Karl Reichl – författare

This book focuses on the performance of oral epics and explores the significance of performance features for the interpretation of epic poetry.

The leading question of the book is how the socio-cultural context of performance and the various performance elements contribute to the meaning of oral epics. This is a question which not only concerns epics collected from living oral tradition, but which is also of importance for the understanding of the epics of antiquity and the Middle Ages which originated and flourished in an oral milieu.

The book is based on fieldwork in the still vibrant oral traditions of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia and Siberia. The discussion combines fieldwork with theory; it is not limited to Turkic epics but branches out into other oral traditions.

This book focuses on the performance of oral epics and explores the significance of performance features for the interpretation of epic poetry.

The leading question of the book is how the socio-cultural context of performance and the various performance elements contribute to the meaning of oral epics. This is a question which not only concerns epics collected from living oral tradition, but which is also of importance for the understanding of the epics of antiquity and the Middle Ages which originated and flourished in an oral milieu.

The book is based on fieldwork in the still vibrant oral traditions of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia and Siberia. The discussion combines fieldwork with theory; it is not limited to Turkic epics but branches out into other oral traditions.

Originally published in 1992, Turkic Oral Poetry provides an expert introduction to the oral epic traditions of the Turkic peoples of central Asia. The book seeks to remedy the problem of non-specialists’ lack of access to information on the Turkic traditions, and in the process, it provides scholars in various disciplines with material for comparative investigation. The book focuses on "central traditions" of this region, specifically those of the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Karakalpak’s, and Kirghiz and looks at the historical and linguistic background to a survey of the earliest documents, portraits of the singers and of performance considerations of genre, story-patterns, and formulaic diction, and discussions of "composition in performance", memory, rhetoric and diffusion.

Originally published in 1992, Turkic Oral Poetry provides an expert introduction to the oral epic traditions of the Turkic peoples of central Asia. The book seeks to remedy the problem of non-specialists’ lack of access to information on the Turkic traditions, and in the process, it provides scholars in various disciplines with material for comparative investigation. The book focuses on "central traditions" of this region, specifically those of the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Karakalpak’s, and Kirghiz and looks at the historical and linguistic background to a survey of the earliest documents, portraits of the singers and of performance considerations of genre, story-patterns, and formulaic diction, and discussions of "composition in performance", memory, rhetoric and diffusion.

Mittelalterliche Dichtung ist weitgehend der Mündlichkeit verpflichtet, nicht nur was den Vortrag und die Aufführung betrifft, sondern auch im Bezug auf die Überlieferung und das Dichten selbst. Obwohl in der mediävistischen Forschung Fragen der Mündlichkeit mittelalterlicher Dichtung viel diskutiert werden, fehlt es an einer übergreifenden, handbuchartigen Darstellung. Das De Gruyter-Lexikon ‚Medieval Oral Literature‘ wurde von einem internationalen Team von 25 Wissenschaftlern geschrieben und bietet eine fundierte Diskussion theoretischer Ansätze sowie ausführliche Erörterungen einzelner literarischer Traditionen und Gattungen. Neben Kapiteln zur ‚oral-formulaic theory‘, zur Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit im frühen Mittelalter, zur performance und den Sängern/ Spielleuten, zur mündlichen Poetik und zu rituellen Aspekten der Mündlichkeit finden sich Kapitel zu altgermanischen, romanischen, mittelhochdeutschen, mittelenglischen, keltischen, griechisch-byzantinischen, russischen, hebräischen, arabischen, persischen und türkischen Traditionen mündlicher Dichtung. An Gattungen werden insbesondere Epik und Lyrik berücksichtigt, zum Teil in separaten Kapiteln, mit zusätzlichen Kapiteln zur Ballade und zum Drama.