O kreatywności poetów oralnych
On the Creativity of Oral Poets

Summary/Abstract: Academic discourse on oral poetry usually underlines the accuracy of intergenerational transfer of tradition. Long, narrative-based poems, realized orally as songs, and poetry works are perceived as the most basic medium of this transfer, along with ritual formulas. In opposition to that perspective, this paper focuses on the role of poets’ creativity and limits of memory, as well as, in consequence, changing and multi-variant nature of messages. That latter stance neglects the concept of oral works’ collective authorship by reaching for examples of how individual authorship of particular works was acknowledged in certain societies. Meanwhile, the concept is founded on the notion that those works were composed in performance, therefore there were no canonical versions available. The further reaching version of the argument states that each performance was in fact a different work of the performer created during and by the interaction with the public. Memory limitations along with society-sanctioned poets’ drive for innovation influenced the performance which went beyond just repeating of traditional works. Instead, poets used already existing formulas, motives, and narrative schemes to improvise their own versions of well-known stories or create completely new stories. A modest version of the argument is based on the assumption that the link between creation and memorization was undergoing changes and depended on a particular genre and a performer which led to the whole range of practices, from improvisation to performing pre-composed and memorized works. Both stances underline that oral poets’ creativity was in a dialectic relation with traditionalism. While creating new stories, a poet had to follow traditional themes and narrative schemes expected by the audience. His creative imagination was shaped by his culture’s patterns – tradition remained his basic or even only resource of themes and formal methods used.

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