The epic, one of the oldest forms of poetic expression, came into being and evolved in time immemorial, long before the appearance of writing - the advent of which, while helping to fix oral traditions since the dawn of history, has at the same time sapped these traditions of their freshness. Not until methods of recording and reproduction were perfected was the oral epic restored to its full compass as a work of enduring dimensions.
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Vadime Elisseeff (1998) studied this question.