Acknowledgement In writing this monograph and preparing it for publication, I received invaluable help from many people. First I would like to thank Professors John Finley, Albert Lord, and Calvert Watkins. I owe them a debt as teachers, benefactors, and constructive critics which is deeply felt, and which my work, I fear, does little to repay. In addition I offer my gratitude for their intellectual and moral… Read more
Table of Symbols and Formulas Symbols: ⧣: beginning or end of a poetic line‖: masculine or feminine caesura, or, alternatively, = is parallel to|: bucolic diaeresisH‖: hephthemimeral caesura*: (beside Homeric line citation, e.g. *Z 240) the phraseology of the line is anomalous in some respect Formulas (referred to as (A), (B), etc.) (A) ὥς ἔφατ᾽εὐχόμενος, τοῦ δ᾽ ἔκλυε – ⏑… Read more
8. Rebuttal* Oralitas, sicut Gallia, est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt philosophi, aliam qui recitatores spectant, sicut scripsit Juvenalis in satira prima, tertiam philologi, qui textūs spectant et explicant. In the years since The Singer of Tales there have been some criticisms of the “oral theory” to which I have not responded. I have come to… Read more
9. Two Versions of the Theme of the Overnight Visit in The Wedding of Smailagić Meho I have attempted throughout to define and illustrate the role of the theme, and I wish to pursue this subject further by calling attention to a fully developed theme as seen in two versions in Avdo Međedović’s epic song The Wedding of Smailagić Meho. [1] In… Read more
10. The Transitional Text One of the important differences between an oral traditional singer and a nontraditional one is the fact that the traditional singer does not think in terms of a fixed textuality, whereas the nontraditional singer does. If a traditional singer in the course of a lifetime becomes a nontraditional poet—as, I believe, one could argue in the case of Petar Petrović Njegoš II—at what… Read more
Bibliography Alexander, Ronelle. 1995. “The Tension of Essences in South Slavic Epic.” In O Rus! Studia Letteraria Slavica in Honorem Hugh McLean, ed. Simon Karlinsky et al. Berkeley: Berkeley Slavic Specialities. ———. Forthcoming. “The Tension of Essences: The Thematic Structure of Banović Strahinja.” In The Proceedings of the Second International Albert Bates Lord Memorial Symposium, St. Petersburg, November 1993, ed. John M. Read more
Acknowledgments I would first like to express my gratitude to my first teachers of Greek, Leonard Muellner and Mark Davies, without whom, perhaps, none of this would have happened. I am grateful to many people for advice and encouragement throughout the research and writing of this thesis. My thanks go first to Professor Nagy, who always knew the right thing to say; then to Professor Barbara… Read more
Introduction: A Simple Prayer The Complexity of Sappho 1 υἱὲ Ταντάλου, σὲ δ’ ἀντία προτέρων φθέγξομαι Pindar, Olympian I Sappho’s Prayer to Aphrodite (Fragment 1 V. [1] ) holds a special place in Greek Literature. The poem is the only one of Sappho’s which survives complete. [2] Many of the… Read more
Chapter I: Previous Response The Critical Difference And it ends upNobody’s, there is nothing for any of usExcept that fearful vacillating around the centralQuestion that brings us closer,For better or for worse, for all this time. John Ashbery, Introduction Critical responses to the poem have varied widely. I survey here the most recent and informed readings in… Read more
Chapter II: Performance and Prayer The Role of Difference The surprise of otherness is that moment whena new form of ignorance is suddenly activated as an imperative. Barbara Johnson, A World of Difference Performative language, the subject of J. L. Austin’s How To Do Things With Words, appears prominently in the verb structure of the poem. The first verb… Read more
