The Center for Hellenic Studies

Archive

Curated Articles

Review of Robin Lane Fox, Travelling Heroes: Greeks and their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer (London: Allen Lane, 2008)

[This article is a draft of a review later published in Journal of Hellenic Studies 131 (2011) 166–169 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0075426911000127). Page numbers for that publication have been added in curly brackets. For instance, {166|167} indicates the break between pages 166 and 167.] For the author (hereafter LF), the ‘epic age of Homer’ is the 8th c. (here and hereafter, all dates are BCE). The word ‘travelling’ refers to… Read more

Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature Series

Old Norse Mythology—Comparative Perspectives

Old Norse mythology is elusive: it is the label used to describe the religious stories of the pre-Christian North, featuring such well-known gods as Odin and Thor, yet most of the narratives have come down to us in manuscripts from the Middle Ages mainly written by Christians. Our view of the stories as they were transmitted in oral form in the pre-Christian era is obscured. To overcome these limitations, this… Read more

Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature Series

The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition: A Discourse on Method

This work explores the role of orality in shaping and evaluating medieval Icelandic literature. Applying field studies of oral cultures in modern times to this distinguished medieval literature, Gísli Sigurðsson asks how it would alter our reading of medieval Icelandic sagas if it were assumed they had grown out of a tradition of oral storytelling, similar to that observed in living cultures. Sigurðsson examines how orally trained lawspeakers regarded the emergent written… Read more

Curated Articles

Further Thoughts on Linear B po-re-na, po-re-si, and po-re-no-

1. Introduction §1. Opinions have varied and swayed regarding the interpretation of the Linear B term po-re-na. Whatever meaning is assigned, many would draw the forms po-re-si and po-re-no- into their interpretation of po-re-na, and vice versa. In this investigation I begin with the interpretation of po-re-na that appears most probable and reconsider po-re-si and po-re-no- on the basis of both internal and comparative evidence. 2. Po-re-na §2. Pylos tablet… Read more

The Oral Background of the Eddas and Sagas

Gísli Sigurðsson, The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, University of Iceland More than fifty years after the publication of The Singer of Tales the book and the ideas therein still serve as a fresh wind in the textually-oriented field of Old Norse Studies where very few have taken up the issue of how an oral background for medieval texts can possibly affect the modern appreciation of them. It should… Read more

Primary Sources

A Pausanias Reader in progress: Description of Greece, Scrolls 1–10

A retranslation based on an original translation by W. H. S. Jones, 1918 (Scroll 2 with H.A. Ormerod), containing some of the footnotes added by Jones. This retranslation is by Gregory Nagy | 2018.07.27*  For the most up-to-date version of this work, visit http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.prim-src:A_Pausanias_Reader_in_Progress.2018-. [ back ] Scroll I. Attica {1.1.1} Belonging to the Greek [Hellēnikē] mainland [ēpeiros], [1]… Read more

Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature Series

Embroidered with Gold, Strung with Pearls: The Traditional Ballads of Bosnian Women

Bosnian traditional ballads have intrigued many by their beauty and eloquence, from Goethe’s poetic interest in them in the eighteenth century to the work of twentieth-century scholars such as Milman Parry and Albert Lord. These songs are now available to the English reader in a bilingual edition offering a selection of never before translated or published materials from Harvard University’s Parry Collection. The forty oral ballads, many appearing in multiple… Read more

PUBLICATIONS

Part I. Dramatic Representations of Verse Competition

Part I. Dramatic Representations of Verse Competition ἀγὼν γὰρ ἄνδρας οὐ μένει λελειμμένους The contest does not wait for men left behind. Aeschylus, fr. 37 TGF 1. Stichomythia Our point of departure will be to survey a variety of competitive verse sequences that are represented in tragedy and Old Comedy, starting with the phenomenon of stichomythia. In stichomythia the “internal” and “external” frames of reference are especially clear. One… Read more

Programs & Events News

Call for Papers: 5000 Years of Comments

The Development of Commentary from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Age of Information August 7-10, 2018 Sponsored and hosted by the Center for Hellenic Studies Organized by Joel P. Christensen (Brandeis University) and Jacqueline Vayntrub (Brandeis University) Commentary on the written word is nearly as old as writing itself and has developed alongside scholarship, literature and the writing cultures in critical and influential ways. As an activity,… Read more