HOMER AND THE NIBELUNGENLIED ; Comparative Studies in Epic Style

Bernard Fenik analyzes the style of the Iliad and the Nibelungenlied, showing how the narratives work. In the process he sheds new light on the artistry of ancient and medieval epics. This in turn touches on the long-debated question of whether and to what extent they were orally composed.

In the Homeric poems, medieval German epics, and the Chanson de Roland, Fenik finds similarities in the shaping of episodes and scenes. His analysis of narrative structures reveals controlled composition even where the language is heavily formulaic and the action highly stylized. This level of artistic control does not in itself rule out oral composition but does force a redefinition of the terms in which that theory is applied.