Archive
Orality and Literacy
[First published in Encyclopedia of Rhetoric (ed. T. O. Sloane; Oxford 2001) 532-538. In this online version, the original page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{532|533}” indicates where p. 532 of the printed version ends and p. 533 begins.] The concept of orality stems from ethnographic descriptions of oral poetry in particular and of oral traditions in general. A foundational work is The… Read more
Gregory Nagy, Homer’s Text and Language
Published in 2004 by the University of Illinois Press. Copyright, University of Illinois Press. Also available for purchase in print here. Read more
Homer’s Text and Language
As Homer remains an indispensable figure in the canons of world literature, interpreting the Homeric text is a challenging and high stakes enterprise. There are untold numbers of variations, imitations, alternate translations, and adaptations of the Iliad and Odyssey, making it difficult to establish what, exactly, the epics were. Gregory Nagy’s essays have one central aim: to show how the text and language of Homer derive from an oral poetic system. In Homeric studies,… Read more
The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad
Drawing on recent studies in ethnography and sociolinguistics, Richard Martin here sets forth a poetics of Homeric speeches, which he sees not merely as poetic creations but as the representation of an actual form of speaking in a traditional culture. Read more
Gregory Nagy, Homer the Preclassic
This 2009 “born digital” text is published by permission of University of California Press. Copyright, University of California Press. A print edition is available for purchase here. Read more