How Do We Know That Epic Poems Were Recited from Memory? - JSTOR Daily 🔗 ✍️ 🗣 📚

Scholars once doubted that pre-literate peoples could ever have composed and recited poems as long as the Odyssey. Milman Parry changed that.

’Instead of construing the Iliad and the Odyssey as either conventionally authored works or pieced-together editions, Milman Parry portrayed them as the products of a generations-long process of composition in performance,’ Foley wrote. This helped revolutionize the way we understand the oral origins of epic poetry.