Smoothing the Ground: Essays on Native American Oral Literature

Smoothing the Ground: Essays on Native American Oral Literature
ISBN-10
0520049136
ISBN-13
9780520049130
Category
Literary Criticism
Pages
388
Language
English
Published
1983
Publisher
Univ of California Press
Author
Brian Swann

Description

A compilation of essays and translations in which leading scholars in the fields of linguistics, folklore, ethnopoetics and literary criticism discuss the continuing American Indian oral tradition as literature. Native Americans invested the spoken word with reverence and power, and the oral literature that resulted from the fusing of language and event into vital force is extraordinarily rich and potent. Authors such as Dell Hymes, Karl Kroeber, Dennis Tedlock, Jarold Ramsey and John Bierhorst address the many aspects of the study of this literature, from the problem of translation and of the role of the literary critic to the interpretation of specific stories. ISBN 0-520-04902-0 : $12.95.

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