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2. Theoclymenus and the Poetics of Disbelief: Prophecy and Its Audience in the Odyssey, Jack Mitchell

2. Theoclymenus and the Poetics of Disbelief: Prophecy and Its Audience in the Odyssey Jack Mitchell In this essay I will reconsider the role of Theoclymenus, soothsayer (mantis) of the Odyssey, in the light of current ideas about performance in Homer. I hope to retrieve Theoclymenus from relative obscurity by showing that he functions, at the heart of the Odyssey and especially at a crucial juncture,… Read more

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3. The Places of Song in Aristophanes’ Birds, Dan Sofaer

The Places of Song in Aristophanes’ Birds Dan Sofaer Birds’ Ideal Music between Tradition and Utopia Scholars of Greek Old Comedy often treat comic lyric in a limited manner: meters are analyzed, the occasional allusion to Anacreon or Pindar is noted, the emotional effect of a song is surmised, but somehow these analyses rarely affect our reading of the play in its larger context. For… Read more

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13. The Dream

Chapter 13. The Dream Action by Odysseus is just what Penelope envisages next, immediately after the Aedon comparison, in her dream about the eagle and the geese – or rather her message in the form of the dream. [1] The transition is abrupt, and Anhalt comments that Penelope seems to “deflect interest away from the simile.” [2] The abruptness certainly… Read more

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14. The Decision

Chapter 14. The Decision In response to the dream tale, Odysseus implicitly asserts that he will do just what Penelope expects, and Penelope is by no means blind to this assurance. She does act accordingly, even though her verbal response is skeptical. The scenario she described is a dream, and dreams, she reminds Odysseus, are not always fulfilled (Odyssey 19.560). Much has been said about Penelope’s famous gates… Read more

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15. Back to the Loom

Chapter 15. Back to the Loom Before turning to the question of larger context, it is necessary to consider one more muthos Penelope tells in Book 19: the tale of her weaving and unweaving of Laertes’ shroud. I have left Penelope’s most famous tale aside until now because it occupies a unique position in the dialogue. In general, Odysseus dominates the first part of the conversation, Penelope the second, but… Read more

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16. The Pandareids and the Festival of Apollo

Chapter 16. The Pandareids and the Festival of Apollo I have suggested above that to a certain extent the myths Odysseus and Penelope tell each other in Odyssey 19 are related to their own story as a myth might be related to a ritual or a festival, both in the sense that there are parallel thought structures involved, and that the myth is often tragic or negative,… Read more

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17. Penelope and the Penelops

Chapter 17. Penelope and the Penelops So far I have argued that Penelope’s myths, above all the Pandareid myths, have special affinity to their poetic environment in the Odyssey, namely a crisis and a turning point from dissolution to “light and life,” which in the Odyssey is marked by the festival of Apollo. In this chapter, I am pulling even further back to an even larger frame, to look at… Read more

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Conclusion

Conclusion My goal has been to contribute to the understanding of the dialogue between Penelope and Odysseus in Book 19 by looking at its mythic aspects. In Homeric poetry, evocation of myth is a diachronic phenomenon: it can accumulate in a poem, or rather, evolve with the poem, so that there are layers of evocation in the dialogue that are likely to represent a span of its… Read more

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Bibliography

Bibliography Aarne, A. and Thompson, S. 1964. The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography. Helsinki. Adrados, F. R. 1972. “Les institutions religieuses mycéniennes.” Minos n.s. 11:170–203. Ahl, F. and Roisman, H. M. 1996. The Odyssey Re-Formed. Ithaca. Alden, M. J. 1997. “The Resonances of the Song of Ares and Aphrodite.” Mnemosyne 50:513–529. Read more

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Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments I am grateful for the encouragement and support I have received while writing this book. I owe special thanks to my teachers, Leslie Kurke, Mark Griffith, and Tony Long, who all, in different ways, inspired me with their teaching, and who sparked my interest in the Greek wisdom tradition. Without their intellectual engagement and generosity of spirit this book would not have been possible. Loïc Wacquant… Read more