(R149) Becoming Homer

Review of: A. B. Lord, Epic Singers and Oral Tradition. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991. Pp. xii + 262. Barry B. Powell, Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xxv + 280. Martin Bernal, Cadmean Letters: The Transmission of the Alphabet to the Aegean and Further West before 1400 B.C., Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990. Pp. xiii+136. The visitor to the library of the classical faculty at Harvard sees many photographs of past professors, almost all imposing, bearded figures; so imposing are they that it comes as a rude shock when one remarks that many of them have no very notable achievements to their credit. But among them one finds one youthful, strikingly handsome face, and it is the face of the most celebrated of all. No American classical scholar of the twentieth century has won higher praise than Milman Parry, who was born at Oakland, California, in 1902 and died in 1935.

Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History