Avdo Međedović
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Avdo Međedović (or Avdo Medjedović) was a guslar (singer or oral poet). He was the most versatile and skillful performer of all those encountered by Milman Parry and Albert Lord during their research on the oral epic tradition of Bosnia (then part of Yugoslavia) in the 1930s. Of Albanian descent,[1] Avdo performed in Serbo-Croatian.
At Parry's request Avdo undertook to produce an epic of similar extent to the Iliad, since Parry needed to investigate whether a poet in an oral tradition would be able to maintain a theme over such length. Avdo dictated, over three days and many cups of coffee, a version of the well-known theme The Wedding of Smailagić Meho. This was eventually published by Lord with a parallel English translation.
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Lord, Albert Bates (1960), The singer of tales, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press
- Avdo Međedović, The wedding of Smailagić Meho tr. Albert Bates Lord; with a translation of conversations [with Nikola Vujnović] concerning the singer's life and times, by David E. Bynum. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974.
- Parry, Milman & Parry, Adam (editor) (1971), The making of Homeric verse. The collected papers of Milman Parry, Oxford: Clarendon Press
[edit] External links
- John Curtis Franklin, "Structural sympathies in Ancient Greek and South-Slavic heroic song": introduction (with photograph of Avdo) and link to full version of paper
