The Kalevala is the great Finnish epic which, like the Iliad and Odyssey, grew out of a rich oral tradition with prehistoric roots. During the first millennium of our era, speakers of Uralic languages (outside the Indo-European group) who had settled in the Baltic region developed an oral poetry that was to last into the nineteenth century. This poetry provided the basis of the Kalevala, assembled by the Finnish scholar Elias Lonnrot and published in its final form in 1849. It played a central role in the process towards Finnish independence and inspired some of the greatest music of Sibelius.

The Kalevala (Oxford World's Classics)

Literature & Fiction

Elias Lönnrot

Albert B. Lord

History & Criticism

Oxford University Press

This 40th anniversary edition of Albert Lord's classic work includes a unique enhancement: a CD containing the original audio recordings of all the passages of heroic songs quoted in the book; a video publication of the kinescopic filming of the most valued of the singers; and selected photographs taken during Milman Parry's collecting trips in the Balkans. 
 Parry began recording and studying a live tradition of oral narrative poetry in order to find an answer to the age-old Homeric Question: How had the author of the Iliad and Odyssey composed these two monumental epic poems at the very start of Europe's literary tradition? Parry's, and with him Lord's, enduring contribution--set forth in Lord's The Singer of Tales--was to demonstrate the process by which oral poets compose. 
 Now reissued with a new Introduction and an invaluable audio and visual record, this widely influential book is newly enriched to better serve everyone interested in the art and craft of oral literature.

Singer of Tales

Poetry

Macmillan Pub. Co.

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Books by Albert B. Lord