oral poetics

Hellenic Studies Series

The Iliad and the Oral Epic Tradition

The Iliad reveals a traditional oral poetic style, but many researchers believe that the poem cannot be treated as solely a product of oral tradition. In The Iliad and the Oral Epic Tradition, Karol Zieliński argues that neither Homer’s unique artistry nor references to events known from other songs necessarily indicate the use of writing in its composition. The development of traditional oral cycles suggests that the Iliad is only one of many possible retellings of the… Read more

Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature Series

Weathered Words: Formulaic Language and Verbal Art

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

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 Books

Homer’s Text and Language

As Homer remains an indispensable figure in the canons of world literature, interpreting the Homeric text is a challenging and high stakes enterprise. There are untold numbers of variations, imitations, alternate translations, and adaptations of the Iliad and Odyssey, making it difficult to establish what, exactly, the epics were. Gregory Nagy’s essays have one central aim: to show how the text and language of Homer derive from an oral poetic system.  In Homeric studies,… Read more

Publications

Now Available Online | Sappho in the Making: The Early Reception

The CHS team is pleased to announce the online publication of Sappho in the Making: The Early Reception, by Dimitrios Yatromanolakis for free on the CHS website. For a print version of this edition, please visit the Harvard University Press website. “The need to broaden our investigation is urgent. Sappho must be revisited from several different perspectives. One is her surviving textual corpus… Read more

Publications

Now Available Online | Sappho in the Making: The Early Reception

The CHS team is pleased to announce the online publication of Sappho in the Making: The Early Reception, by Dimitrios Yatromanolakis for free on the CHS website. For a print version of this edition, please visit the Harvard University Press website. “The need to broaden our investigation is urgent. Sappho must be revisited from several different perspectives. One is her surviving textual corpus and… Read more

News, Programs & Events News

SapphoFest 2015

The Center for Hellenic Studies, in association with Govinda Gallery, is pleased to announce SapphoFest 2015, three days of art and discussion celebrating the songs of Sappho, fifty years of Donovan's poetry and music, and Donovan's Sapphographs. Read more

CHS Learning Module

Classical Inquiries | Diachronic Sappho: some prolegomena

Detail from Attic krater attributed to the Brygos painter, 480-470 BCE. Line drawing by Valerie Woelfel. “A diachronic as well as synchronic approach to the songmaking of Sappho” by Gregory Nagy In his posting Diachronic Sappho: some prolegomena, Gregory Nagy argues that the art of Sappho’s songmaking can be viewed as an evolving medium through time. He offers his views in support of this argument. Read more

CHS Learning Module, News

Classical Inquiries | Diachronic Sappho: some prolegomena

Detail from Attic krater attributed to the Brygos painter, 480-470 BCE. Line drawing by Valerie Woelfel. “A diachronic as well as synchronic approach to the songmaking of Sappho” by Gregory Nagy In his posting Diachronic Sappho: some prolegomena, Gregory Nagy argues that the art of Sappho’s songmaking can be viewed as an evolving medium through time. He offers his views in support of this argument. 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