The Singer of Tales: v.24 (Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature) - Softcover

Lord, Ab

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674808819 ISBN 13: 9780674808812

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1990

Synopsis

This 40th anniversary edition of Albert Lord's classic work includes a CD containing the original audio recording of all the passages of heroic songs quoted in the book; a video publication of the kinescopic filming of the most valued of the singers; and selected photographs taken during Milman Parry's collecting trips in the Balkans. Parry began recording and studying a live tradition of oral narrative poetry in order to find an answer to the age-old Homeric question: how had the author of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" composed these two monumental epic poems at the very start of Europe's literary tradition? Parry's, and with him Lord's, enduring contribution - set forth in Lord's "The Singer of Tales" - was to demonstrate the process by which oral poets compose. Now reissued with a new introduction and an audio and visual record, this book should be of interest to those interested in the art and craft of oral literature.

About this title

Review:

This seminal work...is now reissued, forty years after its first appearance, with a new introduction by Stephen Mitchell and Gregory Nagy and an accompanying CD-ROM...[the CD] itself...splendidly justifies the reprint...Here at last we can hear the quirky drone of the gusle and the sing-song chant of the poets themselves, as they intone "The Song of Baghdad' or 'The Wedding of Smailagic Meho." The initial effect is disconcerting, but quickly becomes addictive. -- Alan Griffiths Times Literary Supplement

About the Author:

Gregory Nagy is Jones Professor of Classical Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University, and the Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies, Trustees for Harvard University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0674808819
• ISBN 13: 9780674808812
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 319