Epic Voice, The

Western Folklore, Fall 2002 by Thursby, Jacqueline S

The Epic Voice. Edited by Alan D. Hodder and Robert E. Meagher. (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. Pp. 157, introduction, illustrations, maps, notes, index. $54.95 cloth, $15.00 paper); How to Read an Oral Poem. By John Miles Foley. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Pp xviii 256, prologue, photographs, notes, bibliography, index. $44.95 cloth, $19.95 paper); Myth: A New Symposium. Edited by Gregory Schrempp and William Hansen. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. Pp. vii 262, acknowledgments, introduction, illustrations, photographs, notes, bibliographies, index. $49.95 cloth)

All three of these books, like ancient lamps, light familiar, well-worn paths to guide us to new comprehension of myth (or-to borrow a term used by Barre Toelken in his contribution to the third of the volumes under discussion-of "fictional traditional narrative" [88]). The Epic Voice sets a thoughtful tone for the discussion. Here the editors have assembled essays written by five senior scholars, in which "decades of learning and thought [are used] to open the reader's mind to the fullness of the work at hand" (1). The five works discussed are from five different venues of the ancient world: Mesopotamia (The Epic of Gilgamesh), Israel (stories of David), Greece (The Odyssey), India (The Ramayana), and Ireland (The Cattle-Raid of Cooley [Tain Bo Cuailnge]). Taken as a whole, these essays bring the reader to dramatic new levels of understanding through use of multiple examples to illustrate the cross-fertilization of oral and written narrative. The volume is a "course-in-a-text."

How to Read an Oral Poem, by John Miles Foley, is an engaging work based on both fieldwork and archival research, whose playful title announces a discussion of relations between orality and literacy. The volume illuminates words, meanings, and usage in the work of four different oral poets representing four different oral poetic traditions both ancient and contemporary: a Tibetan paper-singer, a North American slam poet, a South African praise poet, and an ancient Greek poet. As Foley suggests, "Our challenge is to fashion a model for oral poetry that realistically portrays, in both its unity and its diversity, a kind of biology that allows for species differentiation within the composite genus" (38). He proposes a system of media categories (38) and discusses them. Foley's well-informed book carries the reader through eight chapters addressing, respectively, oral poetry; contexts and reading; performance theory; ethnopoetics; traditional implications; types of proverbs; examples of readings; and South Slavic oral poetry-an extended discussion in which he draws parallels to other examples in the text. Foley's afterword engages the reader in a fascinating comparative discussion of oral poetry and electronic media, specifically the Internet. "The key to these possibilities," he says, "is to recognize that-like the Internet we browse, learn from, and purchase on-oral poetry amounts to a linked series of pathways. Manifold destinations await us [. . .]" (221).

Myth: A New Symposium, the last of the three volumes under review, is a valuable interdisciplinary collection that both updates the contemporary study of myth and reconsiders its namesake, Myth: A Symposium, the groundbreaking interdisciplinary issue of the Journal of American Folklore (1955, simultaneously published as an independent anthology) that was based upon an Indiana University symposium on myth and famously edited by Thomas A. Sebeok half a century ago. The present volume offers conference papers given at the 1999 Indiana University symposium on myth, the editors suggesting that it represents an inventory and a point of reference, facilitating a new exchange of ideas. The introduction, an accessible springboard, situates the new anthology's fifteen essays (arranged into six parts within the volume) in relation to those of the older one. Part I, "Revisiting Myth: A Symposium," suggests that earlier views have "largely been replaced by other ways of looking at myth" (Hansen 26) and discusses former perspectives in light of contemporary scholarship and theory. Part II, "Myth and Ethnography," concludes with a trenchant statement by contributor Barre Toelken in his essay, "Native American Reinterpretation of Myths": "If we believe in the validity of mythic discussion on more than the academic level, our responsibility is to play a supportive role in the maintenance of the living cultures whose values we so antiseptically discuss in essays like this. In doing so, we will inevitably learn more about the meaning of myth in the modern world" (101).

The volume's four subsequent parts lead us along a well-worn path of historical and scholarly views of European, Asian, and American myths, but contemporary perspectives and views provide an enlightened consciousness of scholarly responsibility in this restive millennial age. Henry Classic, in his essay "Mud and Mythic Vision," reminds us of the importance of mythic faith and hope: "For them it is enough to know that when Kali has the sword in her left hand, she is Shamakali, to whom one prays for deliverance from the demons of the world, the muggers and terrorists who make life miserable, and with the sword in her right hand, she is Rakshakali to whom one prays in order to receive the blessings of God" (221). The final discussion in the text, by Gregory Nagy, suggests "a sense of nostalgia for a mythologized earlier phase of muthos as the conveyor of a stabilized universe" (246); and, as Toelken has already observed in his essay, "Native American Reinterpretation of Myths," these narratives gain additional layers of meaning as the "stabilized universe" is threatened by war and rumors of war (101). The scholarly discussions in Myth: A New Symposium represent thoughtful, informed ponderings of mythic traditions largely constructed to provide hope for tradition bearers and hearers. It is a useful, provocative collection, highly recommended for college and university classes.