“Milman Parry was arguably the most important American classical scholar of the 20th century, by one reckoning ‘the Darwin of Homeric Studies.’ At age 26, this young man from California stepped into the world of Continental philologists and overturned some of their most deeply cherished notions of ancient literature. Homer, Parry showed, was no ‘writer’ at all. The Iliad and the Odyssey were not ‘written,’ but had been composed orally, drawing on traditional ways that went back centuries.” – Literary Hub
