Homer in performance : rhapsodes, narrators, and characters / edited by Jonathan L. Ready and Christos C. Tsagalis.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Ready, Jonathan L., 1976- editor.

Tsagalis, Christos, editor.

Series:

Ashley and Peter Larkin series in Greek and Roman culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Homer--Criticism, Textual.

Homer.

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

Epic poetry, Greek.

Performing arts--Appreciation--Greece.

Performing arts.

Oral interpretation of poetry.

Oral tradition--Greece.

Oral tradition.

Greece.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (430 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, [2018]

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Intro; A Note on Iota Adscript and the Transliteration of Proper Nouns; Acknowledgments; Introduction (Jonathan L. Ready and Christos C. Tsagalis); Part I. Rhapsodes; Chapter 1. Performance Contexts for Rhapsodic Recitals in the Archaic and Classical Periods (Christos C. Tsagalis); Chapter 2. Reading Rhapsodes on Athenian Vases (Sheramy D. Bundrick); Chapter 3. Performance Contexts for Rhapsodic Recitals in the Hellenistic Period (Christos C. Tsagalis); Chapter 4. Rhapsodes and Rhapsodic Contests in the Imperial Period (Anne Gangloff).

Chapter 5. Formed on the Festival Stage: Plot and Characterization in the Iliad as a Competitive Collaborative Process (Mary R. Bachvarova)Chapter 6. Did Sappho and Homer Ever Meet? Comparative Perspectives on Homeric Singers (Olga Levaniouk); Part II. Narrators and Characters; Chapter 7. Odysseus Polyonymous (Deborah Beck); Chapter 8. Embedded Focalization and Free Indirect Speech in Homer as Viewpoint Blending (Anna Bonifazi); Chapter 9. Speech Training and the Mastery of Context: Thoas the Aetolian and the Practice of Muthoi (Joel P. Christensen).

Chapter 10. Diomedes as Audience and Speaker in the Iliad (James O'Maley)Chapter 11. Hektor, the Marginal Hero: Performance Theory and the Homeric Monologue (Lorenzo F. Garcia Jr.); Chapter 12. Performance, Oral Texts, and Entextualization in Homeric Epic (Jonathan L. Ready); Chapter 13. Homer's Rivals? Internal Narrators in the Iliad (Adrian Kelly); Works Cited; Notes on Contributors; Index of Terms; Index of Passages.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 378-418) and indexes.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4773-1605-1

1-4773-1604-3

OCLC:

1037817841