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"Building on numerous original close readings of works by Homer, Hesiod, and other ancient Greek poets, Richard P. Martin articulates a broad and precise poetics of archaic Greek verse. The ancient Greek hexameter poetry of such works as the Iliad and the Odyssey differ from most modern verbal art because it was composed for live, face-to-face performance, often in a competitive setting, before an audience well versed in mythological and ritual lore. The essays collected here span Martin's acclaimed career and explore ways of reading this poetic heritage using principles and evidence from the comparative study of oral traditions, literary and speech-act theories, and the ethnographic record"--
List of contents
Introduction
Part I: Epic Genre and Technique
1. Epic as Genre
2. Similes and Performance
3. Formulas and Speeches: The Usefulness of Parry's Method
4. Wrapping Homer Up: Cohesion, Discourse, and Deviation in the Iliad
Part II: Mythic Hymnists, Historical Performers
5. Apollo's Kithara and Poseidon's Crash-Test: Ritual and Contest in the Evolution of Greek Aesthetics
6. The Senses of an Ending: Myth, Ritual, and Poetic Exodia in Performance
7. Synchronic Aspects of Homeric Performance: The Evidence of the Hymn to Apollo
8. Rhapsodizing Orpheus
9. Golden Verses: Voice and Authority in the Tablets
Part III: Hesiodic Constructions
10. Hesiod and the Didactic Double
11. Hesiod's Metanastic Poetics
12. Hesiod, Odysseus, and the Instruction of Princes
13. Pulp Epic: The Catalogue and the Shield
Part IV: The Backward Look
14. Keens from the Absent Chorus: Troy to Ulster
15. Telemachus and the Last Hero Song
16. Until It Ends: Varieties of Iliadic Anticipation
17. Distant Landmarks: Homer and Hesiod
About the author
Richard P. Martin is the Antony and Isabelle Raubitschek Professor of Classics at Stanford University. Among his many books are
Classical Mythology and
The Language of Heroes.
Summary
Building on numerous original close readings of works by Homer, Hesiod, and other ancient Greek poets, Richard P. Martin articulates a broad and precise poetics of archaic Greek verse. The ancient Greek hexameter poetry of such works as the Iliad and the Odyssey differ from most modern verbal art because it was composed for live, face-to-face...
