5.4: Epic Recitation

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Civilizations around the world have long used song as a vehicle for telling lengthy stories, or epics, many of which concern the founding of an empire. Here, we will consider two examples: an epic of ancient Greece, The Iliad, and an epic of the Mali Empire, The Sunjata Story. These two epics have a great deal in common, for each details the episodic struggles and triumphs of a great hero. The traditions themselves also seem to have elements in common. However, we cannot directly compare the recitation practices associated with these two texts for a simple reason: While the practice of sung epic recitation is alive and well in West Africa, it has not been practiced in Greece for two millenia, and we therefore can only guess at the details.