The White Goddess and the Oral Formulaic composition mode

The White Goddess dedication IN DEDICATION

"All saints revile her, and all sober men Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean— In scorn of which I sailed to find her In distant regions likeliest to hold her Whom I desired above all things to know, Sister of the mirage and echo. It was a virtue not to stay, To go my headstrong and heroic way Seeking her out at the volcano's head, Among pack ice, or where the track had faded Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers: Whose broad high brow was white as any leper's, Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips, With hair curled honey-coloured to white hips. Green sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir Will celebrate the Mountain Mother, And every song-bird shout awhile for her; But I am gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of her nakedly worn magnificence I forget cruelty and past betrayal, Careless of where the next bright bolt may fall."

(Robert Graves: The White Goddess (1948)

"My thesis is that the language of poetic myth anciently current in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe was a magical language bound up with popular religious ceremonies in honour of the Moon-goddess, or Muse, some of them dating from the Old Stone Age, and that this remains the language of true poetry—'true' in the nostalgic modern sense of 'the unimprovable original', not 'a synthetic substitute'. The language was tampered with in late Minoan times when invaders from Central Asia began to substitute patrilinear for matrilinear institutions and remodel or falsify the myths to justify the social changes. Then came the early Greek philosophers who were strongly opposed to magical poetry as threatening their new religion of logic, and under their influence a rational poetic language (now called the Classical) was elaborated in honour of their patron Apollo and imposed on the world as the last word in spiritual illumination: a view that has prevailed practically ever since in European schools and universities, where myths are now studied only as quaint relics of the nursery age of mankind." (Robert Graves from The White Goddess. 1947)

"Poetry seems to be more physical than intellectual. A year or two ago, in common with others, I received from America a request that I would define poetry. I replied that I could no more define poetry than a terrier could define a rat, but that I thought we both recognised the object by the symptoms which it provokes in us. One of these symptoms was described in connection with another object by Eliphaz the Temanite: 'A spirit passed before my face, the hair of my flesh stood up.' Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles, so that the razor ceases to act. This particular symptom is accompanied by a shiver down the spine, there is another which consists of a constriction of the throat, and a precipitation of water to the eyes; there is a third which I can only describe by borrowing a phrase of one of Keats's last letters, where he says, speaking of Fanny Brawne, 'everything that reminds me of her goes through me like a spear.' The seat of this sensation is the pit of the stomach." (A.E. Housman, quoted in Joseph Campbell: Primitive Mythology p41)

The similarity of Robert Graves and A.E. Housman's description of true poetry is striking. Think of any of your own responses to great (true) art (or any similar aesthetic experience) - the difficulty of putting into words - or any other expression - the impact of an aesthetic experience - it is total - immersive, all-embracing and omni-meaningful - it makes you gasp, ejaculate, curse, laugh - its a 'wow' reaction - it is the astonishment that such a thing could be so complete, so perfect. That these experiences are shared in the primordial culture of the old Stone Age, there can be no doubt, though we have no written evidence of it, just the myths, fables, beliefs and 'holy' experiences that evolved through orality and narrativity to form the universal corpus of myth and religion that Campbell has mapped so well.

"Oral-formulaic composition is a theory that originated in the scholarly study of epic poetry and was developed in the second quarter of the twentieth century. It seeks to explain two related issues:

The process by which oral poets improvise poetry.
The reasons for orally improvised poetry (or written poetry deriving from traditions of oral improvisation) having the characteristics that it does.

"The key idea of the theory is that poets have a store of formulas (a formula being 'an expression that is regularly used, under the same metrical conditions, to express a particular essential idea') and that by linking the formulas in conventionalised ways, poets can rapidly compose verse. This idea was put forth by Antoine Meillet in 1923, thus: 'Homeric epic is entirely composed of formulae handed down from poet to poet. An examination of any passage will quickly reveal that it is made up of lines and fragments of lines which are reproduced word for word in one or several other passages. Even those lines of which the parts happen not to recur in any other passage have the same formulaic character, and it is doubtless pure chance that they are not attested elsewhere. In the hands of Meillet’s student Milman Parry, and subsequently the latter’s student Albert Lord, the approach transformed the study of ancient and medieval poetry and oral poetry generally. The main exponent and developer of their approaches was John Miles Foley." (wikipedia)

This theory of the practice of oral poets being able to remember - and deliver in realtime - extra long epic tales - usually in a courtly context (kings and poets enjoying equivalence - according to Graves)- for an audience of Princes and Kings and other senior bards and poets, helps us to explain the mechanisms of ancient oracular poetry - and perhaps also applies to modern 20th and 21st century Talking Blues and Rapping , spontaneous poetry, and stand-up comedy (etc) and is most intriguing as an expression of pure 'stream of consciousness'.

Gil scott Heron: 'The Revolution will Not be Televised' (Brother) (1971) - the first Rap record

The nature of improvisation within the context of a particular medium (music, poetry, stand-up, repartee, 'wit' etc) is fascinating, and Louis Armstrong is widely appreciated as using improv solos in his Hot Five recordings - though improvised music and lyrics was much earlier (according to the jazz-wiki originating in the call and response of work-songs and blues in slave-times) - though the improvisation of oral-poetry harks back to ancient times.

The really startling media-innovation of improv in music is the fact that this improv is often an unrehearsed (but necessarily formulaic) 'team' response, where musicians collaborate and extrapolate within the improvisation.

One of the most interesting current exponents of freeform improv is Gabriela Montero who often performs piano improvisations on musical themes suggested by her audiences:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmO8UDmZdOI

Montero has improvised under a brain-scan (fMRI)- tracking the neural correlates of improvisation, and there is a noticeable diversity of neural activity during improv:

"Improvisation was largely associated with activation of auditory, frontal/cognitive, motor, parietal, occipital, and limbic areas, suggesting that improvisation is a multimodal activity for her. Functional connectivity analysis suggests that the visual network, default mode network, and subcortical networks are involved in improvisation as well. While these findings should not be generalized to other samples or populations, results here shed insight into the brain activity that underlies GM's unique abilities to perform Classical-style musical improvisations." (Karen Chan Bassett et al: Classical Creativity 2019)

She says that her mind goes blank as she improvises - but she has been highly proficient at the piano since age five - her body remembers the movements and she remembers the classical pieces she has learned and she has 'learned' how to extrapolate on them - but she is still remarkable.

Louis Armstrong Hot Seven: Hotter than That trumpet and scat singing...(1927)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UofL8pD69co