Christos C. Tsagalis - Böcker

The Doloneia is the most controversial book of the Iliad, its authenticity having been doubted since antiquity. Modern scholars are divided between those who regard it as a major interpolation by a later poet who was trained in the technique of epic composition and those who see it as the earliest manifestation of the very ancient theme of lochos. However, the first claim assumes the stylistic homogeneity of book 10, while the second sweeps out dictional and thematic difficulties by attributing them to the theme of ambush that is weakly represented in the extant corpus of archaic Greek epic.By applying sophisticated interpretive tools such as intratextual association, intertextual allusion, and oral neoanalysis, this book maintains that Iliad 10 is thematically consonant with the rest of the Iliad and that it has evolved from an earlier Iliadic version after the addition of the Rhesus episode, which did not circulate as an independent composition but formed part of lost oral epic poetry with cyclic features that focused on the events after the death of Achilles.

Before they were written down, the poems attributed to Homer were performed orally, usually by rhapsodes (singers/reciters) who might have traveled from city to city or enjoyed a position in a wealthy household. Even after the Iliad and the Odyssey were committed to writing, rhapsodes performed the poems at festivals, often competing against each other. As they recited the epics, the rhapsodes spoke as both the narrator and the characters. These different acts-performing the poem and narrating and speaking in character within it-are seldom studied in tandem. Homer in Performance breaks new ground by bringing together all of the speakers involved in the performance of Homeric poetry: rhapsodes, narrators, and characters.The first part of the book presents a detailed history of the rhapsodic performance of Homeric epic from the Archaic to the Roman Imperial periods and explores how performers might have shaped the poems. The second part investigates the Homeric narrators and characters as speakers and illuminates their interactions. The contributors include scholars versed in epigraphy, the history of art, linguistics, and performance studies, as well as those capable of working with sources from the ancient Near East and from modern Russia. This interdisciplinary approach makes the volume useful to a spectrum of readers, from undergraduates to veteran professors, in disciplines ranging from classical studies to folklore.

Before they were written down, the poems attributed to Homer were performed orally, usually by rhapsodes (singers/reciters) who might have traveled from city to city or enjoyed a position in a wealthy household. Even after the Iliad and the Odyssey were committed to writing, rhapsodes performed the poems at festivals, often competing against each other. As they recited the epics, the rhapsodes spoke as both the narrator and the characters. These different acts - performing the poem and narrating and speaking in character within it - are seldom studied in tandem. Homer in Performance breaks new ground by bringing together all of the speakers involved in the performance of Homeric poetry: rhapsodes, narrators, and characters. The first part of the book presents a detailed history of the rhapsodic performance of Homeric epic from the Archaic to the Roman Imperial periods and explores how performers might have shaped the poems. The second part investigates the Homeric narrators and characters as speakers and illuminates their interactions. The contributors include scholars versed in epigraphy, the history of art, linguistics, and performance studies, as well as those capable of working with sources from the ancient Near East and from modern Russia. This interdisciplinary approach makes the volume useful to a spectrum of readers, from undergraduates to veteran professors, in disciplines ranging from classical studies to folklore.

This volume aims at offering a critical reassessment of the progress made in Homeric research in recent years, focussing on its two main trends, Neonalysis and Oral Theory. Interpreting Homer in the 21st century asks for a holistic approach that allows us to reconsider some of our methodological tools and preconceptions concerning what we call Homeric poetry. The neoanalytical and oral 'booms', which have to a large extent influenced the way we see Homer today, may be re-evaluated if we are willing to endorse a more flexible approach to certain scholarly taboos pertaining to these two schools of interpretation. Song-traditions, formula, performance, multiformity on the one hand, and Motivforschung, Epic Cycle on the other, may not be so incompatible as we often tend to think.