Identifier: worldliteraturei00mouluoft (find matches)
Title: World literature and its place in general culture
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Moulton, Richard Green, 1849-1924
Subjects: Literature -- History and criticism
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan company
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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readby the eye, but heard with the ear, and which constitutedthe whole of poetry before the time when writing,hitherto used for record only, comes to be applied to theconservation of literature. It is a mistake to supposethat such Oral Poetry has only an archaeological interest.Oral and Written are the two main divisions in the his-tory of poetry: in one respect Oral Poetry is the moreimportant of the two, for it is in this that the founda-tions of literary form are slowly laid down. The phenomena of Oral and Written poetry are widelydifferent; even practised scholars, in referring to com-positions of great antiquity, are apt to lapse into expres-sions that have a connotation of modern conditions.The simple scheme of epic evolution on the oppositepage may bring out the contrast of the two. Oralpoetry is a floating literature because, apart from writing (102) ra M E o E 3O E = _a o C3 Cl> o ho 1 £ 3 o *« 1= c: i^ 03 c ^ a> Is o -g .2. o E -S P^ £ S £ S ■et H- I— n: a. Q_
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(103 THE FIVE LITERARY BIBLES that gives fixity, each delivery of a poem becomes a freshedition. In such a state of things there is no readingclass : the minstrel — by whatever particular name hemay be called — is the sole source of poetry, and theminstrel is equally accessible to all. Our modern con-ditions recognize authors, and protect their individualclaims as a kind of property; in floating literature pro-duction belongs to the minstrel profession collectively,and each reciter uses the common material without anysense of borrowing. Our first instinct is for originality,and we scout plagiarism as a literary sin. Oral poetryis founded on plagiarism; the impulse to originalityhas not appeared, and the conventional echoing of com-mon topics and details is the foremost poetic interest.In such floating poetry literary evolution has free andrapid course. First we have the unit story or song.But the life portrayed is comparatively simple, andstories have much in common ; in the float

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