POST-TRADITIONALITY OF HOMER AND AVDO MEĐEDOVIĆ
POST-TRADITIONALITY OF HOMER AND AVDO MEĐEDOVIĆ

Summary/Abstract: In my essay The Singer above Tales (2007), it was my intention to prove that Homer was a post-traditional oral poet. As of now, only Robert L. Fowler, in his Introduction to my critical edition of Međedović’ epics (Almanah, Podgorica, 2007, 2 vols), has expressed approbation of my notion of post-traditionality. Fowler worked with me on the text and I am grateful to him for the exchange of ideas. I have sent my essay to some Homerists, including Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Mary R. Lefkowitz, and Sir Martin L. West. They have commented on its content and expressed their encouragement. Luigi Enrico Rossi has accepted it for publication in Seminari Romani. Georg Danek and Thérèse de Vet provided useful criticism. Rusmir Mahmutćehajić, the founder and the leader of International Forum Bosnae, and the late Albert Goldstein, the editor of Antibarbarus editions and the publisher of Latina et Graeca, were the first intellectuals among non-Homerists to recognize the importance of the notion of post-traditionality and publish my texts. The editors of Almanah, the Montenegrin publishing house, stood behind me. Native scholars, well acquainted with Bosnian tradition, mostly agreed with me regarding Međedović’s post-traditionality. In my previous Sarajevo lecture, organized by International Forum Bosnae, I spoke of Milman Parry’s collecting, his fundamental research resulting in the so-called Oral Theory, his work with Avdo Međedović, and the contents of the Parry archive at Harvard University (kept in the Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature). I described Parry’s achievement and the results of his work. I aim to prove in the present lecture Homer’s and Međedović’s post-traditionality.

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