Hearing Homer's Song : The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry

From the acclaimed biographer of Jane Jacobs and Srinivasa Ramanujan comes the first full life and work of arguably the most influential classical scholar of the twentieth century, who overturned long-entrenched notions of ancient epic poetry and enlarged the very idea of literature. In this literary detective story, Robert Kanigel gives us a long overdue portrait of an Oakland druggist's son who became known as the "Darwin of Homeric studies." So thoroughly did Milman Parry change our thinking about the origins of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey that scholars today refer to a "before" Parry and an "after." Kanigel describes the "before," when centuries of readers, all the way up until Parry's trailblazing work in the 1930's, assumed that the Homeric epics were "written" texts, the way we think of most literature; and the "after" that we now live in, where we take it for granted that they are the result of a long and winding oral tradition. Parry made it his life's work to develop and prove this revolutionary theory, and Kanigel brilliantly tells his remarkable story—cut short by Parry's mysterious death by gunshot wound at the age of thirty-three. From UC Berkeley to the Sorbonne to Harvard to Yugoslavia—where he traveled to prove his idea definitively by studying its traditional singers of heroic poetry—we follow Parry on his idiosyncratic journey, observing just how his early notions blossomed into a full-fledged theory. Kanigel gives us an intimate portrait of Parry's marriage to Marian Thanhouser and their struggles as young parents in Paris, and explores the mystery surrounding Parry's tragic death at the Palms Hotel in Los Angeles. Tracing Parry's legacy to the modern day, Kanigel explores how what began as a way to understand the Homeric epics became the new field of "oral theory," which today illuminates everything from Beowulf to jazz improvisation, from the Old Testament to hip-hop. From the acclaimed biographer of Jane Jacobs and Srinivasa Ramanujan comes the first full life and work of arguably the most influential classical scholar of the twentieth century, who overturned long-entrenched notions of ancient epic poetry and enlarged the very idea of literature. In this literary detective story, Robert Kanigel givers us a long overdue portrait of Milman Parry, an Oakland druggist's son who became known as the "Darwin of Homeric studies." So thoroughly did he change our thinking about the origins of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey that scholars today refer to a "before" Parry and an "after." Before Parry's trailblazing work in the 1930s, centuries of readers took it for granted that the Homeric epics were "written," like any other literature; today, after Parry, we realize that they evolved out of a long and winding oral tradition. Parry made it his life's work to develop and prove this revolutionary theory, and Kanigel brilliantly tells his remarkable story--cut short by Parry's mysterious death by gunshot wound at the age of thirty-three. From UC Berkeley to the Sorbonne to Harvard to Yugoslavia--where he traveled to prove his idea definitively by studying its traditional singers of heroic poetry--we follow Parry on his idiosyncratic journey, observing just how his early notions blossomed into a full-fledged theory. Kanigel gives us an intimate portrait of Parry's marriage to Marian Thanhouser and their struggles as young parents in Paris, and he explores the circumstances of Parry's tragic death at the Palms Hotel in Los Angeles. Tracing Parry's legacy to the modern day, Kanigel shows how what began as an attempt to understand the Homeric epics evolved into a new field altogether, "oral theory," which today illuminates everything from Beowulf to jazz improvisation, from the Old Testament to hip-hop. -- From dust jacket "The first full biography of "the Darwin of Homeric Studies"--Arguably the most influential classical scholar of the twentieth century--who overturned the long entrenched notions of ancient epic poetry and expanded the very idea of literature. In the early 1930s, Milman Parry introduced the hypothesis that the Iliad and the Odyssey were not "written" as we understand it, but derived from an oral tradition going back centuries. It was a revolutionary theory, but quickly accepted, and its effects are still felt in contemporary scholarship. But Parry himself has all but disappeared from view. Now, Robert Kanigel gives us a full and vivid account of his life: of his childhood in Oakland, California, in the early years of the century; his time as part of the "progressive set" at Berkeley; his marriage at twenty-one to the woman he'd gotten pregnant; their journey to Paris where he attends the Sorbonne, discovering the pleasures of the city--and the duties of fatherhood and marriage; his appointment to Harvard; and his two extended stays in Yugoslavia where he believed he could prove his theories definitively by studying the contemporary singers of long unwritten regional epics. Kanigel explores the mystery surrounding Parry's death at 33, and describes how, in the ensuing years, what began as a way to understand the Homeric epics became the new field of "oral theory," which continues to be applied to everything from Beowulf to jazz improvisation, from the Old Testament to the latest hip-hop"-- Provided by publisher