Formulaic phraseology presents the epitome of words worn and weathered by trial and the tests of time. Scholarship on weathered words is exceptionally diverse and interdisciplinary. This volume focuses on verbal art, which makes Oral-Formulaic Theory (OFT) a major point of reference. Yet weathered words are but a part of OFT, and OFT is only a part of scholarship on weathered words. Each of the eighteen essays gathered here brings… Read more
“In the Iliad, the relationship of Mērionēs and Idomeneus plays a peripheral role as compared to the central relationship of Akhilleus and Patroklos. As we shall see, the behavior of Mērionēs and Idomeneus towards one another is a variation on the theme of the heroic relationship of Akhilleus and Patroklos. The Iliad also describes the relations of gods and men. The antagonism of Akhilleus and Apollo is set against the backdrop of gods… Read more
Reversing the generally accepted notions about formula and meter in epic poetry, Gregory Nagy seeks to show that meter is an outgrowth of formula. To make his point he links the Parry-Lord techniques of formulaic analysis with the researches of Meillet, Jakobson, and Watkins on Indo-European metrics. In the process he evolves a new theory about the origins of the Homeric hexameter and offers controversial fresh material for pursuing the problem of… Read more
Eukhomai had been glossed traditionally as “pray, long for, wish for; vow, promise; boast, brag, vaunt; profess, declare.” Muellner’s approach is to make a systematic analysis of the constraints in which this word is used in Homeric texts—grammatical, stylistic, and contextual—and to compare them, keeping in mind the framework of traditional diction, in which “a traditional poet uses a repertoire of formulas and themes to express his meaning.” Second online edition… Read more
Originally published in 1928, for Société d’éditions “Les belles lettres” (Paris). Published here under a Creative Commons License 3.0. Read more
[This article was originally published in 1930 in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 41:73–148. The original page-numbers of the printed version will be indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{73|74}” indicates where p. 73 of the printed version ends and p. 74 begins.] 1. The plan of the study (p. 77). —2. The formula (p. 80). —3. The traditional formula (p. 84). —4. The formula outside Homer (p. Read more
[This article was originally published in 1932 in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 43:1-50. The original pagination of the printed version is embedded within brackets in this electronic version: for example, {1|2} marks where p. 1 stops and p. 2 begins.] i. The Homeric Language and the Homeric Diction: Older Theories of the Homeric Language (p. i); the Homeric Language as a Poetic Language (p. 4); the Homeric Language as… Read more
Published 2011 in Proceedings of the 22nd Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference (ed. S. W. Jamison, H.C. Melchert, B. Vine) 133–179. Bremen: Ute Hempen Verlag. In this online version, the original page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{133|134}” indicates where p. 133 of the printed version ends and p. 134 begins. Introduction Milman Parry (1932), in line with an earlier formulation by Antoine… Read more
The “Homeric Question” has vexed Classicists for generations. Was the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey a single individual who created the poems at a particular moment in history? Or does the name “Homer” hide the shaping influence of the epic tradition during a long period of oral composition and transmission? In this innovative investigation, Gregory Nagy applies the insights of comparative linguistics and anthropology to offer a new historical model for understanding… Read more
This book is a comparative study of oral poetics in literate cultures, focusing on the problems of textual fluidity in the transmission of Homeric poetry over half a millennium, from the Archaic through the Hellenistic periods of ancient Greece. It stresses the role of performance and the performer in the re-creative process of composition-in-performance. It addresses questions of authority and authorship in the making of oral poetry, and it examines… Read more
