Tag: Milman Parry

Milman Parry on BBC 4

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Tip o’ the pileus to Ian Spoor for alerting me to this one which is coming up on BBC4:

Episode Six of a thirty-part series made in collaboration with the British Library Sound Archive.

In 1933, a young classics scholar called Milman Parry made a journey through the hill villages of the Balkans to record poets and singers. He captured an oral tradition that has all but died out – peasant performers who recited epic tales over days without any form of prompt.

Professor David Hendy of the University of Sussex explains how ancient tales were remembered and passed down, and travels to the ancient Theatre of Epidaurus in Greece to find out what the audience would have made of it all up in the ‘gods’.

Featuring archive extracts of traditional stories from the Balkans, Kyrgyzstan, West Africa, and India.

Audio for this one will be available “soon” … here’s the Noise: A Human History home page.

Albert Lord Centennial

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

The Center for Hellenic Studies is marking the centennial of Albert Lord’s birth with a collection of online resources related to his work. Here’s the introductory blurb from Gregory Nagy:

As one of Albert Lord’s former students, it gives me great pleasure to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth on Sept. 15, 1912. As a pioneering scholar in the study of oral traditions, Lord had a profound impact on our understanding of oral epic traditions, including the tradition represented by the Iliad and Odyssey. His book The Singer of Tales introduced thousands of readers to the richness of the oral poet’s art. As a teacher, he inspired generations of students to continue the line of inquiry begun by his own teacher, Milman Parry. The Center for Hellenic Studies proudly commemorates the birth of this path-finding scholar.

Check it out on the CHS main page …

Milman Parry on Epithets

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

This one’s been lurking in my box for a while … the Center for Hellenic Studies have put up a copy of Milman Parry’s doctoral dissertation (?) … here’s their description:

In this foundational and still critically important work, Parry offers a detailed and thorough analysis of proper name and epithet formulae. This analysis brought Parry to a stunning conclusion: the poems could not be the work of an individual poet but must be the product of a tradition. Parry’s lucid argumentation and persuasive methodology deserve and repay careful attention by all interested in Homer, ancient Greek poetics, and oral traditions.

Read it here (it opens to the preface; use the drop-down menu to get to chapters):