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upon the observations of collectors and upon information presented in chronicles, ethnographies, reports, and other historical documents, Haring successfully reconstructs the performances of the texts and the social context in which the performances took place.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 50
The victim of such a dilemma is the suffering protagonist of a tale , which gives the origin for an antithetical saying . The guinea - fowl , it is said , went to visit his relations beyond the forest ; but when he came to the thick of ...
The victim of such a dilemma is the suffering protagonist of a tale , which gives the origin for an antithetical saying . The guinea - fowl , it is said , went to visit his relations beyond the forest ; but when he came to the thick of ...
Page 58
The necessity for human choice appears all over Madagascar in myths about the origin of death and of the political order . Two Sakalava examples , both located in the remote past , give support to a remark of the folklorist André Jolles ...
The necessity for human choice appears all over Madagascar in myths about the origin of death and of the political order . Two Sakalava examples , both located in the remote past , give support to a remark of the folklorist André Jolles ...
Page 59
The second Sakalava myth , which explains the origin of kings , also portrays a capacity for choice among alternatives . The solitary hero , a fig . ure of authority , personifies the power to make value determinations analogous to ...
The second Sakalava myth , which explains the origin of kings , also portrays a capacity for choice among alternatives . The solitary hero , a fig . ure of authority , personifies the power to make value determinations analogous to ...
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Contents
Question and Answer | 34 |
Dialogue in Monologue | 63 |
The Merina Hainteny | 98 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
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