The only thing that most people know about Olrik’s principles, is the Epic Laws, which were published in German in 1908. So far I’ve only identified a few of the Epic Laws as having examples in Torah. Twenty sections of Olrik’s work express these principles. Section numbers are according to the English translation of Olrik’s work.
§58, Clarity. Focus, focus, focus. Spin off sidebars that concentrate on important issues, then return to concentrate on the main line of the narrative.
§59, Two to a scene. Yosef always addresses his brothers as a group. Qorach’s 250 elders are never treated as anything but a group.
§60, Schematization. No depth to characters, sketchy reports of incidents.
§61, Lack of description. Verbosity requires vivid actions or words, not descriptions. (This is also one reason “passives” have relatively few examples in oral material in a source document.)
§62, Repeated episodes to approach the goal, reflecting its importance. This goes along with the Law of Last Stress and Law of Ascents.
§63, Actions, not descriptions, demonstrate a character’s nature or motives. Another reason for verbs that are not “passive”.
§64, Unity in which actions and motives agree, and form a contrast to every day life. While living people have conflicting impulses and motives, characters in oral narratives never do. What’s more, protagonists almost never deal with their counterparts at a distance, they are united in location. Paro had to have Yosef brought into his presence to interpret his dreams.
§65, Internal logic. Nothing in an oral narrative is useless, but its contribution is not necessarily direct. The outcome of sexual situations in the Yosef saga is legal trouble in every case, as stated in the action. Each situation is crucial to the culture, but only one actually contributes to the denouement.
§66, Unity of plot and goal, and omission of extraneous details. The plot always contributes to reaching the goal and leaves out material that would distract from that unless and until it becomes important. We don’t even realize that Reuven has children until he offers them to his father as hostages to his success bringing Benjamin back from Egypt.
§67, Epic and ideal unity of plot. The first incident that contributes to resolution of the plot telegraphs how other incidents will contribute. Yosef’s first pair of dreams telegraphs that dreams will be important to his fate.
§68, Single-stranded plot. This is crucial to all three types of narrative. However, sagas will often have what I call sidebar narratives that finish up before the goal is reached, and that contribute to the goal. Without Yehudah’s sons from Tamar, there never would have been a Kalev to back Yehoshua up in arguing against the slanderers.
§69, Concentration on the leading character. There is a Yosef saga because the narrative focuses on him, not on Reuven, the eldest and son of the first wife, although Reuven plays a role in Yosef’s fate.
§70, Two main characters, or a secondary character almost as important as the main character. Yehudah has this secondary importance, combined with his echo in Reuven.
§71, Contrast between paired characters. Reuven and his pair Yehudah get different outcomes from their illegal liaisons (it is illegal in Jewish law for a man to have sex with his daughter-in-law).
§72, Law of contrast. All the other characters contrast with the main one, having some of the same characteristics in lesser degrees. Reuven and Yehudah’s sexual escapades contrast with Yosef’s, although Yosef’s is the one that moves the narrative to its goal.
§73, Law of twins. Two characters who must work together to accomplish their goals because individually they are too weak to do so. Shimon and Levi have to sack Shchem together.
§74, Law of Three. This is actually a “Law of Magic Numbers.” Three is the most common. Five is the magic number for – well, magic and mystery; seven is the magic number for religion (seven days of creation, not six); twelve is the magic number for people linked by a common factor (sons of Yaaqov). Qorach’s 250 don’t (at first glance) relate to any magic numbers and may reflect a historical situation, as does much else about that narrative.
§75, Law of Ascents and Final Stress. It should be obvious that a narrative will end after the last episode, and for that the goal has to be reached in the last episode. This law also results in the youngest child accomplishing the goal and the exaggerated features of the last incident compared to the prior versions of it.
§76, Law of opening where a narrative begins calmly in the real world with one character. As the narrative progresses things get more emotional or strange and characters multiply because they are needed to help the main character reach the goal.
§77, Law of closing. The fantastic elements drop off as soon as their contribution to the goal is done and the narrative ends with one character returning to the real world.
If you go through the Yosef saga, you will find illustrations of almost all of the Epic Laws. But they exist throughout Torah and give the fine-structure evidence that Torah originated orally and not in writing. It's not the only evidence.
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