6. The Theme in Anglo-Saxon Poetry From my point of view the work on the theme in Anglo-Saxon poetics got off on what I always thought was the wrong foot. What Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr., called a theme was not what either I or Parry meant by… Read more
7. The Ballad: Textual Stability, Variation, and Memorization It has become apparent that, because the study of oral traditional literature has so concentrated on epic, the application of the oral theory to other kinds of oral poetry may lead to difficulty. The ballad has presented one thorny… Read more
3. Book III: Vico’s “Empirical” Homer(s) Again, Book III represents the polemical fulcrum of Vico’s response to The Homeric Question. Its specific raison d’être is the promise he has made (primarily in “The Idea of the Work”) that through the anti-Cartesian method of his “new science” he… Read more
4. Evolutionary Models Resist Literary Bias Something that has always struck me as I have studied Nagy’s work is how resistant many of his colleagues have been to what is perhaps the most important aspect of his model: namely, that it is faithful to the theories of… Read more
5. Vico’s Homer Makes the Greco-Roman Continuum Possible If Vico’s program in the Scienza Nuova entails using iconography to divert pan-European discourse away from the Quarrel in order to proceed toward establishing an anti-Cartesian empirical model, what is the immediate target of his resulting new “ray”? Giuseppe… Read more
6. Is There a Latent Jurisprudential Paradigm in Vico’s Homer? Much Vico scholarship has been dedicated to analyzing Homer as ancillary to Vico’s larger purpose, and up to this point I have taken this perspective. But why not try a more oblique hermeneutical tack? Why not entertain… Read more
7. Two Conclusions Despite being a product of diachronic, Panhellenic dissemination, Homeric Greek, as an artificial literary language, is strikingly complex in the Russian Formalist sense of displaying literatur’nost’ (“literariness”). That is, both epics were “built” over the millennia through such devices as “the epic simile”; formulaic… Read more
Acknowledgments During the gestation of this book, I have not lacked for support and material assistance from many people. My sincere thanks go to the following persons who have contributed to, corrected, and encouraged my work: Chris Dadian, Carol Dougherty, Judith Feher-Gurewitch, Carolyn Higbie, Stephanie Jamison, Claudine… Read more
Introduction: Approaching Anger [In this on-line version, the page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{69|70}” indicates where p. 69 of the printed version ends and p. 70 begins. These indications will be useful to readers who need to look… Read more
1. Mênis and Cosmic Status in the Hierarchy of Peers A good place to begin reconstructing the meaning of mênis is not the beginning of the epic, which may be all too familiar for the perspective I wish to attain, but an extended passage from the middle… Read more
