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"A VERITABLE YUGOSLAV HOMER": HEROISATION OF POETS IN BOSNIAN EPIC TRADITION
Peter McMurray
; Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
Sažetak
In discussions of epic song, the concept of "hero" has generally been used to describe the characters within those songs. However, in certain circumstances the singers of these songs become "heroic" in their own right, both as extensions of the subjects they celebrate and also as objects of celebration themselves, as exemplified by the ancient Greek figure of Homer. In this essay, I explore the processes of "heroization" of certain poets and poetic figures, specifically following the model laid out in the fieldwork and analysis of Milman Parry and Albert Lord in comparing Homer with modern Bosniak guslari, namely Ćor Huso Husović and Avdo Međedović.
In particular, I draw on Bakhtin's formulation of epic distance and boundaries, a theoretical description of the tension between the remote heroic past ("the epic world") and its performance in contemporary settings. Although Bakhtin does not address the role of singers (or other performers) in epic traditions, I place them as mediators between these two worlds such that their reception – by their listening audience, by other performers, or even by academics in this case – can potentially lead to their reification as hero-poets. However, this heroization takes place unevenly across time and space, such that a singer like Avdo Međedović could become a celebrity in American academia while hardly attracting attention to himself among his neighbors.
In other situations within the world of traditional songforms, heroization simply does not occur, virtuosity and repertoire notwithstanding. I touch on two such cases here, looking at the outstanding but largely uncelebrated South Slavic female singers, Kate Murat and Hasnija Hrustanović.
Ključne riječi
heroization; oral epic; singer; reception
Hrčak ID:
23197
URI
Datum izdavanja:
16.12.2006.
Posjeta: 3.390 *