ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses about two literary structures such as Wiederaufnahme and ring composition which have been used by the literary critics who continue to insist that great literary works such as the Iliad, Beowulf, and the Bible must be the work of literate authors. It shows that these literary structures are simply adaptations of structures found in everyday conversation, especially a structure that has been called restarts. The chapter describes the structure of restarts in conversation, and discusses how the structure of restarts is portrayed in modern English literature and how it functions in the context of both Serbo-Croatian oral epic and in The Thousand and One Nights. It briefly reviews some of the critics of the application of oral traditional studies to literature, including Kendall. Finally, the chapter explains that the ring composition can be understood as an adaptation of restarts and inserts sequences as found in conversation.
