Milman Parry
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Milman Parry (June 23, 1902 – December 3, 1935) was an American
Classicist Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...
whose theories on the origin of
Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...
's works have revolutionized
Homeric studies Homeric scholarship is the study of any Homeric topic, especially the two large surviving epics, the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey''. It is currently part of the academic discipline of classical studies. The subject is one of the oldest in education. A ...
to such a fundamental degree that he has been described as the " Darwin of Homeric studies". In addition, he was a pioneer in the discipline of
oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (19 ...
.


Early life and education

Parry was born in 1902 in
Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...
. He grew up in a house full of books, with a father who was self-taught and widely read. He and his siblings often recited poems from memory as a game. He graduated from
Oakland Technical High School Oakland Technical High School, known locally as Oakland Tech or simply "Tech", is a public high school in Oakland, California, United States, and is operated under the jurisdiction of the Oakland Unified School District. It is one of six compre ...
in 1919, and studied at the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
(B.A. and M.A.) where he became proficient in ancient Greek and the Classics. He then studied for a PhD at the Sorbonne in Paris and was a student of the
linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
Antoine Meillet Paul Jules Antoine Meillet (; 11 November 1866 – 21 September 1936) was one of the most important French linguists of the early 20th century. He began his studies at the Sorbonne University, where he was influenced by Michel Bréal, the Swiss l ...
. In his dissertations, which were published in French in 1928, Parry demonstrated that the Homeric style is characterized by the extensive use of fixed expressions, or "formulas", adapted for expressing a given idea under the same metrical conditions. For example, "divine Odysseus", "many-counseled Odysseus", or "much-enduring divine Odysseus" had less to do with moving the story forward than with being in accordance with the amount of material to be fitted into the remainder of the
hexameter Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek as well as in Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of s ...
verse. The oral nature of the poem was evident in the dependence on these devices, both as memory aids and to allow for easier improvisation. They were clues suggesting that the two Homeric epics were not the inventions of a single poet but had been gradually evolved in a long-standing tradition. As one scholar put it, "Parry never solved the
Homeric Question The Homeric Question concerns the doubts and consequent debate over the identity of Homer, the authorship of the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'', and their historicity (especially concerning the ''Iliad''). The subject has its roots in classical anti ...
ho was Homer he demonstrated that it was irrelevant". Meillet introduced Parry to Matija Murko, who had worked on oral epic traditions in Yugoslavia and had made phonograph recordings of some performances.


Academic career

In 1928–1929, Parry began his academic career as a Professor of Latin and Greek at
Drake University Drake University is a private university in Des Moines, Iowa, United States. The University offers over 140 undergraduate and graduate programs, including professional programs in business, education, Legal education, law, and pharmacy. Drake U ...
. Between 1933 and 1935 Parry, at the time an assistant professor at
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
, made two visits to
Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...
, where he studied and recorded oral traditional poetry in Serbo-Croat with the help on his second visit of his assistant Albert Lord, and a native singer and fixer named Nikola Vujnović, who became essential to finding and communicating with other singers, known as the '' guslar''. They worked in
Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...
, where
literacy Literacy is the ability to read and write, while illiteracy refers to an inability to read and write. Some researchers suggest that the study of "literacy" as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was ...
was lowest and the oral tradition was, in the term used by Parry and Lord, "purest". They made thousands of hours of recordings in remote mountain villages of illiterate farmers who sang epic songs of prodigious length from memory. Parry and Lord recorded on newly invented equipment, flat aluminum records instead of vinyl, custom made for the expedition, with only a five minute recording time. Discs were continually swapped with a special two-disc machine to create a single long recording, later transcribed. They also recorded conversations between ''guslari'' after it became apparent this was also part of the creative process that fertilized improvisation. The "jewel of the collection" is ''The Wedding Song of Smailagić Meho'', by a poet named Avdo Međedović, "by far the most skillful and versatile performer whom Milman encountered". One of the songs, running to some 13,000 lines and performed over five days, was the closest analogue to Homer in quality and quantity; Parry said one "has the overwhelming sense that, in some way, he is hearing Homer". Međedović boasted he knew longer songs. In his American publications of the 1930s, Parry introduced the
hypothesis A hypothesis (: hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educated guess o ...
that the formulaic structure of Homeric epic is to be explained as a characteristic feature of oral composition, the so-called Oral Formulaic Hypothesis. After Parry's death, the idea was championed by Albert Lord, most notably in '' The Singer of Tales'' (1960). The musical part of his recordings made in Jugoslavia was later notated and published postumum in the fifties by
Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...
, commissioned by the Columbia University in 1942. This publication is provided with a long Introduction by Bartók.


Death and commemoration

When Parry returned to the United States in 1935, he learned that his wealthy mother-in-law had fallen in with some people who were exploiting her without her knowledge. During his field excursions in the Balkans, Parry carried a gun with him, and he packed one in his luggage for a visit to California with his wife for the purpose of aiding his mother-in-law. In the late afternoon of December 3, at the Palms Hotel in Los Angeles, Parry was dressing for a dinner with friends, while his wife was in another room. Accounts differ, but she either heard a muffled shot or Parry groaning, and found him shot in the heart. He died soon afterwards. Police detectives determined that the gun was fired accidentally as he was removing clothing from his luggage. The safety had not been set and the trigger had become entangled in a shirt, which bore gunpowder burns. Various rumors circulated, including the ideas that Parry committed suicide because he was despondent over Harvard's failure to give him a permanent appointment, or that his wife killed him. Parry's daughter, Marian, believed for the rest of her life that her mother killed him, and pointed to her mother's insane fits and accusations of infidelity. Detailed examination of the evidence by classicist Steve Reece concurs with the contemporary official conclusion that Parry's death was accidental. Parry's collected papers were published posthumously in ''The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry'', edited by his son Adam Parry (Oxford University Press, 1971). The Milman Parry collection of records and transcriptions of South Slavic heroic poetry is now in the
Widener Library The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, housing some 3.5million books, is the centerpiece of the Harvard Library system. It honors 1907 Harvard College graduate and book collector Harry Elkins Widener, and was built by his mother Eleanor Elki ...
of
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
. The journal ''
Oral Tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (19 ...
'' is devoted to advancing Parry's work.


Influence

According to Steve Reece, there is "an enormous body of literature on Parry’s intellectual legacy". His influence is evident in the work of later scholars who have argued that there was a fundamental break in institutional structure between Homeric Greece and Platonic Greece, a break characterized by the transition from an oral culture to a written culture. This line of thought holds that in Homeric society, oral poetry served as a record of institutional and
cultural practice Cultural practice is the manifestation of a culture or sub-culture, especially in regard to the traditional and customary practices of a particular ethnic or other cultural group. The term is gaining in importance due to the increased controvers ...
s. This thesis is associated with
Eric Havelock Eric Alfred Havelock (; 3 June 1903 – 4 April 1988) was a British classicist who spent most of his life in Canada and the United States. He was a professor at the University of Toronto and was active in the Canadian socialist movement d ...
, who cites Parry. Havelock argues that the fixed expressions that Parry identified can be understood as mnemonic aids, which were vital to the well-being of society, given the importance of the information carried by the poetry.


Personal life

Parry was married to Marian Thanhouser, who came from a German Jewish family, and endured
antisemitic Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
comments from some of her husband's colleagues. They had two children, Marian and Adam Parry (1928–1971). The latter was the chairman of Yale University's Classics Department, until his untimely death, together with his wife Anne Amory, in a motorbike accident.


Publications

* * * * * * * * * * * *


Notes


Relevant literature

* Kanigel, Robert. ''Hearing Homer's Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry''. 2021. Penguin. (soft cover).


External links

* * Th
Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature
at Harvard University
The On-Line Database of Harvard's Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature (MPCOL)

The New Yorker - The Classicist Who Killed Homer, by Adam Kirsch (June 7, 2021)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Parry, Milman 1902 births 1935 deaths American classical scholars Epic poetry collectors University of California, Berkeley alumni University of Paris alumni Classical scholars of Harvard University American people of Welsh descent American folklorists Scholars of ancient Greek literature Scholars of epic poetry Oakland Technical High School alumni