Preface I was first introduced to the dialects of Plato and Sappho in the last years of elementary school by an older friend who enjoyed reciting ancient Greek poetry and reading sections from Plato’s Symposion at family gatherings. She taught me their dialects during three long summers in Greece. The work of both of those ancient composers of prose and song became scholarly pre-occupations of mine later… Read more
Acknowledgments This book began taking shape in 2000 and was completed in June 2003. During the academic year 2003–2004 it was further revised, and I made some final bibliographical additions in January 2005. [1] The original 2003 manuscript was almost twice as large as the present book. This was partly due to the fact that in that manuscript there was a special… Read more
Note on Transliteration Transliterating ancient Greek words of different periods—with all the phonetic and other changes that took place from the archaic to the Roman period and later—raises issues about consistency. Our knowledge of the precise pronunciation of ancient Greek consonants, vowels, and diphthongs in different dialects is limited. It is, therefore, problematic to adopt a transliteration system that assumes that archaic Greek dialects were pronounced in… Read more
Chapter 1. An Anthropology of Reception Δεινὸν γάρ που, ὦ Φαῖδρε, τοῦτ’ ἔχει γραφή, καὶ ὡς ἀληθῶς ὅμοιον ζωγραφίᾳ. καὶ γὰρ τὰ ἐκείνης ἔκγονα ἕστηκε μὲν ὡς ζῶντα, ἐὰν δ᾽ ἀνέρῃ τι, σεμνῶς πάνυ σιγᾷ. ταὐτὸν δὲ καὶ οἱ λόγοι. I think, Phaidros, that writing shares a strange feature with painting. The offspring of painting stand there as if they were alive, but if you ask… Read more
Foreword The title of this book (The Oral Palimpsest) with its learned oxymoron and its allusion to analogously oxymoronic titles (for instance Written Voices and Spoken Signs edited in 1997 by E. Bakker and A. Kahane) might seem no more than a smart appeal to the sophisticated reader, but in fact it announces the various paradoxical, mysterious and enigmatic aspects of Homeric poetry. Christos Tsagalis is a… Read more
Preface Homeric studies have shown a remarkable dynamism as they still stand (more than 200 years after Wolf’s seminal Prolegomena ad Homerum) at the forefront of scholarly research in the field of Classics. During the second half of the last century, the evolution of Homeric studies has been primarily, though not solely, boosted by the exploration of the oral nature of archaic epic and the subsequent study… Read more
Acknowledgments This book is dedicated to Pietro Pucci, whose scientific acumen, unstinting encouragement, and unfailing guidance have been a constant support for me during these last fifteen years. He stands at the head of a small but precious group of scholars, who have guided me in search of my scholarly pathway. Through the years, I have incurred some special debts of professional and personal gratitude, which… Read more
Note on Transliteration and References While for Greek personal names I have used their anglicized forms (Achilles, not Akhilleus), for Greek place names I have opted for their hellenicized –os endings (Delos, Scyros). When using someone else’s translation, I have remained faithful to the author’s transliteration system, hence the lack of absolute consistency and the discrepancy between e.g. Kallidice and Callidice, Trophonios and Trophonius. Internal cross-references indicate… Read more
Chapter 1. Ἀνδρομάχη μαινομένη: The Dionysiac Element in the Iliad The almost complete absence of Dionysus from the Iliad is well known, as it is commonly recognized that the heroic epic singing the κλέα ἀνδρῶν does not have a place for the god of wine, ecstasy, and bacchic frenzy. Dionysus appears in the Iliad only twice: the first time in the myth of Lycurgus (Iliad VI 132,… Read more
Chapter 2. Χαρίεσσα and στυγερὴ ἀοιδή: The Self Referential Encomium of the Odyssey and the Tradition of the Nostoi One of the main arguments in favor of those who think that the Odyssey ends in xxiii 296 [1] (since both Odysseus’ brief recounting to Penelope of his adventures and the whole of book xxiv are considered later additions) relies on Agamemnon’s speech… Read more
