In the 1960s, American scholar Lorde founded a new field of comparative oral tradition research, revealed the creative power of the oral epic tradition, and established a set of rigorous analytical methods for oral poetics.

Lord's research shows that the study of epic poetry is no longer synonymous with European classics, but has become a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary study of comparative oral traditions.

New theories such as performance theory and ethnographic poetics that emerged after the 1970s made full use of oral traditional materials and absorbed the results of contemporary linguistics, anthropology and folklore to construct theories and methodologies, which greatly improved the capabilities of epic research.

Its academic status makes it an innovative field.

This article takes the representative works of scholars such as Parry, Lord, Nagy and Free as clues, and uses the history of European folklore, the history of oral inheritance research and the century-old history of American folklore as the reference system to elaborate on the basic concepts and research of oral poetics.

The method and discipline formation process determine its position in the history of Western folklore and illustrate its connection with Chinese folklore research.

Keywords: oral tradition, epic, formulaic epic belongs to the category of narrative poetry.

Epic is an ancient literary style that has epoch-making significance in the history of human culture.

Epic has incorporated a large number of myths, legends, stories, songs and proverbs during its long inheritance process.

An epic is a treasure house of folk literature and an encyclopedia for understanding a nation.

Before epic poetry was recorded in writing and emerged as a literary form, it had a long history as oral literature.

Their development process in literary form can be verified from documentary materials; their origin as oral literature can be traced back to the prehistoric era of mankind.

Epic is a ubiquitous genre in the world.

Sumerian epics can be traced back to around 2000 BC, Babylonian and Greek epics appeared between 1000 and 400 BC, and a large number of epics appeared in the history of medieval and modern European literature.

It is generally believed that the discussion of epics and epic nature in the history of literature began in Europe.

Ancient Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Heras all discussed epics. However, it was not until the rediscovery of Aristotle's Poetics in the 16th century that people began to theorize about epics.

discussion.

European classics has accumulated a profound academic tradition in the field of epic research.

The European Romanticism movement in the 18th century started an upsurge in collecting and studying folk epics, and promoted people's exploration of the origin, spread and creation of epics.

In the mid-19th century, European folklore emerged. As a style of folklore, epic poetry once again entered the field of vision of modern scholars, ushering in a new era of epic research in terms of methodology.

In sharp contrast to this, Chinese epics have never received the attention they deserve and have no place in the history of world literature.

This is very regrettable.

The study of world epics in the 20th century has entered a new historical stage.

Inspired by historical research and increasingly rigorous analytical procedures, people are thinking calmly about the large amounts of data that have been accumulated.

Bowler, a British classicist, pioneered the comparative study of oral poetry and written poetry, redefined heroic epic, and deeply elucidated its genre significance.

In the 1960s, American scholar Lorde founded a new field of comparative oral tradition research, revealed the creative power of the oral epic tradition, and established a set of rigorous analytical methods for oral poetics.

Lord's research shows that the study of epic poetry is no longer synonymous with European classics; it has become a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary study of comparative oral traditions.

New theories such as performance theory and ethnographic poetics that emerged after the 1970s made full use of the living materials of oral tradition, absorbed the results of contemporary linguistics, anthropology and folklore, and constructed theories and methodologies, which greatly improved the

The academic status of oral epic research makes it an innovative field.

In sharp contrast to China's rich epic tradition, our research started late, the theoretical discussion is still weak, and the international academic impact is not great.

The construction of the discipline of Chinese epic research is a systematic project, which includes the integration of research teams, the establishment of databases that comply with modern academic standards, the gradual improvement of theories and methodologies that standardize academic research, the concreteness and systematization of research directions, etc.

Judging from the existing conditions and the work that has been started, the research on Chinese epics is developing in a healthy direction and the prospects are very broad.

This article takes the representative works of epics by contemporary European and American scholars as clues, and uses the history of European folklore, the history of oral inheritance research and the century-old history of American folklore as the reference system to elaborate on the basic concepts, research methods and discipline formation process of oral poetics, and determine its

Its status in the history of Western folklore illustrates its connection with Chinese folklore research.

As far as epic research is concerned, the West has accumulated a rich academic tradition starting from Aristotle in ancient Greece. The large-scale development of epic research in China is only half a century old.

We have studied epics, but this research is not subject-conscious in the sense of epic studies. This is reflected in the fact that most scholars do not study oral epics as folklore phenomena passed down orally. Instead, they start from classic dogma, academic research and national consciousness.

, national ideologies are confused with each other, and literary research on writers and oral inheritance research are confused with each other.

The crux of the problem is that today's academic world is international, and our understanding of the world is one-sided. Our scholars often dare to borrow theoretical concepts from just reading a book.

Therefore, systematic research by one school may benefit the academic community.