21. Conclusions and Prospects Nearly fifty years ago Raphael Sealey cautioned his readers that in regard to the Homeridae, the fifth-century clan from Chios who at one time claimed exclusive descent from Homer: the distinction that has been drawn … between a poet and a mere reciter is one that must be handled with care; doubtless there were men at some time in Greece who did… Read more
20. Ptolemaic Homers We may correlate this period of innovation in rhapsodic performances, roughly from the fourth to the first centuries BCE, with a small corpus of Homeric papyri from the Ptolemaic period (305–145 BCE) that stand out for the peculiarity of their divergences from the vulgate of Homer. The Ptolemaic papyri of Homer, [1] collected and edited by Stephanie West, give… Read more
19. The Panathenaia and Beyond The most prominent rhapsodic competition that we know about took place at the Panathenaia in Athens. In this competition rhapsodes performed by exchange and by cue in a manner that seems to reflect, albeit indirectly, what we observed in the Certamen. I will only discuss here the two most important testimonia for what J. A. Davison once called the “Panathenaic Rule.”… Read more
18. Modes of Innovation The evidence for rhapsodic performance as we have it suggests that there were at least three basic types of improvisational activity in which rhapsodes engaged. The first involves the “stitching” or “weaving” of song, the second involves the insertion of newly composed “Homeric” verses into a preexisting text, and the third involves capping with hexameter verses. We are often at pains to determine… Read more
17. From Written to Oral Milman Parry and his students have shown in detail how poet-singers compose while they perform, and perform while they compose epic poetry. However, we have yet to apply the valuable insights gained from their research to later stages of a poetic tradition, particularly after the poetic “texts” are written down, while live performances of these “texts” continue. The time has now come… Read more
Part III. Epic Competition in Performance: Homer and Rhapsodes amant alterna Camenae Muses love singing by turns Vergil, Eclogue 3.59 16. The Amoebaean Muses In recent Homeric scholarship it has become something of a commonplace to reconstruct speech genres and discourse strategies within the Iliad and Odyssey. [1] Yet there is still disagreement… Read more
15. Conclusion In sections 1–4 of this Part, I outlined the range of verse types including hexameters, elegiacs, iambics, skolia, and previously composed (lyric and iambic) passages by dramatic poets recited with or without improvisation at sympotic gatherings. There the focus was on the competitive social matrix of élite aristocrats that motivated these performances, especially in the context of symposia whose often-stated purposes of mirth, celebration, and… Read more
14. Anacreon As we have seen, on one hand Xenophanes and Solon, and on the other Heraclitus, invidiously opposed the ethical and metaphysical disunity of Homeric poetry to symposiastic values. Anacreon of Teos, in contrast, suggests that he is willing to incorporate Homeric poetry into his own sympotic poetry, provided that Homeric themes are adjusted to suit the occasion of conviviality. Again we focus not on all… Read more
13. Solon Solon confronts the performance of epic with a brief but sharp criticism: πολλὰ ψεύδονται ἀοιδοί “poets tell many lies” (fr. 25 G.-P.). As had Xenophanes before him, Solon too calls attention in particular to the epic poetry of Homer and Hesiod, which was known in the sixth century, as it had been in the seventh, primarily through rhapsodic performances. We do not know if the… Read more
12. Heraclitus Heraclitus of Ephesus also rejected the performance of Homeric poetry in a vein similar to, but not identical with, that of Xenophanes. Although Heraclitus’ criticisms never achieved the recognition of Xenophanes’, they appear nevertheless to derive similarly from the vantage point of the symposium. One fragment that has drawn attention is (fr. 30 Marcovich = 22 B 42 DK): τόν τε Ὅμηρον ἔφασκεν ἄξιον ἐκ… Read more
