The Center for Hellenic Studies

Homeric epic
Hellenic Studies Series

Blemished Kings: Suitors in the Odyssey, Blame Poetics, and Irish Satire

Each of the suitors in the Odyssey is eager to become the king of Ithaca by marrying Penelope and disqualifying Telemachus from his rightful royal inheritance. Their words are contentious, censorious, and intent on marking Odysseus’ son as unfit for kingship. However, in keeping with other reversals in the Odyssey, it is the suitors who are shown to be unfit to rule. In Blemished Kings, Andrea Kouklanakis interprets the language of the suitors—their fighting words—as Homeric… Read more

Curated Books

The Myth of Return in Early Greek Epic

“The main argument of this book is that the connection suggested by Homer between the ‘wiles’ and the ‘wanderings’ of Odysseus in fact rested upon an earlier tradition both significant and deep. The origin of this tradition has to do with the etymology of the Greek word nóos, ‘mind’, which I propose to connect with the Greek verb néomai, ‘return home’. Such an effort requires that nóos be reconstructed as… Read more

Curated Books

Homeric Responses

The Homeric Iliad and Odyssey are among the world’s foremost epics. Yet, millennia after their composition, basic questions remain about them. Who was Homer—a real or an ideal poet? When were the poems composed—at a single point in time, or over centuries of composition and performance? And how were the poems committed to writing? These uncertainties have been known as The Homeric Question, and many scholars, including Gregory Nagy, have sought to solve it. Read more

Curated Articles

The Epic Hero

To refer to this work, please cite it this way: Nagy, G. 2006. “The Epic Hero,” 2nd ed. (on-line version), http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.The_Epic_Hero.2005. Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, DC. The 1st ed. (printed version) of “The Epic Hero” appeared in 2005, A Companion to Ancient Epic (ed. J. M. Foley) 71-89. Oxford. In this on-line version, the page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{69|70}”… Read more

CHS Learning Module

A Homer commentary in progress: A forthcoming project from CHS!

~A guest post by Leonard Muellner~ The intellectual goal of A Homer commentary in progress is simple and at the same time most ambitious: of all existing commentaries on Homeric poetry, ours is the first and only such commentary that is based squarely on the cumulative research of Milman Parry and his student, Albert Lord, who created a new way of thinking about Homeric poetry. Both Parry and Lord taught… Read more

Publications

Now Available Online | The Oral Palimpsest: Exploring Intertextuality in the Homeric Epics

The Oral Palimpsest: Exploring Intertextuality in the Homeric Epics, by Christos Tsagalis The Center for Hellenic Studies is pleased to announce the online publication of The Oral Palimpsest: Exploring Intertextuality in the Homeric Epics, by Christos Tsagalis on the CHS website. The work is also available for purchase in print through Harvard University Press. Oral intertextuality is an innate feature of the web of myth, whose interrelated fabrics allow the audience of epic… Read more

News, Publications

Now Available Online | The Oral Palimpsest: Exploring Intertextuality in the Homeric Epics

The Oral Palimpsest: Exploring Intertextuality in the Homeric Epics, by Christos Tsagalis The Center for Hellenic Studies is pleased to announce the online publication of The Oral Palimpsest: Exploring Intertextuality in the Homeric Epics, by Christos Tsagalis on the CHS website. The work is also available for purchase in print through Harvard University Press. Oral intertextuality is an innate feature of the web of myth, whose interrelated fabrics allow the audience of epic song… Read more

Publications

Homer's Hidden Muse and Related Questions: a conversation with classicist Douglas Frame

Mindful of hidden and absent signifiers, classicist Douglas Frame brings new light to Nestor, nostos, and the Homeric question. We are especially pleased to share the following conversation with CHS author and classicist Douglas Frame about his innovative approach to Homer, the non-traditional path of his career, and his influential publications. CHS: You’ve authored two important books on Homer that are closely related but separated by… Read more

News, Publications

Homer’s Hidden Muse and Related Questions: a conversation with classicist Douglas Frame

Mindful of hidden and absent signifiers, classicist Douglas Frame brings new light to Nestor, nostos, and the Homeric question. We are especially pleased to share the following conversation with CHS author and classicist Douglas Frame about his innovative approach to Homer, the non-traditional path of his career, and his influential publications. CHS: You’ve authored two important books on Homer that are closely related but separated by almost… Read more