Ten new essays, from a distinguished cast of (mainly) North American scholars, approach Homer with insights gained from the modern disciplines of psychology and anthropology, narratology, oral theory and cognitive research. But the contributors also attend to ancient modes of approach to the Homeric poems: linguistic and narratological, ethical and psyhological. The volume focuses both on literary technique in the poems, and on the portrayal of characters and peoples, central and marginal.
Ten new essays, from a distinguished cast of (mainly) North American scholars, approach Homer with insights gained from the modern disciplines of psychology and anthropology, narratology, oral theory and cognitive research. But the contributors also attend to ancient modes of approach to the Homeric poems: linguistic and narratological, ethical and psyhological. The volume focuses both on literary technique in the poems, and on the portrayal of characters and peoples, central and marginal.
Approaches to Homer's 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' consists of ten original essays on the Iliad and Odyssey by established Homeric scholars and university professors of Greek literature and culture. The anthology offers not only fresh approaches to reading, appreciating, and understanding these Homeric epics, but also attempts to make a case why these works are still relevant in the twenty-first century. Both epics are required reading in most college/university general and world literature courses, as is evident from their inclusion in part or in whole in many standard world literature anthologies. These ten new approaches to the first literary works of Western culture are intended as reading aids for both instructors and students in any college/university classroom in which either of these two Homeric epics are taught.
From its ancient incarnation as a song to recent translations in modern languages, Homeric epic remains an abiding source of inspiration for both scholars and artists that transcends temporal and linguistic boundaries. The Cambridge Guide to Homer examines the influence and meaning of Homeric poetry from its earliest form as ancient Greek song to its current status in world literature, presenting the information in a synthetic manner that allows the reader to gain an understanding of the different strands of Homeric studies. The volume is structured around three main themes: Homeric Song and Text; the Homeric World, and Homer in the World. Each section starts with a series of 'macropedia' essays arranged thematically that are accompanied by shorter complementary 'micropedia' articles. The Cambridge Guide to Homer thus traces the many routes taken by Homeric epic in the ancient world and its continuing relevance in different periods and cultures.
As Homer remains an indispensable figure in the canons of world literature, interpreting the Homeric text is a challenging and high stakes enterprise. There are untold numbers of variations, imitations, alternate translations, and adaptations of the Iliad and Odyssey, making it difficult to establish what, exactly, the epics were. Gregory Nagy's essays have one central aim: to show how the text and language of Homer derive from an oral poetic system. In Homeric studies, there has been an ongoing debate centering on different ways to establish the text of Homer and the different ways to appreciate the poetry created in the language of Homer. Gregory Nagy, a lifelong Homer scholar, takes a stand in the midst of this debate. He presents an overview of millennia of scholarly engagement with Homer's poetry, shows the different editorial principles that have been applied to the texts, and evaluates their impact.
This volume is the first English-language survey of Homeric studies to appear for more than a generation, and the first such work to attempt to cover all fields comprehensively. Thirty leading scholars from Europe and America provide short, authoritative overviews of the state of knowledge and current controversies in the many specialist divisions in Homeric studies. The chapters pay equal attention to literary, mythological, linguistic, historical, and archaeological topics, ranging from such long-established problems as the "Homeric Question" to newer issues like the relevance of narratology and computer-assisted quantification. The collection, the third publication in Brill's handbook series, "The Classical Tradition," will be valuable at every level of study - from the general student of literature to the Homeric specialist seeking a general understanding of the latest developments across the whole range of Homeric scholarship.
How could a poet who worked in an oral tradition maintain the momentum of his song? How could a poet such as Homer weave a tale which filled an evening or, perhaps, a whole long night? The answer lies in memory, as we have known. But this bald explanation does not do justice either to thecomplexity of memory or to the richness of the Homeric epics. Now that so much more information has become available to us, from cognitive psychology and linguistics, about the workings of the mind, we can identify with greater precision those contributions which memory makes to the composition andperformance of oral traditional song. In this study the author shows that the demands made on the poet, who relies neither on rote memory nor on written notes, have led him adopt to certain memory-based strategies which have left their traces in the text. What we discover is that the poet in an oraltradition makes intense and creative use of those resources of memory, which are available to us all - episodic memory, auditory memory, visual memory, and spatial memory - to assist him both in the preparation of his song and at the moment of performance.
The relationship between the Homeric epics and archaeology has long suffered mixed fortunes, swinging between 'fundamentalist' attempts to use archaeology in order to demonstrate the essential historicity of the epics and their background, and outright rejection of the idea that archaeology is capable of contributing anything at all to our understanding and appreciation of the epics. Archaeology and the Homeric Epic concentrates less on historicity in favor of exploring a variety of other, perhaps sometimes more oblique, ways in which we can use a multidisciplinary approach – archaeology, philology, anthropology and social history – to help offer insights into the epics, the contexts of their possibly prolonged creation, aspects of their 'prehistory', and what they may have stood for at various times in their long oral and written history. The effects of the Homeric epics on the history and popular reception of archaeology, especially in the particular context of modern Germany, is also a theme that is explored here. Contributors explore a variety of issues including the relationships between visual and verbal imagery, the social contexts of epic (or sub-epic) creation or re-creation, the roles of bards and their relationships to different types of patrons and audiences, the construction and uses of 'history' as traceable through both epic and archaeology and the relationship between 'prehistoric' (oral) and 'historical' (recorded in writing) periods. Throughout, the emphasis is on context and its relevance to the creation, transmission, re-creation and manipulation of epic in the present (or near-present) as well as in the ancient Greek past.
