Oral Epic Traditions in China and Beyond

First published in English 2022

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158

©2022 Chao Gejin

Translated by Liang Yanjun

Translation revision by Daniel A. Kister

ISBN: 978-1-032-19182-9 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-19183-6 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-25800-1 (ebk)

This volume is the masterpiece of Chao Gejin, one of the best-known Chinese scholars of epic studies, during the last several decades between the 20th and 21st centuries.

The discussion ranges from Homeric and Indo-European epics to renewed discoveries of age-old African and Asian epics. The author details developments in research from Parry and Lord’s work on Homeric epics and Serbo-Croatian oral poetry to his own research on the Mongol heroic epic. The book traces the formation of theoretical systems such as Oral Formulaic Theory, Ethnopoetics, and Performance Theory, and ends with the author’s explorations of the 20th-century Mongolian singer Arimpil’s singing of his native epic poetry. By combining China’s theoretical concerns in verbal art and Western theories in folklore, Chao illustrates the nature and feature of oral epic in many ways, and is heading for constructing an oral poetics in a broader sense.

Students and scholars of epic studies, literature, folklore, and anthropology will find this an essential reference.

Contents

List of illustrations vii
PART I
Critical reflections on epic studies 1
1 Homer to Arimpil: The paradigm shift in international
epic studies 3
2 The history of epic research 32
3 Current issues in epic research 40
4 John Miles Foley and recent research trends on oral traditions 51
5 Gregory Nagy: From the Homeric Question to
Homeric Questions 61
6 Lauri Honko: The identity function of epic poetry 65
PART II
Theories and methods of oral poetics 77
7 Oral poetics and the Oral Formulaic Theory 79
8 Field investigations of oral epic transmission 86
9 Oral poetics and Chinese epic research: Interview with
the author 91
10 Types of oral epic texts: A Mongol case study 96
11 “Returning to the voice”: Textual research of oral epics as a starting point 102
12 “How long is long”: Epic length 112
PART III
Indigenous research on Mongolian oral poetics 119
13 Mongolian oral epic poetry 121
14 The Oirat epic cycle of Jangar 130
15 Analysis of Mongolian epic formulae 150
16 Analysis of Mongolian epic prosody 168
PART IV
Comparative study of four epic traditions 183
17 Challenges in comparative oral epic (co-authored
with Miles Foley) 185
Appendix: Basic concepts in the study of oral epic 215
Bibliography 220
Index 229