Homeric responses / Gregory Nagy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nagy, Gregory.

Contributor:

Center for Hellenic Studies (Washington, D.C.)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Homer--Technique.

Homer.

Epic poetry, Greek--History and criticism--Theory, etc.

Epic poetry, Greek.

Oral tradition--Greece.

Oral tradition.

Technique.

Greece.

Oral-formulaic analysis.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 100 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2003.

System Details:

data file

Summary:

"More than any other classicist, Nagy tries to uncover and explain the brilliance that can come from an oral tradition. . . . This is an important contribution to the field of Homeric poetics, more narrowly, and to the study of Greek literature more broadly."--Carol Dougherty, Professor of Classical Studies, Wellesley CollegeThe Homeric Iliad and Odyssey are among the world's foremost epics. Yet, millennia after their composition, basic questions remain about them. Who was Homer--a real or an ideal poet? When were the poems composed--at a single point in time, or over centuries of composition and performance? And how were the poems committed to writing? These uncertainties have been known as The Homeric Question, and many scholars, including Gregory Nagy, have sought to solve it. In Homeric Responses, Nagy presents a series of essays that further elaborate his theories regarding the oral composition and evolution of the Homeric epics. Building on his previous work in Homeric Questions and Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond and responding to some of his critics, he examines such issues as the importance of performance and the interaction between audience and poet in shaping the poetry; the role of the rhapsode (the performer of the poems) in the composition and transmission of the poetry; the "irreversible mistakes" and cross-references in the Iliad and Odyssey as evidences of artistic creativity; and the Iliadic description of the shield of Achilles as a pointer to the world outside the poem, the polis of the audience.

Contents:

About synchronic and diachronic perspectives

About the evolutionary model

About dictation models

About cross-references in Homer

Homeric responses

Homeric rhapsodes and the concept of diachronic skewing

Irreversible mistakes and Homeric clairvoyance

The shield of Achilles : Ends of the Iliad and beginnings of the polis.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 89-96) and index.

Print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Nagy, Gregory. Homeric responses.

ISBN:

0292796366

9780292796362

OCLC:

614535026