Oral tradition

“ But oral tradition respecting a great man whose work has fascinated the imagination of his countrymen comes into circulation early, persists long, even in the absence of biography, and safeguards substantial elements of truth through many generations. Although no biographer put in an appearance, it is seldom that some fragment of oral tradition respecting a departed hero is not committed to paper by one or other amateur gossip who comes within earshot of it early in its career. ”

“ It is also interesting as an example, of which many others could be given, of the effect of oral tradition passing from minds of native strength, if without education, down to and through those of a lower order of intelligence, from whom now only the debris of the ancient songs and ballads can be obtained. ”

“ The travels of a tale through oral tradition are to be attempted with great difficulty and by only the most careful scholarship. One may follow the transmission of tales through literary collections with somewhat greater ease and exactness. Popular tales have a literature of their own. ”

“ Secondly, that in these household stories (the models for which were originally oral tradition) the thing most to be avoided is a discursive or descriptive style of writing. Brevity and epigram must ever be soul of their wit, and they should be written as tales that are told. ”

“ The purpose of the present study, then, has been to arrange in a single logical classification the elements which make up traditional narrative literature. Stories that have formed part of a tradition, whether oral or literary, find a place here. The folktale, the myth, the ballad, the fable, the mediaeval romance, the fabliau, the jest, the exemplum, and the local tradition have all been included, though some of these divisions have been inadequately recorded. ”

“ Most of the items are found worthy of note because of something out of the ordinary, something of sufficiently striking character to become a part of tradition, oral or literary. Commonplace experiences, such as eating and sleeping, are not traditional in this sense. ”

“ Field demonstrates how oral traditions such as trickster tales form an important body of knowledge that not only preserves cultural values and philosophical orientations, but also continues to instill these values in listeners. ”

“ It is the crude amorphous material of art, of music and poetry. But on its formal side, whatever its supreme significance as the instrument and medium of expression, speech is a natural convention, an accumulated tradition.
Even tradition, however, is often simply the corporeal embodiment, as it were, of heredity. Behind many a great writer’s personality there stands tradition, and behind tradition the race. ”

“ And as the word is the root out of which the whole stem of man’s transmitted knowledge, or tradition, has grown up, with all its branches and offshoots, so, too, in the eloquent speech, in the elegant composition, and even in all lofty internal meditation—which form, as it were, the leaves, flowers, and fruits of this goodly tree of living tradition—it is again the word by which the whole is carried on and ultimately perfected. ”

“ But more definitely, language is articulate human speech or symbolic expression of ideas.
How man first learned to speak, and whence the power of speech was originally derived, are questions concerning which tradition is uncommunicative. ”

“ And we saw that it is the work of tradition; that each generation passes along to the generation succeeding, with such faithfulness as the nature of the case permits, the store of words, phrases, and constructions which constitute the substance of a spoken tongue. ”

“ As nothing inchants those people more than a style of metaphors and allegories, in which even their common conversation abounds, I adapt myself to their taste, and never please them better than when I give what I say this turn, speaking to them in their own language. ”

“ Verbal tradition was developed to its highest possibility by the bards. They did much to make language what it is to the world to-day.
4. With the invention of writing, which developed out of pictorial record, human tradition was able to become fuller and much more exact. Verbal tradition, which had hitherto changed from age to age, began to be fixed. Men separated by hundreds of miles could now communicate their thoughts. An increasing number of human beings began to share a common written knowledge{v1-231} and a common sense of a past and a future. ”

“ I ask leave here for a thought or two about that inundation custom has made upon our language and discourse by familiar swearing; and I place it here, because custom has so far prevailed in this foolish vice that a man’s discourse is hardly agreeable without it; and some have taken upon them to say it is pity it should not be lawful, it is such a grace in a man’s speech, and adds so much vigour to his language. ”

“ Language, rather than matter, would thus become the object of emulation—speeches would swell into orations—and, in this contention and conflict of genius, men of cleverness, ready wit, brilliant imagination, retentive memory, caustic reply, and last, though not least, soundness of constitution, would rise to the surface, far above those who, with much deeper reflection, much heavier sense, more sterling knowledge, and more powerful judgment, were yet found to be wanting in activity in their parts of speech. ”

“ The written word is poor and insufficient, the oral has a host of allies in the expression of the mouth that imitates the object to which the discourse relates, in the movement of the hand that describes it, in the length or shortness of the tone of the voice, in its sharp or gentle, grave or droll character, in the entire play of the features, and in the whole bearing. ”

“ Here the primitive has vanished, we treat certain poetical motives, motives which the teller hardly belives in, but which, after traditional custom must be used in this kind of a tale, for the tales are after all poetical compositions too, and in their lives, in a rich popular tradition, we have so to say an equivalent to the written sources with which the history of litterature deals even if the material as a link in a verbal tradition conforms to other laws than those reigning in the world of litterature. ”

“ Orality is associated with fixed frames of existence and practical life. The culture of the written word resulted from the introduction of a variable frame of existence, within which a new pragmatic framework, corresponding to a growing scale of human activity, required a stable outline of language. ”

“ This is the language which I first heard from the dear lips of my mother, which gradually and constantly I made my own by studying and reflecting on the books and on the conversations of those who for years, or days, or instants, were with me in my native town and exchanged with me their thoughts and their sentiments; the language which unites to me all those who, living or dead, together constitute this which I call and feel to be my own people. ”

“ Thus, to the historian of letters, the Lives have a special interest, for they afford a standing example of a great dead tradition—a tradition whose characteristics throw more than one curious light upon the literary feelings and ways which have become habitual to ourselves. ”

“ By Tradition I mean the entire circle of thought and practice, custom as well as belief, ceremonies, tales, music, songs, dances and other amusements, the philosophy and the superstitions and the institutions, delivered by word of mouth and by example from generation to generation through unremembered ages: in a word, the sum total of the psychological phenomena of uncivilized man. Every people has its own body of Tradition, its own Folklore, which comprises a slowly diminishing part, or the whole, of its mental furniture, according as the art of writing is, or is not, known. ”

“ And since the opportunities for oral practice enormously outbalance those for written, it is the oral which are chiefly significant in the development of literary power. We rightly say of the accomplished writer that he shows a mastery of his own tongue. ”

“ On this note, the realization at once of the delicate loveliness and of the unsubstantiality of the pastoral ideal, we may close our survey of its growth and blossoming in our dramatic literature, and before finally turning from the tradition which fascinated so many generations of European artists, pause for one moment to inquire of the critical expression it has received at the hands of more philosophical writers. ”

“ The root of the mother-word will stand in the centre, and around her the grove of her children. By influence of taste, diligence, sound sense, and the judicious comparison of different dialects, lexicons will be brought to distinguish what is essential from what is accidental in the signification of words, and to trace the gradual process of transition; while in the derivation of words, and the application of metaphors, we shall behold the invention of the human mind in its act, and more fully understand the logic of ancient figurative language. ”

“ There is but one defect in literature,—that the talk is all on one side, so that we are listeners, as at a sermon or a lecture, and not sharers in some antique symposium, our own brows crowned with flowers, and our own tongues loosened with wine. The exercise of the tongue is wanting, and to some it is an imperious need, so that they will talk to the most uncongenial [Pg 30] human beings, or even to parrots and dogs. ”

“ Oral precepts thus condense the gist of recurrent experience for the benefit of each new generation. Such saws as "Honesty is the best policy," "Lies are short lived," "Ill gotten gains do not prosper," date, no doubt, well back toward the origin of articulate language. ”

“ There is one at least: The proper and exalted use of this great and splendid instrument, our common language. In a sophisticated world speech is action, words are deeds; we cannot watch our winged words too closely. ”

“ But, in every language, pray attend carefully to the choice of your words, and to the turn of your expression. Indeed, it is a point of very great consequence. To be heard with success, you must be heard with pleasure: words are the dress of thoughts; which should no more be presented in rags, tatters, and dirt, than your person should. By the way, do you mind your person and your dress sufficiently? Do you take great care of your teeth? Pray have them put in order by the best operator at Rome. Are you be-laced, bepowdered, and be-feathered, as other young fellows are, and should be? ”

“ The children of to-day resemble those children of humanity, the first framers of articulate speech, and the children of a single household, if left to themselves, would have each his own jargon, his own dialect. ”

“ The introduction of culture and knowledge, of art and science, may bring in a vocabulary of expressions for the knowledge communicated, the conceptions taught or prompted; but it cannot touch the most intimate fund of speech, the words significant of those ideas without whose designation no spoken tongue would be worthy of the name. ”

“ Hence I believe that good custom in speech springs from men who have talent and who have gained good judgment from study and experience, and who therefore agree and consent to accept the words that to them seem good, which are recognized by a certain innate judgment and not by any art or rule. ”

“ On the other hand, when we have wrought our language slowly, and lingered over each sentence, we see all the beauty it contains, and begin to admire our own production. If we see anything faulty, instead of lamenting it, as we would an unfortunate, spoken sentence, we change it, and take credit for the keenness of our critical taste. ”

“ We find, therefore, in their speeches, no large views, no generous and elevated sentiments, none of those appeals to the higher instincts of our nature, which are the crowning excellence of our English oratory. ”

“ The exquisite, almost over-refined, articulation seems the very note of culture. The restrained passion which thrills through the disciplined utterance warns even the most heedless that something quite unlike the ordinary stuff of school-sermons is coming. ”

“ The language in which the stories are narrated is rich in the quaint and vigorous phrases of Old English, reminding one of the times of Shakespeare and before. One could hardly give the children a better introduction to the riches of our mother tongue. ”

“ But though we are not to be minutely exact in the structure of our language, a moderate share of practice will habituate us to every thing of this nature which is necessary. For as the eye in reading, so the mind in speaking, will readily discern what ought to follow,—that, in connecting our words, there may neither be a chasm, nor a disagreeable harshness. ”

“ When the tongue is well controlled and wisely subdued; when selfish impulses and unworthy thoughts no longer rush to the tongue demanding utterance; when the speech has become harmless, pure, gentle, gracious, and purposeful, and no word is uttered but in sincerity and truth,—then are the five steps in virtuous speech accomplished, then is the second great lesson in Truth learned and mastered. ”

“ So again is the peculiar effect of their frequent transitions from the most fanciful imagery to the language of prose. No mere student can hope to rival, far less to reproduce, in a foreign tongue, the charm of verse which sprang untaught from the hearts of simple folk, which lives unwritten on the lips of lovers, and which should never be dissociated from singing. ”

“ In these, speech is the direct (although, it is true, unconscious) expression of intelligence; for Noiré, on the other hand, it is the outcome of will. “Language is the result of association, of community of feeling, of a sympathetic activity which, at the outset, was accompanied by sounds...; it is the child of will and not of sensation.” Speech is derived from community of action, from the collaboration of primitive men, from the common use of their activities. When our muscles are in action, we feel it a relief to utter sounds. ”

“ Wherefore, since all men are willing to listen to speeches which harmonize with their own character and to speakers who resemble them, it is easy to see what language we must employ so that both ourselves and our speeches may appear to be of such and such a character. ”