Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T20:56:46.250Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

HOMERIC MOTIVATION AND MODERN NARRATOLOGY: THE CASE OF PENELOPE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2018

Jonas Grethlein
Jonas Grethlein*
Affiliation:
Heidelberg University, Germany
*
*[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Forged mostly in readings of the modern novel, the tools of narratology have allowed us to detect many features that ancient literature shares with modern texts. At the same time, they have detracted from crucial differences between ancient and modern narratives. This article argues that, while being at the origin of the classical western plot, the Odyssey also features a narrative logic that differs significantly from what the modern novel has taught us to expect. It focuses on the case of Penelope. Various theories have been advanced to explain Penelope's intervention in books 18 and 19. The difficulties that modern scholars have had with Penelope, it is suggested, are due to a special kind of motivation which is also prominent in medieval narrative.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Cambridge Classical Journal , Volume 64 , December 2018 , pp. 70 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Cambridge University Press 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This article is part of the work of the ERC group ‘Experience and Teleology in Ancient Narrative’ (AncNar, n. 312321) – I wish to thank the members of this group, Annika Domainko, Luuk Huitink, Jakob Lenz and Aldo Tagliabue, for many stimulating discussions. I have also greatly benefited from the comments of Eva von Contzen, Athanassios Vergados, the audience of the Cambridge Philological Society and CCJ’s two anonymous readers.

References

Works cited

Allen, W. (1939) ‘The theme of the suitors in the Odyssey’, TAPhA 70, 14–24.Google Scholar
Amory, A. (1963) ‘The reunion of Odysseus and Penelope’, in Taylor, C. H. (ed.), Essays on the Odyssey, Bloomington, 100–21.Google Scholar
Amory, A. (1966) ‘The gates of horn and ivory’, YClS 20, 3–57.Google Scholar
Austin, N. (1975) Archery at the dark of the moon: poetic problems in Homer's Odyssey, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Blumenberg, H. (1979) Arbeit am Mythos, Frankfurt am Main.Google Scholar
Bona, G. (1966) Studi sull'Odissea, Turin.Google Scholar
Büchner, W. (1940) ‘Die Penelopeszenen in der Odyssee’, Hermes 75, 129–67.Google Scholar
Byre, C. S. (1988) ‘Penelope and the suitors before Odysseus: Odyssey 18.158–303’, AJPh 109.2, 159–73.Google Scholar
Chekhov, A. P. (1974) Anton Tchekhov: literary and theatrical reminiscences, New York.Google Scholar
Contzen, E. von (2014) ‘Why we need a medieval narratology: a manifesto’, Diegesis 3.2, 1–21.Google Scholar
Contzen, E. von (2015) ‘Why medieval literature does not need the concept of social minds: exemplarity and collective experience’, Narrative 23.2, 140–53.Google Scholar
Currie, B. (2016) Homer's allusive art, Oxford.Google Scholar
de Jong, I. J. (2001) A narratological commentary on the Odyssey, Cambridge.Google Scholar
de Jong, I. J. (2004 [1987]) Narrators and focalizers: the presentation of the story in the Iliad, Bristol.Google Scholar
de Jong, I. J. and Nünlist, R. (eds.) (2007) Time in ancient Greek literature, Leiden and Boston.Google Scholar
de Jong, I. J., Nünlist, R. and Bowie, A. M. (eds.) (2004) Narrators, narratees, and narratives in ancient Greek literature, Leiden and Boston.Google Scholar
Emlyn-Jones, C. (1984) ‘The reunion of Penelope and Odysseus’, G&R 31.1, 1–18.Google Scholar
Erbse, H. (1972) Beiträge zum Verständnis der Odyssee, Berlin and New York.Google Scholar
Felski, R. (2015) The limits of critique, Chicago.Google Scholar
Felson-Rubin, N. (1987) ‘Penelope's perspective: character from plot’, in Bremer, J. M., de Jong, I. J. F. and Kalff, J. H. (eds.), Homer: beyond oral poetry: recent trends in Homeric interpretation, Amsterdam, 61–83.Google Scholar
N. Felson-Rubin, N. (1994) Regarding Penelope: from character to poetics, Princeton.Google Scholar
Fenik, B. (1974) Studies in the Odyssey, Wiesbaden.Google Scholar
Fludernik, M. (2003) ‘Chronology, time, tense and experientiality in narrative’, Language and Literature 12.2, 117–34.Google Scholar
Foley, H. (2001) Female acts in Greek Tragedy, Princeton.Google Scholar
Fränkel, H. (1993) Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums: eine Geschichte der griechischen Epik, Lyrik und Prosa bis zur Mitte des fünften Jahrhunderts, 4th edn, Munich.Google Scholar
Gill, C. (1990) ‘The character-personality distinction’, in Pelling, C. (ed.), Characterization and individuality in Greek literature, Oxford, 1–31.Google Scholar
Gill, C. (1996) Personality in Greek epic, tragedy and philosophy: the self in dialogue, Oxford.Google Scholar
Grethlein, J. (2006) Das Geschichtsbild der Ilias: eine Untersuchung aus phänomenologischer und narratologischer Perspektive, Göttingen.Google Scholar
Grethlein, J. (2015a) ‘Social minds and narrative time: collective experience in Thucydides and Heliodorus’, Narrative 23.2, 123–39.Google Scholar
Grethlein, J. (2015b) ‘Is narrative ‘the description of fictional mental functioning’? Heliodorus against Palmer, Zunshine & Co’, Style 49.3, 257–84.Google Scholar
Grethlein, J. (2017a) Die Odyssee: Homer und die Kunst des Erzählens, Munich.Google Scholar
Grethlein, J. (2017b) Aesthetic experiences and classical antiquity: the content of form in narratives and pictures, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Haferland, H. (2014) ‘‘Motivation von hinten’: Durchschaubarkeit des Erzählens und Finalität in der Geschichte des Erzählens’, Diegesis: Interdisziplinäres E-Journal für Erzählforschung / Interdisciplinary E-Journal for Narrative Research 3 (H. 2), 66–95.Google Scholar
Harsh, P. W. (1950) ‘Penelope and Odysseus in Odyssey xix’, AJPh 71.1, 1–21.Google Scholar
Haubold, J. (2014) ‘Beyond Auerbach: Homeric narrative and the Epic of Gilgamesh’, in Cairns, D. and Scodel, R. (eds.), Defining Greek narrative, Edinburgh, 13–28.Google Scholar
Heitman, R. (2005) Taking her seriously: Penelope and the plot of Homer's Odyssey, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Holmes, B. (2010) The symptom and the subject: the emergence of the physical body in ancient Greece, Princeton.Google Scholar
Hölscher, U. (1967) ‘Penelope vor den Freiern’, in Sühnel, R., Meller, H. and Zimmermann, H.-J. (eds.), Lebende Antike: Symposion für Rudolf Sühnel, Berlin, 27–33.Google Scholar
Horkheimer, M. and Adorno, T. W. (1969) Dialektik der Aufklärung: philosophische Fragmente, Frankfurt.Google Scholar
Jacobson, H. (1974) Ovid's Heroides, Princeton.Google Scholar
Katz, M. (1991) Penelope's renown: meaning and indeterminacy in Homer's Odyssey, Princeton.Google Scholar
Kelly, A. (2012) ‘The audience expects: Odysseus and Penelope’, in Minchin, E. (ed.), Orality and literacy in the ancient world, Leiden, 3–24.Google Scholar
Kirk, G. (1962) The songs of Homer, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Levine, D. B. (1983) ‘Penelope's laugh: Odyssey 18.163’, AJPh 104.2, 172–8.Google Scholar
Lord, A. B. (1938) ‘Homer and Huso ii. Narrative inconsistencies in Homer and oral poetry’, TAPhA 69, 439–45.Google Scholar
Lowe, N. J. (2000) The classical plot and the invention of Western narrative, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Lugowski, C. (1976 [1932]) Die Form der Individualität im Roman: Studien zur inneren Struktur der frühen deutschen Prosaerzählung, Frankfurt [Berlin]. Translated in English as Form, individuality and the novel: analysis of narrative structure in early German prose, Oklahoma, 1990.Google Scholar
Lüthi, M. (1975) Das Volksmärchen als Dichtung: Ästhetik und Anthropologie. Volume i, Düsseldorf.Google Scholar
Mariani, A. J. (1978) ‘The forged feature: created identity in Homer's Odyssey’, PhD thesis, Yale University.Google Scholar
Martínez, M. (1996) Formaler Mythos: Skizze einer ästhetischen Theorie, Paderborn.Google Scholar
Merkelbach, R. (1951) Untersuchungen zur Odyssee, Munich.Google Scholar
Morrison, J. V. (1992) Homeric misdirection: false predictions in the Iliad, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Müller, M. (1966) Athene als göttliche Helferin in der Odyssee: Untersuchungen zur Form der epischen Aristie, Heidelberg.Google Scholar
Murnaghan, S. (1987) Disguise and recognition in the Odyssey, Princeton.Google Scholar
Page, D. L. (1955) The Homeric Odyssey: the Mary Flexner Lectures delivered at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, Oxford.Google Scholar
Palmer, A. (2004) Fictional minds, Lincoln, NE.Google Scholar
Purves, A. (2015) ‘Ajax and other objects: Homer's vibrant materialism’, Ramus 44, 75–94.Google Scholar
Russo, J. (1982) ‘Interview and aftermath: dream, fantasy, and intuition in Odyssey 19 and 20’, AJPh 103.1, 4–18.Google Scholar
Rutherford, R. B. (1992) Homer: Odyssey Books xix and xx, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Schlaffer, H. (1990) Poesie und Wissen: die Entstehung des ästhetischen Bewusstseins und der philologischen Erkenntnis, Frankfurt am Main.Google Scholar
Schwartz, E. (1924) Die Odyssee, Munich.Google Scholar
Snell, B. (1993) Die Entdeckung des Geistes, 7th edn, Hamburg.Google Scholar
Steiner, D. (2010) Homer Odyssey Books xvii and xviii, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Struck, P. T. (2016) Divination and human nature: a cognitive history of intuition in classical antiquity, Princeton.Google Scholar
Stürmer, F. (1921) Die Rhapsodien der Odyssee, Würzburg.Google Scholar
Turolla, E. (1930) Saggio sulla poesia d'Omero, Bari.Google Scholar
van Nortwick, T. (1979) ‘Penelope and Nausicaa’, TAPhA 109, 269–76.Google Scholar
Vester, H. (1968) ‘Das 19. Buch der Odyssee’, Gymnasium 75, 417–34.Google Scholar
Whitman, C. H. (1958) Homer and the heroic tradition, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Whitmarsh, T. (2013) ‘An I for an I: reading fictional autobiography’, in Marmodoro, A. and Hill, J. (eds.), The author's voice in classical and late antiquity, Oxford, 233–45.Google Scholar
von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, T. (1917) Die dramatische Technik des Sophokles: aus dem Nachlass herausgegeben von Ernst Kapp. Berlin.Google Scholar
von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. (1927) Die Heimkehr des Odysseus: neue homerische Untersuchungen, Berlin.Google Scholar
Winkler, J. J. (1990) The constraints of desire: the anthropology of sex and gender in ancient Greece, New York and London.Google Scholar
Woodhouse, W. J. (1930) The composition of Homer's Odyssey, Oxford.Google Scholar