A.B. Lord : Homer’s Originality: Oral Dictated Texts
Irene J. F. De. Jong, Homer: Critical Assessments, New York: Routledge, 1999, pp. 228-236. 或 Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Society, vol. 84, 1953，pp. 124-34.
Since it is almost impossible to believe that the Iliad and Odyssey were ever improvised, and the richness of their poetry suggests some reliance on writing , we may see in them examples of what happens when writing comes to the help of the oral bard. He continues to compose in the same manner as before, but with far greater care and effectiveness.”(P228)
It was inevitable that a solution of whether or not Homer was an oral poet would be sought in a compromise which would make him both; that is to say, an oral poet who writes.
In other words, a traditional book cannot be “ a great poem,” cannot have “ tragic unity ” or “ dramatic intensity ” of character. I f we can show th a t a poem is “ great” and has “ tragic unity ” and “dramatic intensity ” of character, we can prove that it is not a traditional book, according to Wade-Gery. (P229)
Does the oral technique exclude originality , and if not, how can oral poets be “ original” or “ individual” or “ great” ？ What do we know about the period o f transition from oral to w ritte n technique? What occurs in the process of writing down an oral poem? (P229)
He quotes part of a sentence o f Parry’s, published in 1930, which has been fastened upon by his critics asdenying o rig in a lity to oral poets in general and to Homer in particular. (P229)
In order for the tradition to have come in to being and to have continued to exist, one must suppose that singers made changes from time to time, but these changes would have been slight and new formulas would have been modelled on the old ones. (P230)
First, we have learned in Yugoslavia that there are differences between the text of a song as actually sung and the text of a song which was taken down from dictation. (P230)
The second direction in which Parry's statements should be elaborated leads to a field about which he had actually written but little , that which I choose to call "the epic technique of oral song-making."(P230)
But what we need to poiny out for the present purpose is that the oral poet has a great degree o f freedom in the construction of his song, i f he wishes to be creative and to make use of that freedom. (P231)
On both the formulaic and the thematic level, then, the oral technique not only allows freedom for change and creation but aids in providing the means by which the singer may exercise his creative imagination if he so desires. (P231)
The oral artist comes to realize the possibilities which the leisure o f the new medium permits for careful composition and for calculated changes different from the rapid changes forced by the speed of oral performance. (P232)
There are in Yugoslavia a number o f oral poets who can write. Their first attempts at writing were mere recordings of the songs which they knew. (P232)
The poem is too great, is done with far too much assurance, to be the first hesitating steps in a new technique.
It seems to me rather that it is the product o f a great oral poet in a rich oral tradition.
The poems o f a semi-literate oral poet are awkward in construction because they m ix two techiques, one o f which has not yet had time to develop, and the other o f which the poet already disdains. (P232)
It is impossible to believe that the Iliad and Odyssey as we have them represent exactly the songs as actually sung in normal performance by Homer; their length and consequent richness of content, the perfection o f their lines, suggest some reliance on writing. (P233)
In my own mind there remains no doubt that Homer dictated the Iliad to someone else who wrote it down, because the Homeric poems have all the earmarks of dictated texts of oral epic songs.(P234)
An oral poet who is asked to dictate a song for someone to write finds him self in an unusual and abnormal position.
He is accustomed to composing rapidly to the accompaniment o f a musical instrument which sets the rhythm and tempo of his performance. (P234)
It is interesting that when Parry asked singers when they had finished dictating songs for him whether they thought that sung songs were better than dictated ones or vice versa, their answers invariably were: “ Sung songs are truer, dictated songs are finer!”
I would paraphrase this as: "Sung songs are closer to what we have heard from others, but we can be better poets in dictated song!”(P235)
There is a certain amount o f originality in each performance of an oral epic.
It has never been sung exactly the same way before, even by the same singer; it will never be sung exactly the same way again. It is unique.
If each performance under normal conditions can be original, then the dictated performance allows for the greatest originality. (P235)
The Homeric poems are what they are because they are the products of an oral technique with its abundant opportunities fo r freedom of creation, recorded by a method and under circumstances which bring to the fore the very best which an inspired poet can instill in to them. (P235)
Even as the moment of singing is the normal moment of creation of oral epic, so the moment o f dictating is the moment of creation o f our texts from the past.(P235)
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