Singing the Past: Turkic and Medieval Heroic Poetry

Karl Reichl

Published by Cornell University Press 2000

Singing the Past

Turkic and Medieval Heroic Poetry

Karl Reichl

In the series Myth and Poetics

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501732164

Overview
Contents

About this book

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...

Author / Editor information

Karl Reichl is Professor and Chair of English Philology at the University of Bonn. He is the author of Turkic Oral Epic Poetry: Traditions, Forms, Poetic Structure.

Reviews

Joseph Harris, Harvard University:

Karl Reichl's brilliant work with little-known modern Turkic oral literatures casts unexpected light on more familiar works of medieval literature (such as Beowulf) while western texts and concepts (such as genre) provide a context for facilitating appreciation of the more exotic products of his remarkable fieldwork.

John Miles Foley, Center for Studies in Oral Tradition, University of Missouri:

Karl Reichl studies oral and oral-derived narrative from a uniquely productive vantage point, combining his own fieldwork and recording of Central Asian oral epic with his deep knowledge of western European vernacular literature in the Middle Ages. The result is an intriguing look at a living oral poetics and a fresh, informed reconstruction of the verbal arts of the early medieval period.

Nicholas Howe:

He is not out to identify the authentic and strip away the spurious. He understands that such categories have at least as much to do with the interpretive desires of their proponents as they do with the texts they set out to study. The performative element is central to Reichl's ways of reading, as one would expect of someone who has heard and recorded so many such events across Central Asia.... It gives us a larger world for reading heroic poetry, and for that we should be grateful.

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Foreword Gregory Nagy Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Note on Transcription, Pronunciation, and Translations Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
CHAPTER ONE. Turkic Bards and Oral Epics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	12
CHAPTER TWO.Variations on Epic and History Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	44
CHAPTER THREE. In Search of the Heroic Lay Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
CHAPTER FOUR. Heroic Epic and Tribal Roots Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
CHAPTER FIVE. Heroic Past and Poetic Presence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
APPENDIX ONE. The Text of Tdwke-batü Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
APPENDIX TWO. The Text of Ormanbet-biy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 240
Illustrations
- Other: 4 maps, 1 halftone
Keywords: History; Europe

eBook

Published: September 5, 2018
ISBN: 9781501732164