Verbal Arts in Madagascar: Performance in Historical PerspectiveVerbal Arts in Madagascar combines a history of the encounter between Europeans and colonized people with a groundbreaking analysis of four types of Malagasy folklore: riddles, proverbs, hainteny (dialogic exchanges of traditional metaphors), and oratory. In this richly textured study, Lee Haring has collected several hundred witty, imaginative texts and translated them into English for the first time. Verbal Arts in Madagascar contains the first history of the collecting of folklore in Madagascar from 1820 to the present. Haring contends that when European investigators recorded this "native culture" they created a vision of "folklore" which served French domination by trivializing Malagasy reality. Now, through comparison and analysis of texts gathered during a century and a half by foreigners, Haring shows that the four types of folklore examined make use of a pervasive two-sided dialogic structure. Although Haring works from texts transcribed and published at least seventy years ago, his analysis always highlights the performance of folklore in actual social settings. By drawing upon the observations of collectors and upon information presented in chronicles, ethnographies, reports, and other historical documents, Haring successfully reconstructs the performances of the texts and the social context in which the performances took place. Verbal Arts in Madagascar pioneers an integrated approach to past folklore studies into contemporary theory. It will especially interest students and scholars in folklore, history, African studies, and anthropology. |
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Page 102
They were composed and created by a specialized class of persons , whom we today call poets , but who in most people's eyes were simply fantasists of language and thought " ( Ranaivo 1949 : 61 ) . But hainteny have not always been ...
They were composed and created by a specialized class of persons , whom we today call poets , but who in most people's eyes were simply fantasists of language and thought " ( Ranaivo 1949 : 61 ) . But hainteny have not always been ...
Page 109
A Merina Genre and Its Analogues These poems constitute a distinctive creation of the Merina . Their monarchic state , which asserted hegemony ... An elaborate system of dikes for rice cultivation had been created by means of corvée .
A Merina Genre and Its Analogues These poems constitute a distinctive creation of the Merina . Their monarchic state , which asserted hegemony ... An elaborate system of dikes for rice cultivation had been created by means of corvée .
Page 200
He is creating a new artistic product “ which is immediately understandable because of the oral nature of his ... Most great art , says the British critic Raymond Williams , has been created in these conditions ( Williams 1966 : 32 ) .
He is creating a new artistic product “ which is immediately understandable because of the oral nature of his ... Most great art , says the British critic Raymond Williams , has been created in these conditions ( Williams 1966 : 32 ) .
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Contents
Question and Answer | 34 |
Dialogue in Monologue | 63 |
The Merina Hainteny | 98 |
Copyright | |
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acceptance African ancestors answer assert audience authority balance called choice collected connection contest continues conversation created culture Dahle dead death debate deliverer dialect dialogue Domenichini-Ramiaramanana European example expressive fixed folklore folklorists followed formal French funeral genre give hainteny hianao Houlder importance interaction island kabary kind king language linguistic living Madagascar Malagasy marriage means Merina metaphor missionaries monologic observed ohabolana oral oration oratory origin pattern Paulhan performance person petitioner phrases pieces play poems poetic poetry political present printed proverbs question quotation quoted raha Rasamuel reference relations reported riddle says separate single situation social society speaker speaking speech structure style symbolic tale texts tradition trans translated Turn University verbal voices wife woman words writing