Oral Epic Traditions in China and Beyond

Chao Gejin, Liang Yanjun

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000529852
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism for Comparative Literature
• Index: Literature

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.

Part I
Critical reflections on epic studies

1 Homer to ArimpilThe paradigm shift in international epic studies

DOI: 10.4324/9781003258001-2

But come, be you

Propitious, Apollo, and Artemis

also:

farewell, all of you

maidens; and me then, even

hereafter,

call to your memory, when

someone among men on the

earth, some

much-tried suffering

stranger, arrives here making

inquiry:

“Maidens, for you which

singer is it of men wandering

hither

who is the sweetest in

song, and by whom you most are delighted?”

Then do you all, each one,

make answer and tell him about

me:

“It is a blind man dwelling

in Chios, rugged and rocky,

Whose songs, every one,

are the best both now and

hereafter.”

—Homeric Hymn to Apollo: 165–170

The history of epic research can be traced back to Aristotle. His comments on Homer’s epics initiated the diachronic study of epic on at least three fronts. First of all, the Homeric Question has been the focus of the classical debate on epic that continued through the 19th century and has affected the trends of epicology in the 20th century as well. Secondly, the study of the Homeric epics followed the classical philological approach from the Alexandrian Period up until the Oral Formulaic Theory became the core approach in the 20th century. For over 2,000 years, this tradition has experienced the baptism of fresh literary discussion from Medieval times through Renaissance, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, historicism, symbolism, structuralism, and deconstructionism to postmodernism and garnered countless accomplishments with great influence on what followed. No literary scholarship can be compared to Homeric studies in linking periods of literary thought. Thirdly, in the recent upsurge of oral and intangible heritage protection, Homeric poetry and related studies have once again become a focal point for scholars seeking the historical roots of cultural narrative. From questions like “Who is Homer?” and “Who killed Homer?” (Hanson and Heath 1998), we can trace the course of epic research as centered on the ancient Greek poet.

The status and roles of epic bards differ in different nationalities and traditions. To begin with, the processes of becoming a singer are different. People with the title of “family singer” are highly respected in ethnic groups like the Mongols and the Yi of southern China. There are special singer schools to cultivate epic singers from childhood, for example in Uzbekistan. In Tibetan areas, people believe the legend of miraculously becoming a “dream-taught singer” (gnyid lam bab). Professional bards are different from amateurs; but some professionals, and amateurs as well, live only by chanting epics, while some rely mainly on singing but also have another profession. In some traditions, epic singers have other social roles, such as officiants of religious folk rituals. In recent years, singers have been found with an extensive repertoire and high artistic and linguistic proficiency, such as the Yugoslav singer Avdo Međjedović, West African Dickey Szokor, Kalmyk Eela Ovlaa, Kirgiz Jüsüp Mamay, Tibetan Drakpa and Samdrup, and the Oirat Mongol singer Arimpil named in the title of this chapter. Many can sing their people’s epics that are several times as long as the Homeric poems. Rich in performance experience and creative skills, they can improvise or adjust their sung content and narrative strategy according to the reactions of the audience in live performance and gradually form their own unique style as they actively participate in the transmission and development of their oral tradition.

Looking back on the history of the study of epic by international scholars, Chinese scholars reflect on our own problems in the study of indigenous Chinese epic so as to respond to the situation faced by the local epic tradition and thus better participate in the international academic dialogue. In line with Western and Eastern scholarly traditions, the final concerns of our questioning must be 21st-century Chinese epic research and its future in relation to the multi-ethnic living forms of oral epic that are still found in China. In this, the Oirat singer in Xinjiang, Arimpil (1923–1994), has become a symbol of the Chinese indigenous epic tradition.

In the limited space of this chapter, the author attempts to discuss the source and flow of epic scholarship over the centuries. Focusing on main points, we can scan the whole evolution of epic research from micro to macro perspectives. The chapter sketches the modes of study of six epic bards, from Homer in ancient Greece to Arimpil in contemporary China, in order to highlight benchmark changes in this evolution as centered on the Homeric Question. This kind of academic history is far from being a matter of simply ordering material and opinions according to a time scale. Its strong and weak points are left to judgment and correction on the part of the international scholarly community.

The Homeric Question: From authorship to the scholarly tradition

Let us start with the blind singer from the island of Chios. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo was recorded by the historian Thucydides, who accepted that the poem was written by Homer himself as the poet’s self-evaluation (Thucydides 2004:190–191). ¹ Chios has an advantage in the dispute of the seven cities competing for Homer in that it is famous for the group of epic bards called the Homeridae (Homer’s offspring), whose names are known from the festival of the Panathenaea. The Homeric Hymns are thirty-four odes to deities, which later scholars have regarded as anonymous. When it comes to the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, however, the situation is quite different. Since the time of Alexander, there have been many disputes about this question. Aristotle systematically discussed characteristics of the epic; and Xenon and Hellenicus, who were called “separators” among ancient Greek scholars, stated that there were differences and internal inconsistencies between the Iliad and the Odyssey and that the Odyssey was not composed by Homer (Murray 1988:11). Later, the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (born 37/38 CE) concluded that Homer was an oral poet. Though all these writers lived relatively close to the Homeric era, they failed to provide us with much concrete information about the poet.

As is well known, the study of Homer in the 18th century centered mainly around the so-called “Homeric Question”; and that question continued to dominate epic studies in the 19th and even the 20th century. Scholars explored the identity of the author or authors of Homer’s epics, other aspects of his relationship to the poems, and questions about the spread of Homeric epic throughout the whole Western world, expanding from the Homeric Question to “Homeric Questions” (Nagy 2008:92–93). This exploration sums up the trend of international epic studies and reflects the most important scholarly developments in the field. Conservative classicists have tended to think that Homer lived around the 8th century BCE; and for a long time, this supposition dominated the study of Homeric poetry and its authorship. Concentrating on popular short narrative poems and folk tales, however, the Romantic movement gradually came to hold the view that Homer’s epics must have undergone a stage of oral transmission before being written down. The Italian Enlightenment philosopher Vico insisted that epics are the cultural achievements of nations, not the works of talented individuals. Regarding the Homeric epics, Vico stated that the glory of Homer as a citizen of many Greek cities is due to the fact that all these cities see that some words, phrases, and even some scattered sayings in Homer’s epic are from their own localities. There are many different opinions on the period of the early transmission of the Homeric epics, the range reaching 460 years. It is estimated that the earliest time was the Trojan War and the latest the reign of Numa, the legendary second king of Rome, c. 700 BCE (Vico 1997:416). The British archaeologist Robert Wood in An Essay on the Original Genius of Homer, published in 1769, held that Homer was illiterate and that, in any case, his epics were handed down by word of mouth. In 1795, the German F. A. Wolf published Prolegomena ad Homerum, which quickly became a catalyst triggering the debate between “Analysts” and “Unitarians” in the 19th century and the rise of Oral Formulaic Theory in the 20th century.

Generally speaking, the debates of the two opposing camps of Analysts and Unitarians revolved around the topic of a single poet Homer or many Homers. Scholars in line with Vico and Wolf think that Homer’s epics come from many poetic creators. Contradictions in the epics make it difficult to think that they were composed by one person; the dialects they use come from several different areas of Greece; and the time span manifest in Homer’s language is far longer than a single person’s life cycle (Vico 1997:439). Because of their analysis of the content and structure of Homer’s epics, these scholars are called Analysts. In this camp, the two early 19th-century German scholars Johann Hermann and Karl Lachmann are noteworthy. In his kernel theory, Hermann proposed that the earliest Homeric poetry constitutes only the core of the Iliad and the Odyssey, an Ur-Iliad, on the basis of which, after continuous additions, revisions, and deletions, we have the Homeric epics that we read today. In his Liedertheorie, Lachmann maintained that Homeric poetry, like the German The Song of the Nibelungs, is composed of eighteen ancient short lays. In the same line, others believe that the Odyssey is composed of the Telemacheia and four or five independent epics about nyki (ghosts). For Unitarians, however, the author of the two Homeric epics was a single individual. This was proposed by Gregor Wilhelm Nitzsch in the early 19th century and his successor, the early 20th-century American scholar John A. Scott, along with others. They maintained that Homer’s epics are complete works created by an individual genius alone, with a unified structure and a centralized concept of dramatic conflict, such as Achilles’ anger. Because they defend the integral unity and originality of Homer’s epics, they are called Unitarians; but their theory is based mainly on subjective assumptions and has few supporters.

In the heated argument between the two camps, both have sought to answer the Homeric Question threading through the whole 19th century, but from different philological and literary standpoints and approaches. Of course, there are some approaches that take a middle ground, maintaining that Homer’s epics are not the work of one author alone but that “he” played a considerable role in their construction and shaping. In his weighty Homerische Untersuchungen (1884), Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff fully manifested his support for the Analysts with careful and detailed arguments in the classical manner. On the basis of his meticulous textual research and excellent grasp of the history, dissemination, and stylistic changes of the epic, he made a thorough analysis of the Odyssey; but his open academic vision to some extent narrowed the long-term gap between the two sides of the debate. With the passage of time, moreover, especially with the publication of Homer: The Origins and the Transmission (1924) by Thomas W. Allen, the Unitarians forced the Analysts to face up to and partially accept some viewpoints of the other side. The two groups of scholars thus began to adjust their positions and absorb each other’s opinions, gradually moving toward a kind of constructive academic convergence as Neo-analysts and Neo-unitarians. ² As a result, the tit for tat that had long plagued Homeric scholarship tended to ease. Scholars in the classical mold admit that Analysts are proceeding in a complex and multi-faceted manner, while the Unitarians have become in essence a historical legacy. An appreciation of the implications of orality theories could actually deprive Unitarians of any foothold, but both Analysts and Neo-analysts have paid scant attention to oral theory (Foley 2000b:11–12).

Regarded as the father of Western literature, Homer and his works have remained intimately linked with the history of literature. His status is very different from the modern oral epic folk notion that “everyone here is a poet, because everyone can sing.” In the ancient Greek tradition, there was a relationship between aoidós (singer) or rhapsōidos (singer) and poiētēs (poetry maker). Being all of these, Homer can be listed among the dēmioergoi, “those who serve the dēmos (people)” (Homer 1994:15–41). In the Odyssey itself, the bards mainly mentioned are Phēmios (etymologically perhaps “prophet”) and Dēmodokos (man of public respect). Gregory Nagy has convincingly reconstructed the narrative tradition that constitutes the background of Homer’s poems, with possible modes of text formation, performance, and evolution (Nagy 2008). Citing a number of examples of relationships between songs and singers, poems and poets, he provides a fulcrum to get a glimpse of the ancient Greek bards behind the text. When our thoughts travel from ancient times to present reality and from Olympus to the Himalayas or Tianshan Mountains, we find that Dēmodokos and Phēmios are not far away from us. Outstanding contemporary singers and oral poets in China, like Samdrup, Junai, and Jüsüp Mamay, are the Homers of our time.

The Homeric Question and Homeric Questions are some of the oldest topics in the humanities. From “Who is Homer?” to “Who killed Homer?” we have here briefly outlined the progression of international epic studies and the questions that steer the directions of research. From questions of authorship to text collation, from bilingual translations to multi-disciplinary investigations, generations of scholars have responded to Homer’s age-old challenges with rapidly growing academic achievements in a never-ending spirit of exploration, asking “Why do people always need stories? Why do we want similar stories?” As long as epic exists, Homeric questioning will not stop. It will always inspire people to understand the essence of human oral artistry and the roots of expressive culture. An outstanding 20th-century example is the young Milman Parry, who deeply loved Homer’s epics and in the 1930s joined the ranks of thousands of questioners from the past, bringing a fresh voice to classical research and the whole field of traditional humanities.

Avdo: From singer to oral poetics

As curiosity about the Homeric Question continued, Parry, together with his student and collaborator Albert B. Lord, found a solution in the Parry–Lord Theory or Oral Formulaic Theory, based on an anthropological response to the Homeric Question in terms of philology and data from ancient Greek, Old English, and South Slavic epic. Inspired by V. V. Radlov (alias Friedrich Wilhelm Radloff) and Matija Murko’s field investigations, Parry found that neither the Analysts nor the Unitarians touched the essence of the problem. In his view, Homeric epic is rooted in oral traditions; and to support this inference, he and Lord carried out fieldwork in many areas of Yugoslavia starting in the 1930s. Through on-site testing, they confirmed Radlov’s perception that in certain types of folk narrative singing, no two performances are exactly the same. Every competent singer regularly improvises his songs according to the situation of the moment, not singing the same song twice in the same way, yet not thinking that this kind of improvisation amounts...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• PART I Critical reflections on epic studies
• PART II Theories and methods of oral poetics
• PART III Indigenous research on Mongolian oral poetics
• PART IV Comparative study of four epic traditions
• Appendix: Basic concepts in the study of oral epic
• Bibliography
• Index