A voice for the whole story: Oral roots, written work, and oral performance

While purporting to preserve and present the best literary material, the academy has recognized only that which can be seen or touched---the textual---and ignored oral stories, oral influences on written text, and, conversely, the influence of text on oral stories. In so doing, the cross discipline scholarly discussion of oral narrative has been ignored, and students have been deprived of understanding the broad scope of the narrative cycle.; In this thesis, I address the current academic abyss between folklore and literature and the need to create an oral/literate forum to promote the significant synthesis of the rich research from each discipline. Literature, folklore, orality and storytelling scholarship and perspectives are explored using Ray Hicks CD and accompanying book, The Jack Tales: Stories by Ray Hicks as told to Lynn Salsi in addition to my own work as an author and storyteller.