Chapter 9. Mohammed and the Mountain In Chapter Fifteen of the treatise On the Sublime we find a discussion of the imagination and of visualization as sources of grandeur and dignity in literature. The key term is phantasia. This term applies “when by an effect of enthusiasm and passion you seem actually to see what you are saying, so placing it before your listeners’ eyes.” [… Read more
Bibliography Alexanderson, Bengt. 1970. “Homeric Formulae for Ships.” Eranos 68: 1–46. Auerbach, Erich. 1953. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. W. R. Trask. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Austin, Norman. 1966. “The Function of Digressions in the Iliad.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 7: 295–312. Repr. 1978. Essays on the Iliad: Selected Modern Criticism, ed. J. Read more
Acknowledgments While a number of scholars have had a defining role in this book coming to fruition, certainly the most influential of all is my Oxford supervisor, Professor Averil Cameron. Her gentle yet directed guidance has been invaluable to me along the road of learning how to do scholarship. Although it goes without saying that any errors of fact or interpretation in this book are my own,… Read more
Abbreviations ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols. (New York, 1992) ABzF Acta Byzantina Fennica ACW Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation (New York) AJP American Journal of Philology AnBoll Analecta Bollandiana ANRW J. Vogt et al., eds. Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (Berlin and New York, 1972–) ATh Acts of Paul and Thekla (for critical text,… Read more
Chapter 1. One-on-One Conversations (Odyssey) Chapters 1-3 focus on one-on-one conversations. In the most basic form of one-on-one conversation, two speakers alternate without either events in the story or comments from the narrator intervening between one speech and the next. All the conversations that appear in these chapters depart from that model. I will be focusing on conversations that depart from this pattern in that they contain… Read more
Chapter 2. One-on-one Conversations (Odysseus and Penelope) The story of Penelope and Odysseus and their drawn-out reunion over the course of the last third of the Odyssey is one of the most extensively studied portions of the Homeric epics. [1] The gradual rapprochement between Penelope and Odysseus, stretching over several books of the Odyssey, contains two major movements or sections, one in… Read more
Chapter 3. One-on-one Conversations (Iliad) The Odyssey, as we have seen, uses conversation to dramatize the conflict between honesty and concealment that underlies Odysseus’ various reunions on Ithaca and indeed, much of the social interaction in the poem as a whole. The Iliad, too, uses one-on-one conversations to depict significant themes and types of social interactions. However, both the areas toward which conversation in the Iliad directs… Read more
Chapter 4. Single Speeches and Variations on the Battlefield The first three chapters focused on the extended one-on-one conversations in the Odyssey and the Iliad. We have seen that the Odyssey makes much more extensive use of one-on-one conversation than the Iliad does, and indeed, the Iliad presents its view of human relations partly by the comparative lack of one-on-one conversation. Conversely, the Iliad depicts its characters… Read more
Chapter 5. Group Contexts I—Assemblies Let us begin this discussion of assembly patterns with a basic question. What is an assembly? How can we recognize a given scene as an assembly rather than as simply a group of people talking, or a council, or an embassy? The ἀγορή, generally translated as “assembly,” is a gathering of people engaged in “civic debate,” [1]… Read more
Chapter 6. Group Contexts II—Athletic Games, Laments This chapter differs somewhat from the previous chapters in its organization and goals. Chapters 1-5 discussed various forms of lengthening and elaboration that occur in connection with repeating conversational types (one-on-one conversations, single speeches, and formal assemblies). The conversational types that were studied in these chapters all occur sufficiently often that it is clear what the repeated, “normal” pattern is… Read more
