|
Papers > History > Celtic Oral tradition
Featured Papers from Direct Essays |
|||
1. Early History of the Celts
|
|||
This is a preview of a paper to view the full text you need to signup and login.
Celtic Oral tradition |
|||
|
Oral Culture & the Early Irish Up until the time Christianity came to Ireland, there was no written language. ... Everything was passed on in oral tradition, usually in sagas, tales and songs. ... Certain fundamental characteristics of a purely oral culture can be seen in that society tales. Before it is possible to understand how a purely oral culture functioned, it is necessary to be aware that as literate individuals, our thought processes are inherently different from those of an oral society’s. ... The oral poet had a number of techniques such as rhythm, repetition, alliteration, and epithets that allowed them to create these tales in a way that could retained in their minds without actually knowing the epic verbatim. ... The oral poet had an abundant repertoire of epithets diversified enough to provide one for any need that might arise as he stitched his story together, differently at each telling, for oral poets do not normally work from verbatim memorization of verse. ... This process for creating oral stories and poems does not lend itself well when into the form of a literal plot as we have come to expect. ... The retention and recall of knowledge in primary oral culture calls for poetic structures and procedures of sort quite unfamiliar to us and often enough scorned by us. One of the places where oral mnemonic structures and procedures manifest themselves most spectacularly in their effect on narrative plot, which in an oral culture is not quite what we take plot typically to be. ... Another example of a standard characteristic of oral stories and poems in the Ulster cycle is found in the story of Bricrui’s feast. ... There are certain fundamental characteristics that were present in many oral cultures and are paralleled by early Irish culture as seen in their stories. The general inability of oral cultures to think abstractly meant that they could visualize physical objects like horses or trees but not easily understanding ideals, such as morality. |
|||
To link to this page, copy the following code to your site:
Paper Information |
|||||
Title: Celtic Oral tradition
|
|||||
Signup & Login |
|||||
If you don't currently have a login then Signup here |
|||||
| Pre-Written Papers | |||||
|
|||||
| Custom Papers | |||||
|
|||||
Copyright 2003-2008 doingmyhomework.com. All rights reserved.