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 EditionFirst Published 2019eBook Published 7 October 2019Pub. Location LondonImprint RoutledgePages 238eBook ISBN 9780429281549Subjects Language & Literature
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter 1|7 pages
Denaturalizing literacy
chapter 2|8 pages
The story behind Before Literature
chapter 3|7 pages
Existence without inscription
chapter 4|6 pages
Myth and the mythical, epic and the epical
chapter 5|11 pages
Why prelit matters
chapter 6|4 pages
But there is always a but …
chapter 7|5 pages
A beginning with no definitive beginning
chapter 8|3 pages
A digression on the “once upon a time…” of Star Wars
chapter 9|4 pages
Beginning in medias res
chapter 10|5 pages
Ending anti-in medias res—and pro-status quo
chapter 11|6 pages
“And this happened … and then this … and then …”
chapter 12|5 pages
Epic examples of episodic epics
chapter 13|6 pages
[[Boxes] within boxes] within boxes
chapter 14|6 pages
Flashbacks, masala style
chapter 15|5 pages
Lists, lists, and more lists
chapter 16|9 pages
In defense of clichés and the formulaic (yes, really!)
chapter 17|7 pages
Repeat, recycle—and repeat (and recycle)
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 22|4 pages
The agon of audiences—but, even more, of actors
chapter 23|6 pages
Blood and guts
chapter 24|4 pages
Violence + veneration = a polarized world
chapter 25|10 pages
When exteriority is not a bad thing
chapter 26|4 pages
But, what of art? What of aesthetics?
chapter 27|6 pages
Oral embodiment
chapter 28|6 pages
Superhuman vessels
chapter 29|6 pages
Is antipsychological necessarily unreal?
chapter 30|5 pages
Animating abstract knowledge
chapter 31|10 pages
The absence of irony, the pleasure of parody
chapter 32|5 pages
Is there an oral chronosense?
chapter 33|12 pages
Do intellectuals suffer from alphabetically literate elitism?
chapter 34|5 pages
Why the humanities matter—to all of us
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