Homeric questions

193 Pages·2005·1.718 MB·English

by  Homer;Nagy, Gregory

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HOMERIC QUESTIONS
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G N
REGORY AGY
H
OMERIC
Q
UESTIONS
University of Texas Press Austin
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Copyright © 1996 by the University of Texas Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Second paperback printing, 2002
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to
Permissions, University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819.
(cid:1)o(cid:1)o The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nagy, Gregory.
Homeric questions / Gregory Nagy. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
isbn0-292-75562-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Homer—Technique. 2. Epic poetry, Greek—History and criticism—
Theory, etc. 3. Oral formulaic analysis. 4. Oral tradition—Greece.
I. Title.
pa4037.n345 1996
883(cid:2).01—dc20 95-39353
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To the memory of Albert Bates Lord
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Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
CHAPTER 1
Homer and Questions of Oral Poetry 13
CHAPTER 2
An Evolutionary Model for the Making
of Homeric Poetry 29
CHAPTER 3
Homer and the Evolution of a Homeric Text 65
CHAPTER 4
Myth as Exemplum in Homer 113
Epilogue 147
Bibliography 153
Index 175
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Preface
The core of this book is a speech, the Presidential Address of the
1991 convention of the American Philological Association, which
was later developed into an article.1All along I thought of this article
asacompanionpiecetotwootherarticlesIhavepublishedelsewhere.2
Now I have finally rewritten all three articles to suit the original idea
of the book. The introduction and the epilogue, which frame the
four chapters of the book, come closest to the original speech. That
speech, and this whole book, pose some Homeric questions to an au-
dience of classical philologists. These questions, I think, are relevant
to the legacy of “the classics,” of philology itself. More than that: if I
am right that philology is a focal point of humanistic studies, these
questions may be relevant in one way or another to all students of the
humanities.
1. N 1992a.
2. N 1992b, 1995.