Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature

Website

Location:
Widener Library
Room C
Harvard Yard
Cambridge, MA

Affiliation:
Harvard College

Founded:
1933

Collections:
The Milman Parry Collection contains 3,500 field recordings of Slavic oral epics, along with transcriptions and field notes made by Prof. Milman Parry and his successor, Albert Lord, between 1933 and 1967. The recordings, made in Yugoslavia and Albania, are preserved on non-standard aluminum discs, but have been digitized for easier access. The collection also includes photographs from the Parry and Lord expeditions.

Publications:

• The holdings of the Milman Parry Collection are searchable through a digital database. A finding aid is currently under development, but is not yet available online. 

• Field recordings from the Parry and Lord expeditions have been digitized and are available for download here and here.
  

• The photographs and film clips from the collection are also available online. 
  

• David E. Bynum, Four Generations of Oral Literary Studies at Harvard University. Child's Legacy Enlarged: Oral Literary Studies at Harvard Since 1856, 1974.

Contact:
mpc@fas.harvard.edu