9. The Rhapsode in Classical Athens 9.1 Of Transcripts and Scripts “[T]he Druids had their own course of training, in which some pupils remained for up to twenty years, ‘so that they could learn by heart a vast number of verses which had not been committed to writing’.” [1] So wrote Friedrich August Wolf in his 1795 epoch-making Prolegomena to Homer, to… Read more
10. The Rhapsode in Performance In the previous chapters I examined the evolution of epic performance from the point of view of inspiration, authority and authorship, and the increasing adoption of scripted delivery. In this chapter I reconsider the diachrony of rhapsodic performance more narrowly through the meaning of ῥαψῳδός and the distinctive recompositional poetics of traditional rhapsodic delivery. 10.1 Understanding the Rhapsode The greatest hindrance… Read more
III.1 Introduction §1. A number of similarities and differences between Attic drama and other parts of our corpus has naturally given rise to research questions and approaches that both converge and diverge. Tragedy and comedy share with Homeric epic and Pindaric song their poetic form and an original performative and ritual context. Dating from the fifth century BCE, these texts are close in time to the work of Pindar as… Read more
Acknowledgments Parentibus carissimis José Miguel et María Agustina Like Homeric poetry, this book has benefited from the hands of many masters. It is a pleasure to acknowledge here the debts I have incurred while writing it. I am grateful to the departments of Classical Studies at Harvard University, the University of Oregon, and Duke University, and to the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington D.C., where… Read more
Key to the Books of the Iliad and the Odyssey Α Iliad 1Β Iliad 2Γ Iliad 3Δ Iliad 4Ε Iliad 5Ζ Iliad 6Η Iliad 7Θ Iliad 8Ι Iliad 9Κ Iliad 10Λ Iliad 11Μ Iliad 12Ν Iliad 13Ξ Iliad 14Ο Iliad 15Π Iliad 16Ρ Iliad 17Σ Iliad 18Τ Iliad 19Υ Iliad 20Φ Iliad 21Χ Iliad 22Ψ Iliad 23Ω Iliad 24 … Read more
Introduction This book studies the performance of Homeric poetry in Greece from the archaic period to Hellenistic and Roman imperial times. I focus on the rhapsode—on the changing nature of his training and recitation. My underlying claim is that a diachronic understanding [1] of this professional and his craft is possible only when he is seen in his archaic cultural connection to… Read more
1. Dictation Theories and Pre-Hellenic Literacy 1.1 Statement of the Problem The enduring fascination of the Homeric poems attests to their undeniable artistic integrity. These are not haphazard products, cobbled together unredacted by one or more editors from independently preexisting songs. The architecture of their themes and plot construction evince sophisticated long-distance correspondences that I would not hesitate to label prolepses and analepses. The patent artistic… Read more
2. Dictation Theories and Archaic Art Even as recently as 2001, when he published his Studies in the Text and Transmission of the Iliad, M. L. West remained guarded and somewhat vague in his speculations about the circumstances that accompanied the (first) writing of the Iliad. On a few matters he had forcefully stated his opinion: “[f]ixity could come only when a text was written down”; “[a]pparently each epic was… Read more
3. The Technology of Writing Favoring a very early, ninth-century BC origin and writing of Homeric poetry, [1] Ruijgh 1995 defended the view of a commensurately early derivation of the Greek alphabet ca. 1000 BC. [2] Hence, he pronounced the rightly famous argumentum ex silentio by Carpenter 1933 of no probatory value, because early writing substrates were perishable (wood, papyrus, and parchment)… Read more
4. The Euboian Connection 4.1 The Cultural Argument This book argues for the central role of Athens in the performance-driven fixation of the Homeric text. Because my argument turns on the dominance of Athens, what Nagy 2001 has called the Panathenaic “bottleneck,” I must take some time to review a competing alternative to Athens that has grown increasingly popular during the last thirty years. This alternative goes… Read more
