Albert Lord
Albert Lord | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | September 15, 1912 Boston,Massachusetts,U.S. |
| Died | July 29, 1991(aged 78) |
| Education | Boston Latin School |
| Alma mater | Harvard University(PhD, 1949) |
| Known for | research onepic poetry The Singer of Tales |
| Spouse | Mary Louise Carlson |
| Children | 2 sons |
| Scientific career | |
| Academic advisors | Milman Parry |
Albert Bates Lord(15 September 1912 – 29 July 1991) was a professor of Slavic and comparative literature atHarvard Universitywho carried onMilman Parry's research onepic poetryafter Parry's death.
Early life
[edit]Lord was born inBoston,Massachusetts.He graduated fromBoston Latin Schoolin 1930 and attendedHarvardCollege, where he received an A.B. inclassicsin 1934 and a Ph.D. incomparative literaturein 1949.[1]
Career
[edit]Lord became a professor of Slavic and comparative literature at Harvard in 1950. He was later promoted as a full professor there in Classics. He also founded Harvard's Committee on Degrees in Folklore and Mythology, and chaired the college's Department of Folklore and Mythology until his retirement in 1983.[1]
Lord authored the bookThe Singer of Tales,first published in 1960.[1]It was reissued in a 40th anniversary edition, with an audio compact disc to aid in the understanding of the recorded renditions discussed in the text.[2]His wife Mary Louise Lord completed and edited his manuscript of a posthumous sequelThe Singer Resumes the Tale(published 1995) which further supports and extends Lord's initial conclusions.[3]
Lord demonstrated the ways in which various great ancientepicsfrom Europe and Asia were heirs to a tradition not only oforal performance,but oforalcomposition.[1]He argued strongly for a complete divide between the non-literate authors of theHomericepics and the scribes who later wrote them down.[4]Lord studied and made field recordings of South-Slavic heroic epics sung to thegusle,most notable of poets he worked with wasAvdo Međedović.[5][6]He studied not only Homeric epics, but alsoBeowulf,Gilgamesh,and others.[5]Across these many story traditions he found strong commonalities concerning the oral composition of traditionalstorytelling.
Personal life
[edit]His wife, Mary Louise Lord née Carlson, taught classics atConnecticut College;they had two children. Lord died in July 1991 atCambridge, Massachusetts.[1]
Awards and distinctions
[edit]- 1940 - Junior Fellow - Harvard Society of Fellows
- 1949 - Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship
- 1956 - Fellow - American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 1959 - Honorary Curator -Milman ParryCollection -Widener Library- Harvard College
- 1969 - Fellow - American Folklore Society
- 1972 - Becomes the Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Slavic and Comparative Literature - Harvard University
- 1988 - Recipient of the Yugoslav Star - Yugoslav Consulate
- 1990 - Awarded an honorary doctorate from theUniversity of Novi Sad
Bibliography
[edit]By Lord
[edit]- Albert B. Lord, Bela Bartok,Serbo-Croatian Folk Songs(New York, 1951)
- Albert B. Lord,Serbo-Croatian Heroic Songs,vols. 1 & 2 (Cambridge & Belgrade, 1953–4), vols. 3 & 4, with David E. Bynum (1975)
- Albert B. Lord,Beginning Serbocroatian(The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1958)
- Albert B. Lord,The Singer of Tales(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1960)
- Albert B. Lord,Umbundu: Folk Tales from Angola(Boston, 1962)
- Albert B. Lord, David E. Bynum,Beginning Bulgarian(The Hague, 1962)
- Albert B. Lord,A Bulgarian Literary Reader(Cambridge, 1962)
- Albert B. Lord,The Wedding of Smailagic Meho(Cambridge, 1974)
- Albert B. Lord, Bela Bartók, ed. Benjamin Suchoff,Yugoslav Folk Music(Albany, NY, 1978)
- Albert B. Lord,Serbo-Croatian Folk Songs and Instrumental Pieces from the Milman Parry Collection(Albany, NY, 1978)
- Albert B. Lord, ed. John Miles FoleyFestschrift: Oral Traditional Literature: A Festschrift for Albert Bates Lord,(Columbus, OH, 1981)
- Albert B. Lord, "Perspectives on Recent Work on the Oral Traditional Formula,"inOral Tradition,vol. 1, no. 3 (1986), pp. 467–503
- Albert B. Lord, "Characteristics of Orality,"inA Festschrift for Walter J. Ong, S.J.,a special issue ofOral Tradition,vol. 2, no. 1 (1987), pp. 54–72
- Albert B. Lord,Epic Singers and Oral Tradition(Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1991)
- Albert B. Lord, "Oral Composition and 'Oral Residue' in the Middle Ages", inOral Tradition in the Middle Ages,ed. W. F. H. Nicolaisen (Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1995), pp. 7–29
On Lord
[edit]- John Miles Foley, "Albert Bates Lord (1912-1991): An Obituary," inJournal of American Folklore105 (1992), pp. 57–65.
- "Albert Bates Lord, 78, Scholar of Folk Tales,"New York Times, August 3, 1991.
- Morgan E. Grey, Mary Louise Lord, and John Miles Foley, "A Bibliography of Publications by Albert Bates Lord,"inOral Tradition,vol. 25, no. 2 (2010), pp. 497–504.
References
[edit]- ^abcdeBeissinger, Margaret Hiebert (1 January 1992)."In Memoriam: Albert Bates Lord (1912-1991)".The Slavic and East European Journal.36(4): 533–536.JSTOR309027.
- ^Lord, Albert Bates; Mitchell, Stephen Arthur; Nagy, Gregory (2000). "About".The Singer of Tales(40th anniversary ed.). Harvard University Press.ISBN9780674002838.
- ^Powell, Barry (9 January 1996)."1996.1.9, Lord, The Singer Resumes the Tale".Bryn Mawr Classical Review.University of Wisconsin-Madison.
- ^"Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard U.P., 1960)"(PDF).ocw.mit.edu.Harvard University.
- ^ab"Albert and Mary Louise Lord Collection".library.missouri.edu.University of Missouri.
- ^Wall, J.L. (16 October 2022)."The Traditions That Gave Us Homer".kirkcenter.org.Russell Kirk Center.
External links
[edit]- Albert Lordat the Database of Classical Scholars
- Albert and Mary Louise Lord Collectionat theUniversity of MissouriLibraries
