episodes in most oral poems is paratactic, that is, the themes strung

together are of equal status, interest and importance." On the other hand, "Aristotle has an awkward knack of being right." If, as some critics claim, Homer deserves a "special niche... in criticism, it would be in virtue of this quality: the intuition that the compression of the time-scale and the selection of a single basic motif is more dramatically powerful than a prolonged linear narrative."[17] Elsewhere Hainsworth asks a question which could one day prove fatal for the theory of an oral Homer: "... the real question, as yet unattempted, is whether the dramatic quality (sc. of the Homeric epics) could have been orally conceived." And "the unresolved problem is the contrast between the dramatic poetry of Homer which so impressed Aristotle (Poetics 1459 a30), and his basically oral technique."[18]

Hainsworth tries to strike a balance:

In general the more detailed and specific the criticism, the more relevant is the theory of oral composition. Our judgement about the use of a given epithet for a hero at a given point is inseparable, in my view, from our theory of the poem's mode of composition. But the conception of an Achilles or Odysseus has very little to do with the question whether their creator composed by word of mouth or pen in hand.[19]

What Hainsworth is saying here in so many words is that where it matters, an oral poetics is not needed: the good old Aristotelian one will do.

While Hainsworth seems to wobble, my fourth and last witness from the leading oralists, G.S. Kirk, has made up his mind. "Do we need a special oral poetics in order to understand Homer?" the title of one of his Gray Lectures asks, and the answer is a decisive "we do not." An oral poetics is neither necessary nor desirable, implying as it does the danger of doctrinaire, simplistic, and inflexible views on the nature of oral poetry.[20] The oral poetics is largely based on

the comparative study of Homeric and South-Slavic epic poetry; of the latter Kirk says that it has "provided much that is helpful as well as a good deal that is obstructive to the understanding of how Homeric poetry works."[21] It was obstructive in that it helped obscure "the huge difference between the best of the South-Slavic singers and Homer," or, as Hainsworth put it, "the manifest excellence of Homer and the mediocrity of much other oral poetry."[22] On the strength of it, Kirk does what must seem most sinful heresy to the oralists: he restores Homer to the company of the pen-poets Vergil and Milton thus resuming the traditional comparison. What Kirk endeavours to demonstrate is "that the differences between oral and literate expression, although considerable, are not so profound as is widely assumed; and that the oral epic, at least at the unmatched level of Homer, can display some of the supposedly distinctive subtleties of written poetry."[23]

By showing that Homer is quite the equal, and occasionally the better, of Vergil and Milton in dramatic skills, structural complexity, and ethopoetic finesse, Kirk heaps literary praise upon Homer that is indistinguishable from that of the traditional Unitarians. When reading Kirk's delightful Gray Lectures, it is often difficult not to lose sight of the oral poet Kirk says Homer is. Lest we do, Kirk has interspersed his text with frequent "oral" and "traditional," thus reminding us not so much of an oral Homer as of Lord's warning that these terms may become a mere façade behind which the poetics of written literature continues to be applied.

The status of the oral poetics has turned out to be quite uncertain. Designed to provide the canon for a new criticism that would be adequate to oral composition, the oral poetics arose in antithesis to Aristotle's Poetics, the fons et origo of literary criticism of written literature. Ironically, the application of the oral poetics to the most significant body of oral poetry, the Homeric epic, resulted in the tacit or explicit readmission of central Aristotelian categories, initially exorcised as having given rise to "Procrustean criticism." In

this ironic twist we can discern a veritable dilemma for the oralist. There can be no doubt that an oral poetics is consistent with Parry's theory of oral composition. Yet if you remain true to Parry, your oral poetics will fail to grasp Homer's artistry. Refine your poetics, and it will cease to conform to Parry's theory, as the refinement implies the adoption of categories pertaining to written poetry.

Hainsworth's "real question" comes to mind ("could the dramatic quality of the Homeric poems have been conceived orally?"), and one might conclude that the Homeric epics are, after all, not purely oral poems. Perish the thought! More profitable is a closer look at the basic premise of an oral poetics. Its raison d'etre is the assumption that oral poetry and written poetry differ in kind; that's why each demands its own canon of literary criticism. Lord extended this to the doctrine of the incompatibility of both poetries: "their techniques are contradictory and mutually exclusive."[24] An important corollary of this is that the possibility of an intermediate stage at which both poetries overlap is precluded. Lord's experience with South-Slavic bards who had become literate made him conclude: literacy kills the oral art.[25] A powerful argument. Yet is it legitimate to elevate instances of one particular oral tradition where conditions may obtain which do not obtain in others, to a law of universal application? Adam Parry had argued that it was not, and offered strong reasons.[26] His arguments have found vigorous support in Ruth Finnegan's Oral Poetry (1977), based as it is on the close study of more oral traditions, and thus claiming a broader base, than Lord's The Singer of Tales. Detailed evidence, Finnegan writes, tells strongly against Lord's doctrine: "there is no clear-cut line between 'oral' and 'written' literature, and when one tries to differentiate between

them — as has often been attempted — it becomes clear that there are constant overlaps."[27]

The dilemma we discerned in the vicissitudes of the life and times of an oral poetics points in the same direction: the assumption that oral poetry and written poetry are mutually exclusive and thus, on principle, allow no interaction, is untenable. Notopoulos has to take refuge in Aristotelian categories, which he had initially rejected in theory as applicable to written poetry only; Hainsworth recognises that the criticism of an oral Homer cannot do without the central Aristotelian concepts; Kirk's revisionism states that Homeric art can be fully appreciated only by the comparison with both oral singers and pen-poets - all this gives the lie to Lord's doctrine of the incompatibility of both poetries and the impossibility of an intermediate stage.[28]

Once we have secured the possibility of interaction between both poetries we are a step closer to the resolution of the dilemma, which cannot be attempted here. To secure this possibility is an important matter: it will prevent us from construing false dichotomies. Such dichotomies, as might be concluded from this critical study, have a limiting, if not crippling, effect upon the formulation of the poetics of the epic. They can turn such a poetics — still a desideratum -into the very Procrustean criticism of which the oralists have accused the Aristotelian Poetics.

[1] The basic texts are Milman Parry, The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry, ed. Adam Parry (Oxford, 1971); A.B. Lord, The Singer of Tales (Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature, 24) (Cambridge, Mass., 1960).

[2] A.B. Lord, "Homer as Oral Poet," HSCP 72(1967): 1.

[3] J.A. Notopoulos, "Parataxis in Homer: A New Approach to Homeric Literary Criticism," TAPhA 80 (1949): 1.

[4] Lord, The Singer of Tales, p. 148.

[5] Culled from: Notopoulos: "Parataxis in Homer"; "Continuity and Interconnexion in Homeric Oral Composition," TAPhA 82 (1951): 81-101; "Studies in Early Greek Oral Poetry," HSCP 67 (1964): 1-77; Lord: The Singer of Tales; "Homer's Originality: Oral Dictated Texts," TAPhA 84 (1953): 124-134; "Composition by Theme in Homer and Southslavic Epos," TAPhA 82 (1951): 71-80; J.B. Hainsworth, "The Criticism of an Oral Homer," JHS 90 (1970): 90-98.

[6] Notopoulos, "Parataxis in Homer," p. 7: "Parataxis in Homer extends beyond the style and characterizes the structure and thought of the poems."

[7] Notopoulos, "Parataxis in Homer," pp. 5f. and p. 7.

[8] Lord, Singer of Tales, p. 99; Hainsworth, "Criticism of an Oral Homer," pp.91 & 94.

[9] Notopoulos, "Parataxis in Homer", p. 22.

[10] Lord, Singer of Tales, p. 152.

[11] P.M. Combellack, "Milman Parry and Homeric Artistry," Comparative Literature 11,3 (1959): 193.

[12] Lord, "Homer as Oral Poet," p. 46.

[13] N. Austin, Archery at the Dark of the Moon: Poetic Problems in Homer's Odyssey (Berkeley, 1975), p. 4.

[14] J.Th. Kakridis, Homeric Researches (Lund, 1949), pp. 89ff.

[15] Notopoulos, "Studies in Early Greek Oral Poetry," pp. 40f.

[16] It could be shown that in Lord, too, the literary critic and the theoretician of oral composition are frequently at odds: the perceptive literary critic often registers artistry more refined and complex than the theoretician of oral poetry could account for; e.g. see Singer of Tales, pp. 159ff. and 187—9 on conflation of themes, transference, reference to outside stories, compression of time-scale — phenomena hard to reconcile with the conditions of oral composition-in-performance.

[17] Hainsworth, "The Criticism of an Oral Homer," pp. 98, 94, 95.

[18] Hainsworth, Homer (Greece and Rome: New Surveys in the Classics, 3) (Oxford, 1969), pp. 9 & 31.

[19] Hainsworth, "Criticism of an Oral Homer," pp. 93f.

[20] G.S. Kirk, Homer and Oral Tradition (Cambridge, 1976), p. 85.

[21] G.S. Kirk, Homer and Oral Tradition, p. 78.

[22] Hainsworth, "Criticism of an Oral Homer," p. 91.

[23] Kirk, Homer and Oral Tradition, p. 69.

[24] Lord, Singer of Tales, p. 129.

[25] Lord, "Homer's Originality," p. 129: Yugoslav oral poets turned pen-poets become wordy and stilted to the point of being unconsciously mock heroic. The natural dignity of the traditional expression is lost and what remains is a caricature."

[26] A. Parry, "Have We Homer's Iliad?" YCS 20 (1966): 177-216.

[27] R. Finnegan, Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance and Social Context (Cambridge, 1977), p. 2; p. 160: "In practice, interaction between oral and written forms is extremely common, and the idea that the use of writing automatically deals a death blow to oral literary forms has nothing to support it."

[28] Lord, Singer of Tales, p. 130, contradicts himself in a most astounding fashion: "The fact that non-formulaic expressions will be found in an oral text proves that the seeds of the 'literary' style are already present in oral style; and likewise the presence of 'formulas' in 'literary' style indicates its origin in oral style. These 'formulas' are vestigial. This is not surprising. We are working in a continuum of man's artistic expression in words" (my emphasis). It is on the previous page that a transitional stage between both poetries is categorically rejected on the grounds that their techniques are mutually exclusive and contradictory.

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