Singing the Past by Karl Reichl - 9780801437366

Singing the PastTurkic and Medieval Heroic Poetry\nAuthor(s): Karl Reichl\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cornell University Press, United States\nImprint: Cornell University Press\nISBN-13: 9780801437366, 978-0801437366\nSynopsis\nOral epic poetry is still performed by Turkic singers in Central Asia. On trips to the region, Karl Reichl collected heroic poems from the Uzbek, Kazakh, and Karakalpak oral traditions. Through a close analysis of these Turkic works, he shows that they are typologically similar to heroic poetry in Old English, Old High German, and Old French and that they can offer scholars new insights into the oral background of these medieval [url] draws on his research in Central Asia to discuss questions regarding performance as well as the singers' training, role in society, and repertoire. He asserts that heroic poetry and epic are primarily concerned with the interpretation of the past in song: the courageous deeds of ancestors, the search for tribal and societal roo.