Conclusion

As we have discovered in earlier chapters with regard to both traditional phraseology and the ancient Greek typical scene, thematic structure in the Serbo-Croatian Return Song cannot fairly be reduced to a single, one-dimensional commonplace but must be appreciated as a spectrum of traditional forms. The instance of Ibro Basic's^[*] pause for rest and subsequent continuance of his song from a traditionally logical spot illustrated the compositional importance of the narrative unit for his performance. Analysis of such units in terms of constituent motifs and elements established the internal texture of variation within limits that is so typical of the guslar's craft. In addition to this idiolectal level of the Shouting in Prison theme, examples drawn from Basic^[*] and Mujo Kukuruzovic^[*] , his fellow participant in the local tradition of Stolac, showed how there also exists a dialectal level for narrative multiformity. With respect to the individual, we found that the ideational structure of the theme remained largely constant, with some concessions to the specific story situation, but that verbal correspondence varied in kind and density from one section to the next. Generalizations proved less trustworthy at the dialect level, with idiosyncratic variance making structural differences more frequent (especially in the case of non-essential motifs or elements) and phraseological correspondence much less likely. This increasing divergence reached its apex at the pantraditional level of language : while the same general outline and most important events also characterize the Shouting in Prison theme in the Return Song by Salih Ugljanin from the Novi Pazar district, that passage shares almost no diction with the examples from Stolac.

What these findings indicate, then, is the impossibility of capturing the protean reality of thematic structure in the net of a single model or definition. Rather, we must be aware that themes and their parts, although held in suspension by the recurrent patterns of story that comprise the epic tradition, arc, as Lord has emphasized, malleable and multiform. As we look past the foreground of idiolect and dialect toward the deeper background of pantraditional narrative language, the theme appears to exist most essentially in its grouping of ideas—that is, in its association of events to form a coherent, generic whole. This traditional narrative "word," as it were, can be spoken in one's own idiolect, in which case it will customarily sound quite similar

with each utterance; or in the local dialect, in which case it will vary somewhat more; or in the larger traditional language, in which case it will sound quite different with each speaking. The actual articulation may thus vary considerably both within the unit and from instance to instance, but there is no doubt that each occurrence is indeed the same "word."