The Center for Hellenic Studies

oral tradition
Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature Series

Singers and Tales in the Twenty-First Century

Grounded in the intellectual legacies of two pioneering scholars of oral literature, Milman Parry (1902–1935) and Albert Lord (1912–1991), Singers and Tales in the Twenty-First Century gathers reflections on what the study of oral poetry might mean today across diverse poetic traditions, especially in light of ongoing global transformations that have dramatically reshaped and destabilized the very notion of tradition. This collection of essays spans disciplinary perspectives from Classics and comparative literature… Read more

Hellenic Studies Series

The Iliad and the Oral Epic Tradition

The Iliad reveals a traditional oral poetic style, but many researchers believe that the poem cannot be treated as solely a product of oral tradition. In The Iliad and the Oral Epic Tradition, Karol Zieliński argues that neither Homer’s unique artistry nor references to events known from other songs necessarily indicate the use of writing in its composition. The development of traditional oral cycles suggests that the Iliad is only one of many possible retellings of the… Read more

Curated Articles

Oral Traditions, Written Texts, and Questions of Authorship

[Originally published in The Greek Epic Cycle and its Ancient Reception: A Companion, ed. Marco Fantuzzi and Christos Tsagalis, 59-77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. In this online version, the page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within curly brackets (“{“ and “}”). For example, {69|70} indicates where p. 69 of the printed version ends and p. 70 begins. These indications will be useful to readers who need to look… Read more

Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature Series

The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition: A Discourse on Method

This work explores the role of orality in shaping and evaluating medieval Icelandic literature. Applying field studies of oral cultures in modern times to this distinguished medieval literature, Gísli Sigurðsson asks how it would alter our reading of medieval Icelandic sagas if it were assumed they had grown out of a tradition of oral storytelling, similar to that observed in living cultures. Sigurðsson examines how orally trained lawspeakers regarded the emergent written… Read more

Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature Series

Embroidered with Gold, Strung with Pearls: The Traditional Ballads of Bosnian Women

Bosnian traditional ballads have intrigued many by their beauty and eloquence, from Goethe’s poetic interest in them in the eighteenth century to the work of twentieth-century scholars such as Milman Parry and Albert Lord. These songs are now available to the English reader in a bilingual edition offering a selection of never before translated or published materials from Harvard University’s Parry Collection. The forty oral ballads, many appearing in multiple… Read more

Curated Books

The Singer Resumes the Tale

Edited by Mary Louise Lord after the author’s death, The Singer Resumes the Tale focuses on the performance of stories and poems within settings that range from ancient Greek palaces to Latvian villages. Lord expounds and develops his approach to oral literature in this book, responds systematically for the first time to criticisms of oral theory, and extends his methods to the analysis of lyric poems. He also considers the… Read more

Curated Books

Epic Singers and Oral Tradition

Albert Bates Lord here offers an unparalleled overview of the nature of oral-traditional epic songs and the practices of the singers who composed them. Shaped by the conviction that theory should be based on what singers actually do, and have done in times past, the essays collected here span half a century of Lord’s research on the oral tradition from Homer to the twentieth century. Drawing on his extensive fieldwork… Read more

Curated Articles

Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Verse-Making: I. Homer and Homeric Style

[This article was originally published in 1930 in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 41:73–148. The original page-numbers of the printed version will be indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{73|74}” indicates where p. 73 of the printed version ends and p. 74 begins.] 1. The plan of the study (p. 77). —2. The formula (p. 80). —3. The traditional formula (p. 84). —4. The formula outside Homer (p. Read more

Curated Articles

Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Verse-Making: II. The Homeric Language as the Language of an Oral Poetry

[This article was originally published in 1932 in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 43:1-50. The original pagination of the printed version is embedded within brackets in this electronic version: for example, {1|2} marks where p. 1 stops and p. 2 begins.] i. The Homeric Language and the Homeric Diction: Older Theories of the Homeric Language (p. i); the Homeric Language as a Poetic Language (p. 4); the Homeric Language as… Read more