Transcribed from the 19th century to the present

“In those societies where oral traditions have retained something of their former vitality, multiple testimonies attest to the extreme resilience of the inherited epic forms, their resistance to the hostility of the lettered milieu, their ability to absorb new motifs, to apply themselves to lived experience without being altered profoundly—like the very heroes of whom they sing—not to die without long battles.”

Paul Zumthor, Oral Poetry