oral tradition

Open House | Oral tradition as rhetorical resource in the Old Slavic translation of Digenis Akritis, with Robert Romanchuk

We were excited to welcome Robert Romanchuk for an Open House entitled “Oral tradition as rhetorical resource in the Old Slavic translation of Digenis Akritis.” The event took place on Friday, April 9 at 11:00 a.m. EDT and was recorded. To get ready for the event, you might like to read these handouts (PDFs): “Slavic ‘Abduction’ episode (reconstructed)” “Greek ‘Abduction’ episode (MS G)” You can watch on our YouTube channel,… Read more

Upcoming Book Club Selections: Fall 2017

We are excited to share the themes for the Fall 2017 sessions of the Book Club when we will be reading selections from the following: September Aristophanes Plutus October Albert Bates Lord Epic Singers and Oral Tradition November Poetry of Horace Look out for announcements with details of the selections, and the related forum threads, which will be posted near the beginning of each month, with the hangouts scheduled for… Read more

Open House | Sappho 44, with Gregory Nagy

We were pleased to welcome back Gregory Nagy of Harvard University for an Online Open House discussion about Sappho Song 44 and about his postings on Classical Inquiries. The process of remembering in ancient Greek song culture requires a special medium, song. When I say song here, I include poetry, even though the word poetry in modern usage is understood to be different from song. In the ancient Greek song culture, however, both poetry and song are understood to… Read more

Epic Singers and Oral Tradition by Albert Bates Lord

We are pleased to share the news that Epic Singers and Oral Tradition by Albert Bates Lord is now available in electronic form, for free, from the CHS website, here. In the Introduction, he writes: “It is of the nature of things that Homer and his poems should play some role, directly or indirectly, in all the articles in this volume. It is not surprising, either, that South Slavic oral-traditional… Read more