Question

What is the importance of the oral tradition of reciting poetry and what it meant to ancient societies

Answer 1

Would this be a good explanation?
An oral tradition is the way in which information is passed from one generation to the next in the because people didn’t read or write fluently this tradition was a way to keep the history or culture of the people alive, and since it was a way to tell stories, it was a way to entertainment the people.

Answer 2

Well, even though some people had writing, oral tradition was a big event throughout all ancient cultures. Your answer is good :)

Answer 3

ill tell you if you medal me

Answer 4

An oral tradition is the way in which information is passed from one generation to the next in the because people didn’t read or write fluently this tradition was a way to keep the history or culture of the people alive, and since it was a way to tell stories, it was a way to entertainment the people.

Answer 5

sorry heres your answer The first literary achievements of most ancient cultures, strictly speaking, usually are not literary at all, because they originate in oral rather than written form. Recited in a culture without an alphabet or a system of writing (the tools with which a literate culture preserves information), oral literature emerges in verse, simply because the devices associated with poetry -- rhyme, rhythmic stress, repetition -- facilitate memory. The original function of oral literature is primarily to commemorate, and its original form is a performance, an enactment by a professional poet, a minstrel or bard (in Anglo-Saxon England, a scop; in West Africa, a griot). Thus oral poetry gives the recorded events great immediacy. Each repetition of oral poetry -- out loud, in front of an audience -- recreates its subject matter, involving the listeners as if the events described were happening anew.Modern scholars recognize certain features common to oral poetry that often seem strange to readers. The key to all these so-called formulas is repetition, that indispensable prod to memory. In the Homeric epics, for example, long verse paragraphs recounting the details of sacrifice, the proffering of gifts, the naming of participants may be repeated almost word for word. Descriptive epithets repeatedly accompany characters' names: "the swift-footed brilliant Akhilleus" or "Hektor, breaker of horses" or "the grey-eyed goddess Athena."

Because we read these works in translation rather than hear them performed in the original language, we fail to understand how these repetitions gave the bard a second to remember his place in the narrative. If we were listeners rather than readers, we would also hear how the exact words in the repeated formulas vary according to the rhythmic requirements of the line in which they appear.

In addition to jogging the bard's memory and maintaining a musical beat, repeating these epithets provided a sense of continuity for listeners and bard alike, since the length of epic poems precluded a performance of the whole in one sitting. These oral formulaic devices, then, glued a massive narrative together, permitting feats of memory which readers in the computer age are more likely to associate with data banks than with poets.

Answer 6

hows that to earn a medal