*     The present volume is in many respects complementary to 
The Singer of Tales  by Albert B. Lord. Professor Lord has 
continued the work of Milman Parry, whose Homeric studies had 
led him to consider how oral and written poetry naturally 
followed diverse patterns and functions. Convinced that the 
poems of Homer were oral compositions, Parry “set himself the 
task of proving incontrovertibly if it were possible, the oral 
character of the poems, and to that end he turned to the study 
of the Yugoslav epics.” His study of these modern epics was, he 
explained, “to fix with exactness the form  of oral story 
poetry. . . . Its method was to observe singers working in a 
thriving tradition of unlettered song and see how the form of 
their songs hangs upon their having to learn and practise their 
art without reading and writing.” (1)

     Professor Lord’s book, like the studies of Milman Parry, is