Out of Line: Homeric Composition beyond the Hexameter

277 Pages·1997·15.165 MB·English

by  Matthew Clark

Out of Line

Out of Line
Homeric Composition
Beyond the Hexameter
MATTHEW CLARK
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham « Boulder " New York " Oxford
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
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Copyright © 1997 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clark, Matthew, 1948-
Out of line : Homeric composition beyond the hexameter / Matthew Clark.
p. cm. — (Greek studies)
A revision of the author’s thesis (doctoral) —Harvard University, 1995.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8476-8697-3 (cloth : alk. paper). — ISBN 0-8476-8698-1
(pbk. : alk. paper)
l. Homer— Technique. 2. Greek language—Metrics and rhythmics. 3. Oral-
formulaic analysis. 4. Oral tradition —Greece. 5. Aesthetics, Ancient. 1. Title.
II. Series.
PA4205.C57 1995
883°.01—de21 97-35673
ISBN 0-8476-8697-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-8476-8698-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Printed in the United States of America
69 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sctences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Contents
Foreword vil
Acknowledgments IX
A Note to the Reader xi
Introduction 1
Enjambment 1
The Formula 5
Chapter One: Definitions 21
Whole-Line Formulas and Enjambment in Oral Poetry 21
Embedded Runovers 30
Orphan Runovers 35
Free and Pendant Runovers 40
Typology and Runovers 42
Enjambment and Statistics 50
Chapter Two: Modifications 53
Lexical Triggers and Semantic Triggers 23
Variable Links in a Chain of Formulas 62
A Formulaic Construction for Finding Someone 69
Chapter Three: Free Runovers 79
Formulaic Construction 79
Semantic Motivation 86
Metrical/ Grammatical Schemes 92
Chapter Four: Anticipations 107
The Bucolic Anticipation Defined 107
Embedded Bucolic Anticipations 117
Pendant Bucolic Anticipations 122
Orphan Bucolic Anticipations 128
Particle Systems in Bucolic Anticipations 132
Other Anticipations 146
Skewed Clauses 149
Chapter Five: Larger Constructions 159
Composition with Large Formula Chains 159
Runovers and Anticipations as Hooks 169
Composition with Small Formula Chains 180
The Composition of Larger Passages 189
Chapter Six: Repetition 213
Significant and Nonsignificant Repetition 213
Repetition and Text 230
Appendix: Problems of Translation 239
Bibliography 249
Index of Passages 255
General Index 263
About the Author 265
Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches
Foreword
by Gregory Nagy, General Editor
Building on the foundations of scholarship within the disciplines of
philology, philosophy, history, and archaeology, this series spans the
continuum of Greek traditions extending from the second millennium
BC to the present, not just the Archaic and Classical periods. The aim
is to enhance perspectives by applying various disciplines to problems
that have in the past been treated as the exclusive concern of a single
given discipline. Besides combining the strengths of older disciplines,
as in the case of historical and literary studies, the series encourages
the application of such newer ones as linguistics, sociology,
anthropology, and comparative literature. It also encourages
encounters with current trends in methodology, especially in the
realm of literary theory.
Out of Line: Homeric Composition Beyond the Hexameter, by Matthew
Clark, is a fundamental reassessment of the relationship between
formula and meter in Homeric poetry. Taking as its point of departure
the surface phenomenon of enjambment, that is, where the poetic
syntax contained by a given dactylic hexameter “runs over” into the
next hexameter, this book proceeds to delve deeply into the mechanics
of formulaic diction, and in the process it rethinks and even refor-
mulates Milman Parry’s concept of the formula in oral poetics. Clark’s
linguistic criteria of dux / runover / comes is bound to revolutionize
the study of formula and meter in archaic Greek poetry. He describes
the dynamics of the runover in formal terms of the dux and the comes
(that is, in terms of the wording found before and after the actual
runover) and in functional terms of syntactical and semantic patterns
that extend “beyond” the rhythmical frame of the hexameter. The
formulaic system of Homeric diction, Clark finds, is not restricted to
the dactylic hexameter. This essential discovery will have far-reaching
consequences in the study of ancient Greek lyric as well as epic.
Vil

Acknowledgments
This book is a revision of my 1995 Harvard doctoral dissertation,
written under the supervision of Gregory Nagy; the committee also
included Carolyn Higbie and Richard Thomas. I cannot imagine a
more helpful committee; I benefited greatly from their close attention
to the developing manuscript and to their learned and wise advice.
They are not, however, responsible for the errors and misjudgments of
a rather stubborn author. After the completion of the dissertation,
Carolyn Higbie was kind enough to read the manuscript again and to
offer suggestions about how to turn it into a readable book. Gregory
Nagy has edited the book for this series, and I cannot say how much I
admire his knowledge and insight. In addition I would like to thank
John Wickersham for help with the technical details of preparing the
manuscript, and the editorial staff of Rowman and Littlefield for their
assistance and their patience.
I would also like to thank Richard Crawford, who taught me Latin
and Greek when I was in high school, and Mechtilde O’Mara, who
encouraged me when I returned to the academic world after a break of
some years. Elizabeth Warman and Eric Csapo were teachers who
became friends. Special thanks go to Miriam and Craig Stewart and to
Mimi Carlisle, who lodged and entertained me on my travels.
And thanks to Reva, who taught me what the art of improvisation
is all about.
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