E-Book Overview
The Powers of Genre describes a method for interpreting oral literature that depends upon and facilitates dialogue between insiders and outsiders to a tradition. Seitel illustrates this method with lively examples from Haya proverbs, folktales, and heroic verse. He then focuses on a single epic ballad to demonstrate, among other things, why stanzas need not rhyme, and how significance needs time in oral poetry and narrative. Making a controversial claim that an heroic age, similar to that of Ancient Greece, existed in Sub-Saharan Africa, this work will intrigue anyone who works in oral literature and narrative.
E-Book Content
THE POWERS OF GENRE
OXFORD STUDIES IN ANTHROPOLOGICAL LINGUISTICS William Bright, General Editor
Editorial Board Wallace Chafe, University of California, Santa Barbara Rcgna Darnell, University of Western Ontario Paul Friedrich, University of Chicago Dell Hymes, University of Virginia Jane Hill, University of Arizona Stephen C. Levinson, Max Planck Institute, The Netherlands Joel Sherzer, University of Texas, Austin David J. Parkin, University of London Andrew Pawley, Australian National University Jef Verschucren, University of Antwerp
Volumes Published: 1 2
Guntcr Senft: Classificatory Particles in Kilivila Janis B. Nuckolls: Sounds Like Life: Sound-Symbolic Grammar, Performance, and Cognition in Pastaza Quechua 3 David B. Kroncnfeld: Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers: Semantic Extension from the Ethnoscience Tradition 4 Lyle Campbell: American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America 5 Chase Hensel: Telling Our Selves: Ethnicity and Discourse in Southwestern Alaska 6 Rosaleen Howard-Malverde (cd.): Creating Context in Andean Cultures 7 Charles L. Briggs (ed.): Disorderly Discourse: Narrative, Conflict, and Inequality 8 Anna Wicrzbicka: Understanding Cultures through Their Key Words: English, Russian, Polish, German, and Japanese 9 Gerrit J. van Enk and Lourens de Vnes: The Korowai of Irian jaya: I heir Language in Its Cultural Context 10 Peter Bakkcr: A Language of Our Own: The Genesis of Michif, the Mixed Cree-French Language of the Canadian Metis ] 1 Gunter Senft: Referring to Space: Studies in Austronesian and Papuan Languages 12 David McKmgiu: People, Countries, and the Rainbow Serpent: Systems of Classification Among the Lardil of Mornington Island 13 Penelope Gardner-Chloros, Robert B. Le Page, Andree Tabouret-Keller, and Gabrielle Varro (eds.): Vernacular Literacy Revisited 14 Steven Roger Fischer: Rongorongo, the Easter Island Script: History, Traditions, Text 15 Richard Feinberg: Oral Traditions of Anula: A Polynesian Outlier in the Solomon Islands 16 Bambi Schieffelin, Kathryn A. Woolard, and Paul V. Kroskrity (eds.): Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory 17 Susan U. Philips: Ideology in the Language of judges: How Judges Practice Law, Politics, and Courtroom Control 18 Spike Gildea: On Reconstructing Grammar: Comparative Cariban Morphosyntax 19 Lainc A. Berrnan: Speaking through the Silence: Narratives, Social Conventions, and Power in ]a.va 20 Cecil H. Brown: Lexical Acculturation in Native American Languages 21 James M. Wilce: Eloquence in Trouble: The Poetics and Politics of Complaint in Rural Bangladesh 22 Peter Seitel: The Powers of Genre: Interpreting Llaya Oral Literature
THE POWERS OF GENRE Interpreting Haya Oral Literature
PETER SEITEL
New York Oxford Oxford University Press 1999
Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar cs Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan
Copyright
1999 by Peter Seitel
Published by Oxford University Press, In