[-] Show simple item record

dc.contributor.authorHenderson, Daveeng
dc.date.issued2011-10eng
dc.descriptionAbstract Native American1 literature in North America has been in a self-declared state of renaissance since 1969. This rebirth is perhaps more aptly described as an attempt to recover traditions, beliefs, and even languages that were lost, suppressed, or marginalized during a centuries-long history of conquest that ended near the close of the nineteenth century, at least in military terms. The object of this recovery is to rediscover and revivify an identity uniquely Indian in its cultural and traditional affiliations (for example, Owens 1992:3-16). Native American writers such as Simon J. Ortiz and Leslie Marmon Silko have been at the forefront of this recovery, and both authors have been instrumental in suggesting how Native American oral traditions can be extended into the realm of a comparatively young literature.2 Aside from the great inherent differences between oral traditional and literary modes of expression, this undertaking is rendered problematic by the fact that the majority of Native American literature is written in English. Since students of Native oral traditions have focused much of their effort on delineating an ethnopoetics of those traditions,3 it appears at first blush that scholars of the traditions and the Native American writers who are seeking to extend those traditions may not have much in common even though the traditions are of central concern to both. Certainly their priorities are different. Also, it is clear that a literary tradition, by its very nature, must utilize oral tradition in ways that are convenient to its individualized ends, resulting in an abundance of divergent approaches even within the work of a single writer. Studies in Native American literature are in a creative ferment; the field is very diffuse, and much of the scholarship is exploratory and tentative in nature, as we shall see.eng
dc.descriptionIssue title: Festschrift for John Miles Foley. This article belongs to a special issue of Oral Tradition published in honor of John Miles Foley's 65th birthday and 2011 retirement. The surprise Festschrift, guest-edited by Lori and Scott Garner entirely without his knowledge, celebrates John's tremendous impact on studies in oral tradition through a series of essays contributed by his students from the University of Missouri-Columbia (1979-present) and from NEH Summer Seminars that he has directed (1987-1996).eng
dc.format.extent16 pageseng
dc.identifier.citationOral Tradition, 26/2 (2011): 477-490.eng
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10355/65239
dc.languageEnglisheng
dc.rightsOpenAccess.eng
dc.rights.licenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.
dc.titleLeslie Marmon Silko and Simon J. Ortiz : Pathways to the traditioneng
dc.typeArticleeng


Files in this item

[PDF]

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

[-] Show simple item record