Epic Singers and Oral Tradition Contributor(s): Lord, Albert Bates (Author) |
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ISBN: 0801424720 ISBN-13: 9780801424724 Publisher: Cornell University Press
Binding Type: Hardcover - See All Available Formats & Editions Published: June 1991 Click for more in this series: Myth and Poetics |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Ancient And Classical - Literary Criticism | Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology - Social Science | Folklore & Mythology |
Dewey: 809.132 |
LCCN: 90055888 |
Age Level: 18-UP |
Grade Level: 13-UP |
Series: Myth and Poetics |
Physical Information: 0.75" H x 6" W x 9" L (1.27 lbs) 280 pages |
Themes: - Chronological Period - Ancient (To 499 A.D.) |
Features: Price on Product |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: 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 in living oral traditions and on the theoretical writings of Milman Parry, Lord concentrates on the singers and their art as manifested in texts of performance. In thirteen essays, some previously unpublished and all of them revised for book publication, he explores questions of composition, transmittal, and interpretation and raises important comparative issues. Individual chapters discuss aspects of the Homeric poems, South Slavic oral-traditional epics, the songs of Avdo Metedovic, Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon poetry, the medieval Greek Digenis Akritas and other medieval epics, central Asiatic and Balkan epics, the Finnish Kalevala, and the Bulgarian oral epic. The work of one of the most respected scholars of his generation, Epic Singers and Oral Tradition will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students of myth and folklore, classicists, medievalists, Slavists, comparatists, literary theorists, and anthropologists. |
Contributor Bio(s): Lord, Albert Bates: - Albert Bates Lord is Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor, Emeritus, of Slavic and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. He is the author of Epic Singers and Oral Tradition, from Cornell, and The Singer of Tales. |
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