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upon the observations of collectors and upon information presented in chronicles, ethnographies, reports, and other historical documents, Haring successfully reconstructs the performances of the texts and the social context in which the performances took place.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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 8
Page 12
... expressive culture of these people who are too little known - a worthy goal in itself — and to integrate that culture into the body of facts and theory constituting the field of folklore ( as Americans call it ; some European scholars ...
... expressive culture of these people who are too little known - a worthy goal in itself — and to integrate that culture into the body of facts and theory constituting the field of folklore ( as Americans call it ; some European scholars ...
Page 27
... expressive and moral meaning pervade symbolic expression and are a focus for con- stant play and manipulation ” ( Reisman 1970 ) . The arena for that manipu- lation is verbal interaction ; the content of that play is folklore ...
... expressive and moral meaning pervade symbolic expression and are a focus for con- stant play and manipulation ” ( Reisman 1970 ) . The arena for that manipu- lation is verbal interaction ; the content of that play is folklore ...
Page 34
... expressive culture , the most significant link is that Madagascar , like so many African societies , highly values the artistic uses of words . Geneviève Calame - Griaule ( 1963 ) groups these uses together as " riddle language ...
... expressive culture , the most significant link is that Madagascar , like so many African societies , highly values the artistic uses of words . Geneviève Calame - Griaule ( 1963 ) groups these uses together as " riddle language ...
Contents
Question and Answer | 34 |
Dialogue in Monologue | 63 |
The Merina Hainteny | 98 |
Copyright | |
4 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
African allusion ancestors Andrianampoinimerina answer Antananarivo Antemoro artistic language audience authoritative Bakhtin Beaujard Betsileo Bloch called Callet cattle collected collectors contest contradiction creolization Dahle Dahle's dead Decary deliverer dialect dialogue discourse Domenichini-Ramiaramanana Dundes European fanorona Ferrand fixed phrases Flavien Ranaivo folklorists folktales formal French funeral gasy genre groom's family hainteny hearer hianao highland Houlder interaction izaho izany izay Jean Paulhan kabary kely king language linguistic literary Madagascar Malagasy culture Malagasy folklore Malagasy language Malagasy proverbs Malagasy Tale Index marriage marriage debate means Merina metaphor missionaries Mondain monologic mpikabary ohabolana olona oral oration oratory Paulhan performance person petitioner player poetic poetry proverbs question quotation quoted raha rano Rasamuel riddle riddler safidy Sakalava says Sibree situation social speaker speaking speech structure style stylized symbolic tahaka texts topic-comment tradition trans translated tsiny tsy mba Turn two-sided verbal art wife woman words