> The notion that storytelling is simple and free from ornament or
> literariness is shaped by an age that has lost its storytellers. I
> grew up in a country where most social entertainment still consisted
> of story telling, and what I observed is that there was a great
> delight in language, ornate expression, made-up words (stuff we'd
> normally call literary).
This is very well observed. The oral storytelling tradition I knew, in its dying days, back in Appalachia, was really quite florid and rhetorical. Another thing that made it different from modern notions of how to tell a story was how *slow* it was. The plot, such as it was, always advanced at a snail's pace, with digressions, backstories, descriptions interlarded. A lot like Homer, actually.
The punch line was merely a pretext for the buildup -- just the opposite of what we're used to now.
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Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com