Chapter III: Invocation and Entreaty The Difference Appears O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger; donot punish me in your wrathFor your arrows have already pierced me;and your hand presses hard againstme. Psalm 38 Throw away thy rod, Throw away thy wrath; O my GodTake the gentle path. George… 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
7. The Ballad: Textual Stability, Variation, and Memorization It has become apparent that, because the study of oral traditional literature has so concentrated on epic, the application of the oral theory to other kinds of oral poetry may lead to difficulty. The ballad has presented one thorny problem, and short forms in general another, the one because of its stanzaic form, the other because of its comparative… Read more
