Hilali epic: Awadallah sings of Abu Zayd

About the scene and clip:
This video shows performances drawn from the Egyptian epic devoted to the hero of the Hilali tribe,Abu Zayd, sung by a traditional Hilali performer and recorded by the ethnographer Susan Slyomovics. The performer sings the epic, accompanying himself on a drum and interacting frequently with the audience. He performs as storyteller, with great emphasis on wordplay and punning; there is relatively little attempt to impersonate the characters. In the video, we first see Awadallah in the town square, surrounded by his audience of men. Then, he begins to speak to his listeners, telling them that he is a “merchant of art.” The singer continues the performance in his home, singing about Abu Zayd, frequently holding his drum against his ear. Medieval epics like Old French The Song of Roland were probably performed in quite an analogous manner: sung by solo professional performers to instrumental accompaniment, with only modest levels of character impersonation, and with substantial interaction with (at least originally) a largely male audience.

About the work:
A vast epic tells the history of the Bani Hilal tribe of Bedouin Arabs of Egypt. The earliest parts of their story go back to the 8th and 9th centuries when they moved northward out of the Arabian peninsula, eventually settling in Egypt. The original stories were developed and augmented over hundreds of years, transmitted through performance and in written form; they are still performed in Egypt today by professional singers in cafés and marketplaces. In this part of the epic, the Hilali hero Abu Zayd rescues the royal family of Iraq from their oppressors.

About the genre:
The epic is an ancient genre and is found in almost every culture. It is a long heroic narrative which tells of war and great deeds. Epics are generally composed in verse, and sung from memory or improvised in performance by professional performers with instrumental accompaniment. These narratives are created from traditional elements, commonly without recourse to writing, by poets whose names are often unknown to us. Among the famous traditional epics are the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to Homer; the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf; and the Old French Song of Roland. Many known poets adopt epic forms and themes for their literary verse (such as Virgil in his Aeneid).

About the edition/translation:
The video, The Merchant of Art, accompanies a book by Susan Slyomovics, The Merchant of Art: An Egyptian Hilali Oral Epic Poet in Performance, University of California Press, 1987.

About the performer/ensemble:
The performer, Awadallah Abd aj-Jalil Ali, is a professional singer of Hilali epics in Aswan, Egypt (1983).

About the production:
The video The Merchant of Art was filmed in 1983 in Aswan, Egypt, by Prof. Susan Slyomovics, a member of the faculty of the Anthropology Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2004). A copy of this video is available at the Avery Fisher Center at Bobst Library at New York university. This video is also available on line at http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21a/21a.453/merchantofart.mov

St. Peter and Jongleur: Puppets, 1

About the scene and clip:
This clip is a free adaptation of the entire fabliau [see “about the work”], using puppets and contemporary American show-tunes.

About the work:
This fabliau tells how St. Peter rescued all the souls from hell by winning at dice against a bumbling minstrel who had been left in charge while Satan was busy elsewhere; it may well be a parody of the Harrowing of Hell in which Christ rescued the souls of the just from Hell.

About the genre:
Fabliaux are short comic tales. This narrative genre was extremely popular in the 13th and 14th centuries in France and elsewhere in Europe (Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale is a sophisticated fabliau). Fabliaux almost invariably deal with the passions of lust, gluttony, avarice–and with attempts to trick or deceive others. Characters are typically bourgeois, clerks and monks, or peasants–and often women. The treatment is comic or satirical. But fabliaux vary considerably. Some are extremely vulgar in language and treatment, inviting crude gestures in performance. Other fabliaux are based on puns or wordplay. Many have a moral at the end and some have ethical overtones throughout. A few fabliaux are refined and courtly in language and themes. Many fabliaux are anonymous, but a few are by known poets. Performance styles and strategies for the fabliaux probably varied considerably in the Middle Ages, according to the subject matter and characters, the poet, the performer(s), the occasion, and the kind of audience present.

About the edition/translation:
Abridged and adapted from Fabliaux, Fair and Foul, trans. John DuVal, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, Binghamton, NY, 1992, pp. 130-139; French edition: “St. Pierre et le jongleur,” inNouveau Recueil des Fabliaux, eds. Willem Noomen and Nico van den Boogaard, Assen: Van Gorcum, Vol. I (1983).

About the performer/ensemble:
Kelly Houlihan graduated in May 2003 from New York University with a major in French.

About the production:
This performance was originally created for “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz in fall 2001. This clip comes from a performance that took place in September 2003 at the Maison Française of New York University at an informal gathering of medievalists held under the auspices of the Colloquium for Orality, Writing and Culture, co-convenors Prof. Nancy Freeman Regalado and Prof. Vitz. The performance was videoed by NYU-TV.

Tain: Opening Tales

About the scene and clip:
This clip comes from the beginning of The Tain, and tells “How The Tain was found again”; “How Conchobor was begotten, and how he took the kingship of Ulster”; and “The pangs of Ulster.” The performer tells the stories and also impersonates the various characters.

About the work:
The Tain is an 8th-century collection of heroic tales from Ulster which tell (among other stories) of a great cattle raid.

About the genre:
The Tain is in part a collection of stories and in part an epic; as its translator Thomas Kinsella says: “It is Ireland’s nearest approach to a great epic.” The Tain is an epic in its emphasis on battle and heroism; it is a collection of tales primarily by its episodic structure.

The epic is an ancient genre and is found in almost every culture. It is a long heroic narrative which tells of war and great deeds. Epics are generally composed in verse, and sung from memory or improvised in performance by professional performers with instrumental accompaniment. These narratives are created from traditional elements, commonly without recourse to writing, by poets whose names are often unknown to us. Among the famous traditional epics are the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to Homer; the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf; and the Old French Song of Roland. Many known poets adopt epic forms and themes for their literary verse (such as Virgil in his Aeneid).

The tale, like the epic, is an ancient genre and one found everywhere in the world. Many tales are firmly rooted in oral tradition and are recited or told by amateur and professional storytellers and performers. Other tales are the work of literarily sophisticated authors and are often intended to be read aloud or silently from written texts. Some tales circulate separately, while others are part of collections which may be set in complex frames (as in the case of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Boccaccio’s Decameron and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales). There are many sub-groups of tales with specific characteristics; see for example the “lai” and the “fabliau.”

About the edition/translation:
The Tain, trans. Thomas Kinsella, Oxford, Oxford University Press/Dublin, Dolmen Press, 1969, pp. 1-8. Original: Tain Bo Cuailnge in The Book of Leinster, formerly Lebar na Nuachongbala, ed. R.I. Best, Osborn Bergin and M.A. O’Brien, Dublin, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1954-.

About the performer/ensemble:
Gina Guadagnino graduated from New York University in May 2003 with a major in English; she minored in Medieval and Renaissance Studies and Irish Studies.

About the production:
This performance is one of a series done under the direction of Prof. Vitz in spring and fall 2003. This clip comes from a performance that took place in September 2003 at the Maison Française of New York University at an informal gathering of medievalists held under the auspices of the Colloquium for Orality, Writing and Culture, co-convenors Prof. Nancy Freeman Regalado and Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz. The performance was videoed by NYU-TV.

Beowulf: Beowulf boasts; Hrothgar recalls Grendel’s assaults

About the scene and clip:
In this scene, Beowulf boasts of his strength and expresses his intention to rid the Danes of the evil monster, Grendel; King Hrothgar then recalls Grendel’s terrible assaults on his hall in the past.

The solo performer uses all facets of the voice—including singing, speaking, heightened speech and even unusual sounds–and combines these with the use of a six-stringed harp (an instrument with strings of equal length, sometimes known today as a lyre) which is tuned in the “mode” of the epic, a reconstruction based on our knowledge of medieval musical practice and theory. The resulting six tones do not yield “melodies” as such, but rather a large collection of modal gestures which provide the vocalist with his primary musical material. The performer accompanies himself at times, and at other times uses the instrument to create certain modal effects, denote the passage of time, the introduction of a new character, a change of scene, etc.

About the work:
Beowulf, an Old English epic that was written down in the early 11th century, may actually date from as early as the 7th century, and is one of the great surviving medieval epics. While we cannot know who “created” the written version, it is clear that the text has its roots in an older oral tradition of epic storytelling. This type of Germanic verse is recognizable by the structural unity of its unrhymed alliterative lines, each line containing four stressed syllables.

It tells of the mighty struggles between the legendary hero Beowulf and three great supernatural monsters: first Grendel, then Grendel’s mother, and finally the Dragon. This song also sings of Beowulf’s great leadership and loyalty panerai luminor gmt replica and of the virtues for which he was famed.

About the genre:
The epic is an ancient genre and is found in almost every culture. It is a long heroic narrative which tells of war and great deeds. Epics are generally composed in verse, and sung from memory or improvised in performance by professional performers with instrumental accompaniment. These narratives are created from traditional elements, commonly without recourse to writing, by poets whose names are often unknown to us. Among the famous traditional epics are the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to Homer; the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf; and the Old French Song of Roland. Many known poets adopt epic forms and themes for their literary verse (such as Virgil in his Aeneid).

About the edition/translation:
Bagby based his performance on Beowulf, ed. Friedrich Klaeber, 3rd ed., Lexington, MA, Heath, 1950, lines 99ff. There are many English translations of this famous work.

About the performer/ensemble:
The American vocalist and medievalist Benjamin Bagby directs Sequentia, the ensemble for medieval music which he founded givenchy bracelets replications for sale together with the late Barbara Thornton in 1977. In addition to his work with Sequentia, Bagby is widely known for his solo performances of the Beowulf epic. He lives in Paris. See www.sequentia.org and www.BagbyBeowulf.com.

About the production:
This clip is taken from a video of a performance of Beowulf by Bagby which took place at the Angel Orensanz Center for the Arts in New York City in April 2003, sponsored by the People’s Poetry Gathering. The performance was videoed by NYU-TV.

A DVD of a different performance of Beowulf by Bagby can be purchased at www.BagbyBeowulf.com.

Roland: Roland blows his saxophone

About the scene and clip:
Roland blows his horn to call Charlemagne. The performer plays his saxophone; he composed the music, based on a medieval-style melody composed by Edward Green, a doctoral candidate in Music at New York University and a professional composer.

About the work:
La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland) is one of the great masterpieces of French medieval literature. The earliest surviving version of this anonymous epic dates apparently from the late 11th century and is preserved in a famous manuscript now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. This classic version—there were numerous others—is composed in laisses (or stanzas) of variable length with ten-syllable lines in assonance (the final vowel is the same within each laisse). Epics like the Roland were originally sung by jongleurs, often with vielle accompaniment. The Roland tells of the Emperor Charlemagne’s great struggle to conquer Spain from the Muslim Infidels. It recounts the betrayal of the French by the traitor, Ganelon, resulting in a great battle at Roncevaux. There, the French rearguard, led by Roland, defeats the Moors, but all the great French knights—the twelve peers—die. Charlemagne avenges the peers in two great battles, and Ganelon is punished. At the end, Charlemagne is called by the angel Gabriel to a new mission.

About the genre:
The epic is an ancient genre and is found in almost every culture. It is a long heroic narrative which tells of war and great deeds. Epics are generally composed in verse, and sung from memory or improvised in performance by professional performers with instrumental accompaniment. These narratives are created from traditional elements, commonly without recourse to writing, by poets whose names are often unknown to us. Among the famous traditional epics are the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to Homer; the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf; and the Old French Song of Roland. Many known poets adopt epic forms and themes for their literary verse (such as Virgil in his Aeneid).

About the edition/translation:
The Song of Roland, translated from the Old French by Dorothy L. Sayers, Penguin, 1957, laisse 134, pp.119ff. French: La Chanson de Roland, ed. Ian Short, Paris, Lettres gothiques, 1990.

About the performer/ensemble:
Joe Esposito is a student in Dramatic Literature in the College of Arts and Science at New York University (2006)—and a musician.

About the production:
This performance was created for “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz in fall 2006. It was filmed at New York University’s Maison Française in spring 2007.

Aucassin: Torelore

About the scene and clip:
In this episode, the young lovers Aucassin and Nicolette, having fled from home, travel to the land of Torelore where the King lies in childbed and the Queen fights battles in which no one is slain. The performer draws on a blend of cardboard puppets, illustrations, a book, contemporary recorded music, and a cell phone.

About the work:
Aucassin and Nicolette: This charming work, composed by an anonymous poet around 1200, is the only surviving example of the “chantefable”: it is partly in prose, to be spoken; partly in verse, with assonanced rolex day date m128348rbr 0017 36mm uomini guadare lines of 7-syllables, to be sung. Aucassin and Nicolette reflects a thorough-going familiarity with the genres of the period, such as epic, romance, saint’s life, and lyric song–and a light-hearted parodic attitude toward them all.

About the genre:
See “About the work” (above).

About the edition/translation:
Abridged from Aucassin and Nicolette and Other Medieval Romances and Tales, trans. Eugene Mason, New York, Dutton, 1958, pp. 30-35. Original text: Aucassin et Nicolette, ed./[Modern French] trans. Jean Dufournet, Paris, Garnier-Flammarion, 1973.

About the performer/ensemble:
Jenn Jordan is an undergraduate student in the College of Arts and Science at New York University, majoring in Medieval and Renaissance Studies (2003).

About the production:
This performance was created as part of an Independent Study with Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz in fall 2003. The clip comes from a performance that took place in November 2003 at the Maison Francaise of New York University at a Roundtable on “New Perspectives on Medieval Narrative,” sponsored by the Colloquium on Orality, Writing and Culture, co-convenors Prof. Nancy Freeman Regalado and Prof. Vitz. The performance was videoed by NYU-TV.