[Bards] Prose Tales

Scott Barrett barrett1 at cox.net
Tue May 1 18:54:49 PDT 2007


On Tuesday, May 1, 2007, at 06:14 PM, Ken Theriot wrote:

> <The Tain bo Cuailgne is predominately prose with some verse scattered
> through it.>
> < The Decameron is a Renaissance Italian story of people telling prose
> stories to each other.  This is not equivalent to a bard performing in
> court, but it is equivalent to a bardic circle.>
>
> First off, I don't agree that this is equivalent to a bardic circle.  
> It
> doesn't say that *bards* were telling these stories.  Nonetheless, 
> both The
> Cattle Raid of Cooley and The Decameron have a similar structure in 
> that the
> prose portions set the scene and introduce characters.  But whenever 
> the
> characters deliver long passages of dialogue, it is in verse. Again, I 
> know
> of no evidence that pieces from either of those works were "performed" 
> by
> bards or professional story tellers.  Sure the characters in the books 
> did,
> but they mainly did so in verse.
>
Less than a third of all character dialogue was in verse in the Tain. 
As for whether or not the bardic community performed the piece, the 
Thomas Kinsella translation states at it's beginning that the bards 
gathered together and agreed that none could tell the Tain in it's 
entirety. That tells me that the bards of Ireland performed this mostly 
prose piece in at least fragmentary form, that is until the ghost of 
Ferghus gave them the whole story.


>
> < The Bible aside (most of which is prose, not verse, and was performed
> aloud in churches and courts)>
>
> Did clergymen give sermons in prose?  No doubt.  But that was mainly to
> explain what he just read in Latin!  Is a clergyman an bard?  I don't 
> think
> so.  Certainly I would hope nobody likens a bardic circle to a catholic
> mass.  Additionally, the bible has been translated so many times that 
> we
> really don't know for sure if the original texts were written in fixed
> forms.  But in a mass (remember, we're talking SCA period in Europe), 
> the
> parts of the service are highly structured/formatted.  As I sit here 
> my mind
> is shouting "we believe in one god, the father the almighty, creator of
> heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen."  What about "Our 
> father
> who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be 
> done
> on earth as it is in heaven."  Heck, I haven't been to church in a 
> decade!
> And remember, those prayers/ responses were done in period in Latin, 
> not
> "street language."  All in all, I think church is not a good model for
> bardic circles.
>

I wasn't thinking clergymen, I was thinking street players who made a 
living doing morality plays.

> ~Finnacan
>
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