ABSTRACT
In the previous chapters, I demonstrated how what Lord called the “special grammar” of oral traditions and literary works with strong oral roots can be understood as a form of institutional talk-that is, the “special grammar” is simply an adaptation of the rules and practices found in everyday conversation. This observation applies not only at the level of the traditional phraseology (for example, the decasyllable line in the Serbo-Croatian epic tradition) but also at the level of theme (for example, the “became silent to silence” theme in Homer). In this chapter, I discuss two so-called “literary” structures-Wiederaufnahme and ring composition-both of which have been used by those 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. However, I show that these so-called “literary” structures are simply adaptations of structures found in everyday conversation, especially a structure that has been called “restarts.” Thus before discussing Wiederaufnahme and ring composition, I first describe the structure of restarts in conversation. I then discuss 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. Then the relationship between restarts and both Wiederaufnahme and ring composition will become rather obvious.
