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Originally published in 1992, Turkic Oral Poetry provides an expert introduction to the oral epic traditions of the Turkic peoples of central Asia. The book seeks to remedy the problem of non-specialists’ lack of access to information on the Turkic traditions, and in the process, it provides scholars in various disciplines with material for comparative investigation. The book focuses on "central traditions" of this region, specifically those of the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Karakalpak’s, and Kirghiz and looks at the historical and linguistic background to a survey of the earliest documents, portraits of the singers and of performance considerations of genre, story-patterns, and formulaic diction, and discussions of "composition in performance", memory, rhetoric and diffusion.

Preface ...ix
Introduction ...1
A Note on Transcription and Pronunciation ...7
1. The Turkic Peoples: Backgrounds and Contexts ...13
Beginnings ...14
The World of the Nomad ...16
The Turkic Peoples of Central Asia ...19
The Turkic Languages ...24
2. Turkic Epic Poetry: The Earliest Documents ...33
Oguz Qagan ...33
Divan lugat at-Turk ...40
The Book of Dede Qorqut ...43
3. The Singer: Shaman, Minstrel, Poet ...57
Epic Singer and Shaman ...57
Terms for Singers ...62
The Karakalpak Ziraw and Baqs i ...66
The Uzbek Bax si ...69
The Kazakh Aq 'in ...75
The Kirghiz Manasc 'i ...82
Meddah and Q 'issa-xan ...87
4. Performance ...93
Ritualistic Aspects and Ceremonial Structure ...93
Performance and Recitation: Musical Aspects ...100
Singer and Audience ...113
5. Genre ...119
Epic ...119
Verse and Prose ...126
Romance ...130
Heroic Lay and Heroic Tale ...133
6. Story-Patterns ...143
Qambar and The Making of a Hero ...144
Koroglu/Gbrogl'i and The Winning of a Bride ...151
Alpam'is and The Return of the Hero ...160
7. The Varieties of Formulaic Diction ...171
Formula, Meter, Parallelism ...171
Formula and Formulaic System ...182
Thematic Patterning ...201
8. Composition in Performance and the Art of Memory ...219
"Improvisation" and Composition in Performance ...219
Variation and Stability ...235
The Art of Memory ...261
9. Rhetoric, Style, Narrative Technique ...271
"Formulaic Rhetoric" ...271
Characters ...282
Composition and Narrative Technique ...301
10. Transformations in Space and Time ...317
Koroglu/Gbrogl'i'. Variation and Diffusion ...318
Alpam'is: Variation and Chronology ...333
Bibliography ...355
Glossary of Terms ...385
Index ...389