Preface [In this on-line version, the page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{69|70}” indicates where p. 69 of the printed version ends and p. 70 begins. These indications will be useful to readers who need to look up references made elsewhere to the printed version of this book.] There are two different publication dates for this book: 2009… Read more
Introduction Introduction §1 This book Homer the Preclassic, which is based on the Sather Classical Lectures of spring 2002, covers the preclassical era of Homeric reception. It is complemented by a twin book, Homer the Classic (2009), which covers the classical era. Between the two of them, Homer the Classic and Homer the Preclassic cover six ages of Homeric reception. Here are the six ages, arranged… Read more
Part One. A preclassical Homer from the Dark Age A working definition of the Dark Age I§1 Thinking my way backward from the classical period of the fifth century BCE, I confront a preclassical period that I divide into two ages, the Dark Age and the Bronze Age. I start here in Part I with the Dark Age. Then, in Part II, I will proceed… Read more
Chapter One: Homer and the Athenian empire I 1ⓢ1. The Athenian empire I§13 I offer here an overview of what we know about the Athenian empire in the era of the democracy in the fifth century BCE. The basic facts can be found in the history of Thucydides, who highlights what gradually happened to Athens as a world power in the period extending from the… Read more
Chapter Two: Homer outside his poetry I 2ⓢ1. Homer in the Life of Homer traditions I§55 So far, we have been considering the concept of Homer as defined by the Homeric Hymn to Apollo and by the epics attributed to Homer. Now we will see that there is further definition to be found outside this poetry, in a body of narratives known as the Lives… Read more
9. Ellipsis in Homeric Poetry* 9§1 This essay concentrates on four questions: (1) What is ellipsis? (2) How does ellipsis work in Homeric songmaking? (3) How does ellipsis typify Homeric songmaking? (4) How does Homeric songmaking use ellipsis to typify itself? A Working Definition 9§2 In the dictionary of Liddell and Scott, the verb elleípō (ἐλλείπω) is defined as (1)… Read more
Bibliography Allen, T. W. 1924. Homer: The Origins and the Transmission. Oxford. ———, ed. 1931. Homeri Ilias. I–III. Oxford. Allen, W. S. 1973. Accent and Rhythm. Prosodic Features of Latin and Greek: A Study in Theory and Reconstruction. Cambridge. ———. 1987. Vox Graeca: The Pronunciation of Classical Greek. 3rd ed. Cambridge. … Read more
Foreword Gregory Nagy {ix} The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the “Iliad,” by Richard P. Martin, inaugurates the “Myth and Poetics” series. My goal, as series editor, is to encourage work that will help integrate literary criticism with the approaches of cultural anthropology and that will pay special attention to problems concerning the nexus of ritual and myth. For such an undertaking, we… Read more
Preface [In this on-line version, the page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{69|70}” indicates where p. 69 of the printed version ends and p. 70 begins. These indications will be useful to readers who need to look up references made elsewhere to the printed version of this book.] To hear the voice which tells the Iliad—that was my… Read more
Chapter 1. Performance, Speech-Act, and Utterance {1} Does it really matter whether or not Homer’s Iliad is a piece of oral poetry? In the final analysis, no. Even if the 15,693 hexameters printed in T. W. Allen’s Oxford Classical Text happen to represent the exact transcription of an actual performance by one “singer of tales” from the eighth century B.C., we still do not have an oral… Read more
