The Oral Epic From Performance to Interpretation

Underlying The Oral Epic: From Performance to Interpretation are Reichl's pioneering labor of many decades to inform research on orality in medieval European literatures by means of his extensive fieldwork with Central Asian Turkic oral bards (Parry's first and unrealized choice as ethnographic subjects to test his path-breaking theory of Homeric composition) and his grounding in musicology, ethno-and otherwise. The book goes beyond this basis, however. It is one of the most broadly comparative single-authored syntheses of research yet produced on living or recently living oral epic traditions worldwide. As such, the book makes a worthy American/oralist complement to synthetic works in the other schools (for example, A. T. Hatto, "Towards an Anatomy of Heroic and Epic Poetry," in Traditions of Heroic and Epic Poetry, Vol. 2, 1989; and V. M. Gatsak, Ustnaia picheskaia traditsiia vo vremeni, 1989). Moreover, its conciseness, evenness in treating matters of broad scope, and accessible style make it suitable for use as a textbook.

--Daniel Prior, Miami University for Journal of American Folklore