Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Before Literature: The Nature of Narrative Without the Written Word

 Before Literature

Before Literature examines storytelling that, whether due to historical, technological, or socio-economic circumstance, is neither shaped nor influenced by alphabetic literacy.

How does a story unfold when carried solely in memory, when it cannot be written down or externally stored? What structural and stylistic pressures are imposed when it must travel through space and time exclusively by word of mouth? In Before Literature, Sheila J. Nayar addresses these very questions, guiding the reader in a lively and accessible manner through the key features of storytelling that's been unaffected by writing. Even more, Nayar shows how the very norms that drove oral epics such as the Mahabharata and Homer’s Odyssey can continue to shape contemporary forms like Bollywood masala films, Hollywood spectaculars, and comic books.

This clear and accessible guide is an ideal starting point for undergraduates approaching the study of orality. It offers a fundamentally different way of thinking about oral narrative, while also disclosing some of the "hows" and "whys" of written literature, leading to a much broader understanding and appreciation of our storytelling tradition.

Edition 1st Edition
First Published 2019
eBook Published 7 October 2019
Pub. Location London
Imprint Routledge
Pages 238
eBook ISBN 9780429281549
Subjects Language & Literature

chapter 1|7 pages

Denaturalizing literacy

chapter 5|11 pages

Why prelit matters

chapter 9|4 pages

Beginning in medias res

chapter 14|6 pages

Flashbacks, masala style

chapter 15|5 pages

Lists, lists, and more lists

chapter 18|6 pages

Whence the “traditional”?

chapter 19|6 pages

The acoustic landscape

chapter 20|5 pages

Ancestors and alienation

chapter 21|7 pages

Alienation and participation

chapter 23|6 pages

Blood and guts

chapter 27|6 pages

Oral embodiment

chapter 28|6 pages

Superhuman vessels

chapter 30|5 pages

Animating abstract knowledge

chapter 32|5 pages

Is there an oral chronosense?


 

 

 

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