Lord.1971.The Singer of Tales (Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature).pdf

FOREWORD T o m y mot he r a   r a nd f  a t  th  e r

Publshed by Atheneum R�prnted by arrangement wth Harv ard U nversity Press Copyght © I960 by the Presdent a nd Fellows of H f Harvard College All rghts reserved Manuf actured in te U nited States of A f America by Te Murray Print inting Copany Forge V O Ollage usetts Pub hs  hs� d i n Canada by McClelland & Ste wart Ltd. Frt Ateneum Printing January 9 65 Second Printing September I968 Thrd rntng October 1970 Fourt Print inting November 971 o

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This book is about Homer e is or Singer o ales Yet, in a larger sense he represens all singers o ales rom time ieorial and n reorded to he presen Our book is about these oher singers as well Eah of hem even he most ediore, is as mh a par o he tradition o oral epi singing as is Homer, its ost talented representative Among the singers o odern imes here is none o equal omer, but he who ap roahes the master os losely in or experiene o epi song is Avdo Meedovic of Bijelo Polje ugoslavia He is our present-day Balkan Singer of Tles We eve tht the epi singers rom the dawn o hman onsiosness hav n a py int grp nd have ontributed abundantly to dl<' spritual  nellec gwth f an. Although only two segments (I h I do- Eupea n peoples have been treated here in any detail, namely he Greeks and he Slavs (or more truly he speakers o Serboroaian and o  Bulgrian) it is my hope that the book is not parohial Narrowness has never been exusable, whether i be ehni, geographi, religios, soial, or even aademi, least o all in the spae age O he epi songs o the past (or o he present or that mater omer's have always been reognized as supreme. When or olleting began in the nineteen-thirties he Ygoslav oral epi was aessible, alive, and distingished Rssian and entral Asiai oral tradiions ight have done as well or prposes o omparaive study, but or an Amerian proessor at that time they were not within easy reah This book onenrates on only one aspet o the singers art ur im mediae prpose is to omprehend he manner in whih they ompose, learn and ransmi heir epis It is a stdy in the proesses o omposiion o oral narraive poery Hene he reader us no seek here a survey o  oral epis or a history o oral epi in he Balkans or elsewhere his book is dediated grateully to y parents, who ade it possible or me aer y rst aademi degree o go to Yugoslavia wih ilman arry or een months and helped wih my urher edaion. My debt o ilman arry as maser and riend an never adequately be expressed e introdued me to a rih world o hought and red e with an urge to explore i. Bt, as a tre eaher, he let me ree in y expor tions and onlsions arrys genius as a sholar lay in a bold and i tive rigorosness whih insisted that a omprehension o oral poetr u