Research Catalog

Title

Verbal arts in Madagascar : performance in historical perspective / Lee Haring.

Author

Haring, Lee

Publication

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c1992.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

242 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

Verbal Arts in Madagascar combines a history of the encounter between Europeans and colonized people with a groundbreaking analysis of four types of Malagasy folklore: riddles, proverbs, hainteny (dialogic exchanges of traditional metaphors), and oratory. In this richly textured study, Lee Haring has collected several hundred witty, imaginative texts and translated them into English for the first time. Verbal Arts in Madagascar contains the first history of the collecting of folklore in Madagascar from 1820 to the present. Haring contends that when European investigators recorded this "native culture" they created a vision of "folklore" which served French domination by trivializing Malagasy reality. Now, through comparison and analysis of texts gathered during a century and a half by foreigners, Haring shows that the four types of folklore examined make use of a pervasive two-sided dialogic structure. Although Haring works from texts transcribed and published at least seventy years ago, his analysis always highlights the performance of folklore in actual social settings. By drawing upon the observations of collectors and upon information presented in chronicles, ethnographies, reports, and other historical documents, Haring successfully reconstructs the performances of the texts and the social context in which the performances took place. Verbal Arts in Madagascar pioneers an integrated approach to past folklore studies into contemporary theory. It will especially interest students and scholars in folklore, history, African studies, and anthropology.

Series Statement

Publications of the American Folklore Society. New series (Unnumbered)

Uniform Title

Publications of the American Folklore Society. New series (Unnumbered).

Subject

• Folk literature, Malagasy > History and criticism
• Folklore > Madagascar > Performance
• Folklore > Performance > Madagascar
• Madagascar > Social life and customs

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

1. Malagasy Lore and Folk -- 2. Riddling: Question and Answer -- 3. Proverbs: Dialogue in Monologue -- 4. Proposition and Response: The Merina Hainteny -- 5. Marriage: Petition and Delivery -- 6. Funeral Oratory: Living and Dead.

ISBN

0812231414

LCCN

^^^91033129^

OCLC

• 24627716
• SCSB-9992217

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library