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ABSTRACT This thesis deals with the theme of the environmental worth and the contemporary developmental relevance of traditional oral poetry. The specific subject matter is the worth of the traditional oral poetry of Asante/Ashanti (one of the groups of the Akan cultural group in Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Togo in West Africa) and its relevance as a source of inspiration for the raising of environmental consciousness. The premise of the thesis is that there existed within traditional oral literature some environmental knowledge which responded to the needs of traditional society. The knowledge in this literature can be revamped and harnessed to help direct the environmental aspect of current developmental approaches. For that reason, the thesis takes as its point of departure and primary data some traditional Asante proverb-poems. These proverbpoems had the status and role of myths engendered by society to fashion and guide humans’ interaction with Nature. This assimilation between proverb-poem and society’s environmental precepts implied that society had (consciously or unconsciously) cast the proverb-poem in the role of an environmental preceptor to guide society. Beliefs about Nature and the practices thereof which are enshrined in these proverbpoems, therefore, contained the knowledge which guided the use of natural resources and hence the direction of development and sustainability in traditional Asante society. Invariably, the environmental outlook of society, its values and interests, its projections and directions, and its development, all came to be informed by the knowledge contained in this myth/proverb-poem. It is pertinent to note that the type of environmental demands required by contemporary Asante is reminiscent of the sustainability which oral literature helped traditional Asante to attain. This comparison is validated for two main reasons. The first is the fact that today development in perceived as a shift from the prioritization of the military security of states and regimes to an emphasis on seven cardinal areas which complement state and regime security. These are - Economic security, Food security, Health security, Environmental security, Personal security, Community security, and Political security. This thesis focuses on the environmental aspect. Second, development focuses on exploring local alternative approaches to the problem of environmental degradation. In this regard, the thesis argues that aspects of the manner in which cultural communities express their relationship with Nature is recoverable through a literary study of the images and belief system found in their rendition of Nature. These images, their perceptions, and the attitude they express toward Nature, offer a framework within which to evaluate possible culture-specific solutions to contemporary environmental problem. It is for the above reason that this work evaluates a selection of traditional Asante proverb-poems to find out the extent to which they served to mediate environmental consciousness and Nature conservation in traditional Asante. In order to arrive at a more reliable conclusion, this investigation first evaluates the ways in which institutions and practices such as Asante political system, the nature of their myths and taboos, their impact on their environment, their relation with colonial environmentalism, the nature and the archival function of their poetry and their entire cosmovision can be said to resemble or reflect the manner in which the Asante formulated the relationship between humans on one hand and flora, fauna, and landscape on the other. It is revealed that their predilection for co-existence with nature advocated in these literary texts largely resembled the normative values and institutional structures of traditional Asante community. Using Structuralism and Ecocriticism the work presents each persona of the various proverb-poems as opposing some prevailing attitudes to nature by critiquing, teaching, encouraging, condemning, exalting the audience to perceive nature as kin, nature as a beneficent agent to appreciate, nature as a danger to avoid, and nature as a domain to which humans are accountable. The thesis also advances the opinion that those attitudes which sustained environmental viability could be reworked and adapted to feed into the creation of a mind-sets which can enhance human perceptions about Nature today and contribute to the search for solutions to environmental degradation. In addition to the above anthropo-developmental dimension, the analysis reveals some specificities of the literary analysis of oral environmental texts of traditional societies. It equally shows the nature of the peculiar challenges faced in the environmental arena by developmental objectives. The work is, therefore, inspired by the need to contribute ideas and perceptions that can eventually feed into the debates around solutions toward the solving of environmental problems. Thus, the work seeks to do this by using literary approaches to highlight and draw on traditional knowledge to enrich the present search for indigenous ways of conceptualizing human-Nature relations and of solving current environmental problems.

Bob Cobbing (1920-2002) was a poet known for his performances and as an organiser of poetry events, as a participant in the British Poetry Revival, as a late-modernist and as a sound and concrete poet. This thesis seeks to reconfigure our view of Cobbing as a performer by considering his performances across a range of institutions to argue that this institutionalised nature was their defining aspect. It maps the transition from Cobbing’s defence of amateurism and localism in the 1950s to his self-definition as a professional poet in the mid 1960s and his attempt to professionalise poetry in the 1970s. This process was not uncontested: at each stage the idea of the poet and the reality of what it meant to live as a poet were at stake The first chapter considers Cobbing’s poems and visual artworks of the 1950s in the context of Hendon Arts Together, the suburban amateur arts organisation he ran for ten years, and it situates both in Britain’s postwar social and cultural welfare system. Chapter two analyses Cobbing’s transition from Finchley’s local art circles to his creative and organisational participation in London’s international counterculture, specifically the Destruction in Art Symposium (9-11 September 1966). Chapter three considers ABC in Sound in the context of the International Poetry Incarnation (11 June 1965) and analyses Cobbing’s emergence as a professional poet. Chapter four examines Cobbing’s tape-based poems of 1965-1970 and their associated visual scores in the context of audio technology, and the role they played in Cobbing’s professionalisation. The final chapter examines Cobbing’s performances at the Poetry Society (1968- 1978) in order to investigate the effects of subsidy and friendship on poetic performance.

This thesis analyzes the issue of performing self in the genres of oral poetry and weeping, which are performed by Dersimli women in the course of their everyday life practices. This study focuses on the case of Dersim (Tunceli) which is located in the east part of Turkey where Zazaki-speaking and Kurdish-speaking Alevi people constitute the majority of the population. I deal with these performances as repetitive actions, occurring in the course of everyday life. I focus on the narratives in the songs and issues related to giving voice with respect to acceptability, respectability, and experience. The personal narratives or social issues presented with these genres include a range of topics like dissatisfaction about life, a deceased child, loneliness, poverty, forced migration from the villages in the mid 1990s, regret of a woman for her marriage and old love stories. I found that performing those genres as repetitive actions in the course of everyday life practices has an important role both in the construction and the positioning of self. This study deals with songs as processes rather than products. Finally, in these processes, performers express their experiences, emotions, and ideas which are not narrated or spoken, or have limited expression, in the social interaction of everyday life. Although weeping practices usually reproduce expected gender roles however, the saying/singing practices as a whole may create the possibility of agency and certain spaces for resistance and contribute to the visibility of women in the community.

A computationally-assisted analysis was undertaken of Tahitian oral poetry transcribed in the early 19th century, with the aim of discovering its poetic organization. An automated pattern detection process attempted to recognize many of the organizational possibilities for poetry that have been documented in the literature, as well as be open to unanticipated varieties. Candidate patterns generated were subjected to several rounds of manual review. Some tasks that would have proved difficult to automate, such as the detection of semantic parallelism, were pursued fully manually. Two distinct varieties of meter were encountered: A syllabic counting meter based upon a colon line, and a much less common word stress counting meter based upon a colon line or a list item. The use of each meter was ubiquitous in the corpus, but somewhat sporadic. Word stress counting meter was typically applied to lists, and generally co-occurred with patterns of syllabic counting meter; perhaps in order to enhance metrical effect through an addition of rhythm. For both meters, counts were regulated by an external pattern, wherein they were observed to repeat, increment, form inverted structures, or group into alternating sequences. There appeared to be few limitations as to the possibilities for a pattern‟s starting count or length. Patterns were found to juxtapose freely, as well as alongside unpatterned counts. According to Nigel Fabb and Morris Halle, syllabic counting meter is only otherwise encountered in a style of Hebrew poetry from the Old Testament (Fabb and Halle 2008:268, 271, 283). Word stress counting meter may be unique to Tahitian poetry. The colon also functioned as poetic line for purposes of sound parallelism, which manifested itself in patterns of simple assonance, simple consonance, and complex patterns that combined simpler ones of assonance, consonance, and parallel strings of phonemes. Although sound patterns most often spanned lines, they were sometimes constrained to within a line. Occasionally, they were arranged into inverted structures, somewhat analogous to those noted for counting meter. Some sound patterns were contained within names and epithets, and perhaps served as recurring islands of parallelism. Syntactic parallelism was common, especially in the organization of lists. Occasionally, its application was suggestive of canonical parallelism. Items of syntactic frame lists were often arranged so as to assist patterns of counting meter. A syntactic frame‟s variable elements often belonged to a single semantic category for which there seemed to be no restriction, and which could represent any taxonomic level. There appeared to be complete freedom in regards to the arrangement of syntactic frame patterns, and it was common for several to follow one another in unbroken succession. There is evidence that some of the corpus poetry was memorized. Other evidence suggests that a capacity existed, and perhaps continues to exist, of poetic composition-in-performance.

For years, critics have used Black writers' interweaving of African-derived oral textual features and European written forms to reject the concept of the Great Divide between orality and writing in literacy studies. These critics primarily see the hybridized texts of writers of African descent as a model that assists in the complex union of writing and orality. My argument is that the integrationist model is not the only way, perhaps not even the most fruitful way, to read the hybridized texts of writers of African descent. I develop a reading of Anglophone African, African-Caribbean, and African-Canadian literature that sees the synthesis of orality and writing as an emergent discourse, free of the dogmatisms of textuality and of colonial literary standards, that contributes to the cultural and political aspirations of writers of African descent. In transcribing African-derived orality into writing, Black writers emphasize the ethnic component of their African identity, thereby decolonizing their literature. Consequently, the literature functions as locus or epitome of community-created culture and counter-colonial discourse, portraying the Black writer as a self-assertive community agent with the potential for forging a new historically informed identity. My introduction identifies the scope of the study, defining what constitutes African-derived oral textual features and outlining the critical theories that will be instrumental to my analysis. I also explain why I selected the writers Wole Soyinka (African), Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Louise Bennett (African-Caribbean), Lillian Allen, Marlene Nourbese Philip, and Clifton Joseph (African-Canadian) as examples of writers who have utilized orality in writing as political and cultural expression. Chapter One provides a background to pre-colonial African oral discourse. Chapters Two, Three, and Four respectively focus on Anglophone African, African Caribbean, and African Canadian poets' uses of orality in writing to reflect an eclectic cultural heritage. A brief conclusion follows these chapters. It reaffirms my primary thesis that the dynamic union of orality and writing in Anglophone African, African-Caribbean, and African-Canadian written poetry functions as the expression of a new kind of cultural and political discourse, in search of a new audience and a critical approach that requires both Africanist and European critical perspectives.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2003-05-05Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T21:04:56Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 fernandes_fag_dr_assis.pdf: 1284451 bytes, checksum: cf6d97ecf9ce82a56850a7d557f3df33 (MD5) / Esta tese compreende um estudo da poesia oral pantaneira no momento de sua atualização, ou seja, durante a performance. Para tanto, ela se divide em três partes principais. Na primeira, com base em relatos de viagem, foram identificados embates discursivos entre o narrador e o viajante. A partir desses embates, foi demonstrado como, durante a performance, a presença do auditório exige do narrador uma postura frente àquilo que conta, ou seja, como ele cria uma identidade, que se manifesta pelo discurso da narrativa. Outro ponto discutido diz respeito ao registro da poesia oral pelo viajante, em que enfatizei como elementos ligados à performance foram ignorados e como a transcrição interfere na compreensão do texto oral. Na segunda parte, foram analisados os aspectos discursivos da narrativa oral. Constatei que o narrador cria uma autoridade (relação frente ao auditório) e autoria (atualização do texto que ouviu), pelas quais ele engendra um discurso identitário. A questão das variáveis e invariantes no texto oral foi estudada na terceira parte. Assim, detive-me no estudo das narrativas de enterro pantaneiras. Identifiquei elementos invariantes (origem, anunciação, marcação, provação, desenlace), que congregam algumas variáveis (tipos de origem, formas diferenciadas de anunciação, etc.). Além disso, as narrativas se reorganizam mudando de significado, como constatei com o protoconto, a explicativa, o logro e a descritiva. O último capítulo tratou da performance, em que foi analisada a manifestação da narrativa na performance e, também, alguns dos mecanismos que o narrador emprega para persuadir o seu auditório. Os estudos assim divididos visam a dar uma visão sincrônica da poesia oral, pois partem do texto oral em seu espaço de constituição, levando em conta a voz (identidade e ruído) do narrador. / This thesis contains an oral poetry study at the moment of its updating (sometimes subtractions are possible), that is to say, during the performance. For clarification's sake, it is divided in three main parts. In the first part, I identified the discoursive clashes between the narrator and the foreign traveler, based on travelers' reports. After that, it was demonstrated that the audience presence requires from the narrator, during the performance, an attitude about what he tells, i.e., an identity creation manifested by the narrative discourse. Another item is about the oral poetry recorded by the traveler. At this point, I emphasized that some performance features were ignored and that the transcription interferes in oral text comprehension. In the second part, the oral narrative discursive aspects were analyzed. I verified that the narrator creates an authority (the relationship face the audience) and an authorship (the listened text update) by which he engenders an identity discourse. The matter of variables and invariables was studied in the third part. Thus, I detained myself in the study of burial pantaneira narrative. I identified invariable elements (origin, annunciation, marking, probation, epilogue) that have some variables (kinds of origin, different forms of annunciation, etc.). Besides, the narratives reorganize themselves by changing their meanings such as the prototale, the explicative, the bluff and the descriptive, according to my verification. In the last chapter, I discussed the performance. I also analyzed the narrative manifestation in the performance and some of the narrator's mechanisms used to persuade his audience. Divided this way, the studies intend to make a synchronic approach of oral poetry, because they depart from oral text in its composition space taking into consideration the narrator's voice (identity and noise)

El origen y significado de la inspiración poética” ha sido siempre objeto de considerable controversia. Lo que los críticos no preguntan muy a menudo es: ¿cuáles son las palabras o frases que los textos poéticos tempranos, previos al Período Clásico, usaron para expresar el genio poético o mousikē que nosotros asociamos con la inspiración en la poesía griega temprana? En este ensayo examino, en primer lugar y principalmente, tanto la terminología empleada por Homero y Hesíodo para expresar la experiencia poética, como el rol del aoidoso cantor/poeta en sus descripciones respectivas. Sostengo no solo que se confunden en Homero y Hesíodo las nociones físicas y figurativas de inspiración”, es decir, que no son diferenciadas por los poetas de manera consciente, sino que la poesía misma debe haber sido vista por Homero y Hesíodo como un don divino –de acuerdo a la voluntad de los dioses–. También sostengo que diversas etimologías y contextos sugieren fuertemente que un tipo de mania o posesión extática fue una parte importante del proceso poético temprano. El trabajo aquí presentado es una versión abreviada de un proyecto de investigación más amplio que busca examinar el origen y desarrollo de las actitudes pre-platónicas, platónicas y post-platónicas hacia la inspiración y la alegoría. --- Some Reflections on the Early Greek Notion of Poetic Inspiration”. The origin and meaning of poetic inspiration” has always been the subject of considerable controversy. What critics rarely ask are: what words or phrases did the early poetic texts use to express the poetic genius or mousikē we associate with inspiration in the early Greek poetry, and thus prior to the Classical period? In this paper, I examine first and foremost both the terminology employed by Homer and Hesiod to express the poetic experience and the role of the aoidos or singer/poet in their respective accounts. I argue that not only are the physical and figurative notions of inspiration” in Homer and Hesiod confused, that is, they are not consciously distinguished for the poets, but poetry itself for Homer and Hesiod must have been seen as a divine gift –as willed by the gods. I also argue that a number of etymologies and contexts strongly suggest that a type of mania or ecstatic possession was very much a part of the early poetic process. The work presented here is an abridged part of a larger research project that seeks to examine the origin and development of pre-Platonic, Platonic and postPlatonic attitudes toward inspiration and allegory.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de NÃvel Superior / Este estudo procura interpretar como à vivenciada uma prÃtica cultural conhecida como âcocoâ pelas populaÃÃes que habitam pequenas comunidades de pescadores no litoral cearense. Principalmente nas localidades de Iguape e Balbino, pertencentes aos municÃpios de Aquiraz e Cascavel, respectivamente. à uma interpretaÃÃo antropolÃgica, com o intuito de entender nÃo apenas como a prÃtica do coco proporciona uma produÃÃo especÃfica de sujeitos sociais. Mas, seguindo uma via de mÃo dupla, como esses sujeitos experimentam e atualizam a brincadeira, herdada de seus antepassados, no atual contexto da especulaÃÃo imobiliÃria, da indÃstria do turismo e das polÃticas culturais. A danÃa, a mÃsica e a poesia oral presente nos cocos. Os instrumentos musicais, as vestes, os significados vividos na brincadeira. O coco como um elemento de articulaÃÃo social nÃo apenas entre os seus brincantes, mas tambÃm entre estes e o pÃblico urbano dos centros culturais. O trabalho apresenta uma reflexÃo sobre as relaÃÃes estabelecidas entre Estado e brincantes, por meio das PolÃticas Culturais, e o papel dos intermediÃrios (promotores de eventos) nesse processo.

distribuída em uma moldura interpretativa criada por duas cidades separadas em suas respectivas fundações mais ou menos três séculos. A pólis arcaica de Mégara Hibleia e a pólis clássica de Túrio oferecem as maiores referências da presente pesquisa, cuja intenção é analisar o fenômeno da organização ortogonal através da teoria da poesia oral como apresentada nos estudos comparativos de Milman Parry e Albert Lord. A pesquisa etnográfica de Parry e Lord no começo do século XX com bardos iugoslavos abriu todo um novo e inspirador campo de estudos no âmbito da composição e recepção dos poemas homéricos. Com tal perspectiva, se demonstrará nas páginas seguintes um método de planejamento sem que haja o desenho de planos. Um planejamento que utiliza como recurso de composição fórmulas aritméticas que definem as proporções entre os elementos do sistema. Iniciando o problema com as evidências literárias sobre Hipodamo de Mileto, coroado por uma corrente historiográfica como primus inventor do método urbano ortogonal, se descortinará uma tradição anônima secular derivada da prática de artífices que não escreveram uma linha a respeito de sua técnica. As fórmulas ortogonais constituem medidas co-dimensionadas entre os lados do lote da casa, do quarteirão e da largura das ruas cristalizados ao longo do tempo na escansão dos quarteirões. Tomando-se miras ópticas e alinhando cordas ao longo de estradas seria possível - como em um esquadro - iniciar dois vetores das fórmulas aritméticas então traduzidas em formas geométricas. Será argumentado na análise detalhada da forma de Mégara Hibleia contra a hipótese de que exista no período arcaico a concepção de um módulo abstrato e a priori. A cidade ortogonal arcaica não é um plano-mestre pensado como um conjunto que precede suas partes. O uso dos princípios da ortogonalidade ao longo do tempo, no entanto, contribuem para o surgimento de novas fórmulas de unidades maiores que em cidades como Túrio consignam dentro de sua área o agrupamento de um dado número de quarteirões. Isto é o indício de que a cidade ortogonal comensura-se então como um conjunto articulado de partes. Ao questionar a leitura moderna que, sob um paradigma literário, vê nos planos e desenhos de reconstituição da malha original das cidades ortogonais um produto de um exercício por excelência abstrato, mental e a priori, se discutirá, por consequência, a ontologia do artefato arqueológico, os fundamentos epistemológicos da arqueologia que, desde seu vir-a-ser como disciplina acadêmica, se ampara de uma série de ferramentas interpretativas herdadas da cosmologia moderna ocidental. O texto circulará, portanto, em vias interdisciplinares entre arqueologia, filologia, filosofia, sociologia, antropologia e história da arte. / The Greek orthogonal technique, especially in the urban contexts of Sicily and south Italy (Magna Graecia), could be distributed in a interpretative frame created by the archaeological tale of two cities separated in its foundations more or less three hundred years. The Archaic polis of Megara Hyblaea and the Classical polis of Thurioi offer the two major references of the present research which intends to analyze the phenomenon of orthogonal organization through the oral poetry theory as presented in the comparative studies of Milman Parry and Albert Lord. The ethnographic research of Parry and Lord in the earlier twentieth century with Yugoslavian singers opens a new and inspiring field on the composition and reception of the Homeric poems. With this perspective, it will be demonstrate in the following pages a planning method without any design plans. A planning that uses as compositional resources arithmetical formulas that define the proportional dimensions between the elements of the system. Initiating the subject with the literary evidences about Hipodamus of Miletus, crowned by a historiographical current as primus inventor of the orthogonal method, will be uncovered the anonymous secular tradition derived from the practice of craftsmen who did not write a single word about their techniques. The orthogonal formulas constitute co-dimensioned measures between the sides of the house lot, the block and the width of streets crystallized over time in the scansion of the blocks. Taking optical sights and aligning ropes along roads would be possible - as in a square - to start two vectors from the arithmetical formulas then translated in geometrical forms. It will be argued in the detailed analysis of Megara Hyblaea\'s layout against the hypothesis that there is in the Archaic period a conception of an abstract and a priori module. The orthogonal Archaic city it is not a master plan thought as a set which precedes its parts. The continued use of the orthogonal principles over time, however, contribute to the emergence of new formulas of larger unities which in cities like Thurioi consigns inside its area the grouping of a given number of blocks. This is a sign of a notion then that the orthogonal city is co-measured from a set articulated of parts. By questioning the modern lecture which, under a literary paradigm, sees the reconstituted plans and drawings of an original orthogonal grid a byproduct of an abstract, mental and a priori exercise, it will be discussed, by consequence, the ontology of the archaeological artifact, the archaeology\'s epistemological fundaments that, since its becoming as an academic discipline, relies on a series of interpretative tools inherited from modern Western cosmology. It will be circulate, therefore, in interdisciplinary roads between archaeology, philology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology and art history.