Karl Reichl

Oral epic poetry is still performed by Turkic singers in Central Asia. On trips to the region, Karl Reichl collected heroic poems from the Uzbek, Kazakh, and Karakalpak oral traditions. Through a close analysis of these Turkic works, he shows that they are typologically similar to heroic poetry in Old English, Old High German, and Old French and that they can offer scholars new insights into the oral background of these medieval texts.Reichl draws on his research in Central Asia to discuss questions regarding performance as well as the singers' training, role in society, and repertoire. He asserts that heroic poetry and epic are primarily concerned with the interpretation of the past in song: the courageous deeds of ancestors, the search for tribal and societal roots, and the definition and transmission of cultural values. Reichl finds that in these traditions the heroic epic is part of a generic system that includes historical and eulogistic poetry as well as heroic lays, a view that has diachronic implications for medieval poetry.Singing the Past reminds readers that because much medieval poetry was composed for oral recitation, both the Turkic and the medieval heroic poems must always be appreciated as poetry in performance, as sound listened to, as words spoken or sung.

Turkic and Medieval Heroic Poetry

Singing the Past

Although problems of orality have been much discussed by medievalists, there is to date no comprehensive handbook on this topic. In ‘Medieval Oral Literature’ in the ‘De Gruyter Lexikon’ series, an international team of scholars has provided an in-depth discussion both of theoretical issues and various poetic traditions and genres. In addition to the core areas of the European Middle Ages, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian and Turkish traditions have also been included.

Medieval Oral Literature

Joseph Harris

Joseph Harris, Ph.D.

Comparative studies of a number of mixed prose-and-verse literatures, from Europe to the Orient, from classical culture to the 19th century.

Crosscultural Perspectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse

Prosimetrum

Walter Sauer

A Concordance to Six Middle English Tail-rhyme Romances

Das Heldenepos Alpomish gilt als das Nationalepos der Usbeken, das in jahrhundertelanger mundlicher Uberlieferung bis heute von usbekischen Epensangern vorgetragen wird. Fur die vergleichende Epenforschung ist das Heldenepos Alpomish vor allem wegen seiner engen inhaltlichen Parallelen zur Odyssee von Bedeutung. Das Erzahlmuster von der Ruckkehr des Helden, das sich ausser in der Odyssee auch in der mittelalterlichen Erzahldichtung undin der slawischen Volksepik findet, wird im Alpomish im Stil der mundlichen usbekischen Epik mit ihrem Wechsel von Vers und Prosa, Gesang und Erzahlung gestaltet. Alpomish ist in zahlreichen, zum Teil sehr umfangreichen Versionen uberliefert. Fur die vorliegende Ausgabe und Ubersetzung wurde eine kurzere, aber vollstandige Version gewahlt, die 1938/39 niedergeschriebenwurde. Die Ausgabe gibt den usbekischen Text nach der handschriftlichen Aufzeichnung ohne Kurzungen oder sprachliche Glattung in der heute in Usbekistan amtlichen Lateinschrift wieder. Eine Einfuhrung in das Werk und eine Ubersicht uber die verschiedenen usbekischen Versionen des Alpomishrunden Edition und Ubersetzung ab.

Einführung, Text, Übersetzung

Das usbekische Heldenepos Alpomish

The six Middle English poems covered by this two-volume computerized concordance form a homogeneous group of non-cyclical tail-rhyme romances: "Sir Eglamour of Artois, Le Bone Florence of Rome, Sir Isumbras, Octavian, The King of Tars," and "Sir Tryamowr." In preparing the concordance, the relevant editions have been checked against the manuscripts and the texts re-edited according to a unified set of principles. In this KWIC (Key Word in Context) concordance the lexical material is given in full and homonyms have been distinguished. It can serve both literary (E.g. formulaic) and linguistic (e.g. syntactic) studies.

Karl Reichl

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