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Copyright

Ruth Finnegan;

Published On

2025-05-28

Page Range

pp. 171–216

Language

  • English

Print Length

46 pages

5. Transmission, distribution and publication

  • Ruth Finnegan (author)
Chapter of: Oral Poetry(pp. 171–216)
This chapter examines the processes of transmission, distribution, and publication in oral literature, emphasizing the importance of verbal delivery for the existence and continuity of oral traditions. Unlike written literature, which can exist indefinitely in text form, oral literature must be performed and transmitted verbally, or it risks extinction. The study explores how oral literature reaches its audience, highlighting the central role of ‘oral transmission’ in both the creation and perpetuation of oral traditions, particularly within the field of folklore studies. Scholars of folklore often regard oral transmission as a defining feature of folk literature, and while some aspects of oral tradition may be memorized and passed down with relative consistency, others evolve significantly through performance.
The chapter also challenges romanticized views of oral transmission, which often suggest an unchanging process of word-for-word preservation over long periods. Through various examples, such as the Gésar epic, Vedic literature, and Anglo-American ballads, it becomes clear that oral transmission is more dynamic, involving elements of re-creation, memorization, and performance. The interaction between oral and written forms is also significant, with many oral traditions influenced by and interwoven with written texts, whether through direct transcription, dissemination via print, or modern media such as radio. This chapter concludes that oral transmission is not a singular or uniform process but is influenced by a variety of factors, including historical context, performance, audience, and medium.

Contributors

Ruth Finnegan

(author)
Fellow at British Academy
Honorary Fellow of Somerville College at University of Oxford

Ruth Finnegan FBA OBE was born in 1933 in the beautiful fraught once-island city of Derry, Northern Ireland, and brought up there, together with several magical years during the war in Donegal. She had her education at the little Ballymore First School in County Donegal, Londonderry High School, Mount (Quaker) School York, then first class honours in Classics (Literae humaniores) and a doctorate in Anthropology at Oxford. This was followed by fieldwork and university teaching in Africa, principally Sierra Leone and Nigeria. She then joined the pioneering Open University as a founding member of the academic staff, where she spent the rest of her career apart from three years – and more fieldwork – at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, and is now, proudly, an Open University Emeritus Professor. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1996, and is also an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford. Ruth has published two books with OBP, Why Do We Quote? The Culture and History of Quotation (2011), https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0012, and Oral Literature in Africa (2012), https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0025.