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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2016
This description of current theories of oral composition is no more than a short account of something that is still being argued. Oral composition seems, however, the best working hypothesis, and the impact it has had on critics in Western Europe and America—and which it must eventually have on those of Italy and Germany—has been revolutionary. But the revolution is still, especially in the field of appreciation, in its destructive phase. The description of so much traditional material ‘has taken from Homeric critics a considerable body of phenomena which literary critics normally consider a legitimate and significant part of their study’. We seem to be denied the beauties of the mot juste, because the mots are not employed for their appropriateness to a specific context.
page no 29 note 1 Combellack, , Comparative Literature 11 (1959), 208 Google Scholar, but cf. Russo, , ‘Homer against his tradition’, Arion 7 (1968), 275-95Google Scholar.
page no 29 note 2 Lord, , TAPA 69 (1938), 445 Google Scholar, explains it as the use of a stock motif.
page no 29 note 3 Probably nothing in the original oral hypothesis caused so much indignation as this contention of Parry (HSCP 41 [1930], 122-5). See now Whallon, W., ‘The Homeric Epithets’, YCS 17 (1961), 97-142Google Scholar, who seems to me to assume too easily that the oral poet was always able, or bothered, to adjust his verse to incorporate the epithet most fitting to the circumstances. But ‘Ornament’ adds something. More argument in Whallon, ’s Formula, Character and Context (Washington, 1969)Google Scholar.
page no 30 note 1 Flexibility of the Homeric Formula, 76 n.
page no 30 note 2 Very close proximity, cf. 304 ϊττποι ώκύττοδεΐ, but 309-10 ϊτπτοι βάρδιστοι θεΐειν!
page no 30 note 3 More examples and discussion in Combellack, , ‘Some formulary illogicalities in Homer’, TAPA 96 (1965), 41–56 Google Scholar.
page no 30 note 4 Most recently by Heitsch, E., Aphroditehymnus, Aeneas und Homer (Göttingen, 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page no 30 note 5 It was firmly stated by Davison, , ‘Quotations and Allusions in Early Greek Litera ture’, Eranos 53 (1955), 125-40Google Scholar.
page no 30 note 6 Ilias und ihr Dichter, 128 ff.
page no 31 note 1 Fenik, Typical Battle Scenes, 231 ff.
page no 31 note 2 See Perry, B.E., ‘The Early Greek Capacity for Seeing Things Separately’, TAPA 68 (1937), 403-27Google Scholar.
page no 31 note 3 Cf. Verdenius, W.J., ‘L’Association des idées comme principe de composition dans Homère, Hésiode, Théognis’, Revue des études grecques 73 (1960) 345-61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Fenik, Typical Battle Scenes, 98 f., notes a tendency to state a motif briefly and repeat it at once at greater length.
page no 31 note 4 The firm statement of these qualities has been the great contribution of Schade- waldt, especially in Iliasstudien (Leipzig, 1938).
page no 31 note 5 See Notopoulos, , ‘Continuity and Interconnection in Homeric Oral Composition’, TAPA 82 (1951), 81-101Google Scholar.
page no 31 note 6 Songs, 73 f.
page no 32 note 1 Whitman, C.H., Homer and the Heroic Tradition (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), 102 ff.,CrossRefGoogle Scholar one of the few pieces of purely literary criticism to which Homeric scholarship has given rise.
page no 32 note 2 Whitman, op. cit., 249 ff.
page no 32 note 3 Auerbach, E., Mimesis (trans. Trask, Princeton, 1953), 1 ffGoogle Scholar.
page no 32 note 4 ‘Incantation of the heroic’ was Parry’s phrase, CPh 28 (1933), 40.
page no 32 note 5 Lord, Singer, 148.
page no 32 note 6 Whallon, , YCS 17 (1961), 97 ff.Google Scholar, has some good remarks on the sources of the epithets.
page no 32 note 7 For example, the epithets of Hector appear to be ossified (clichés in the true sense) not generative expressions.
page no 32 note 8 Nagler, , TAPA 98 (1967), 269 ffGoogle Scholar.
page no 33 note 1 Songs, 162 ff.
page no 34 note 1 Homer and the Heroic Tradition, 102 ff.; cf. Putnam, M.C.J., The Poetry of the Aeneid (Cambridge, Mass., 1965)Google Scholar.
page no 34 note 2 As shown by Parry, , CPh 28 (1933), 37 ffGoogle Scholar.
page no 34 note 3 Épithète traditionnelle, 172.
page no 34 note 4 As an addition to the functional use of epithets. It cannot supplant it, as suggested by K.O’Nolan, , ‘Homer and Irish Heroic Narrative’, CQ 19 (1969), 1-19CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Even in Irish prose the epithet has a functional use, to provide alliteration.
page no 34 note 5 ‘The Gates of Horn and Ivory’, YCS 20 (1966), 3-57.
page no 34 note 6 HSCP 72 (1968), 34 ff.
page no 35 note 1 Cf. Marg, W., Homer über die Dichtung (Aschendorff, 1957), 7-20Google Scholar.
page no 35 note 2 Notopoulos, , HSCP 68 (1964), 48 Google Scholar, quotes from his own experience the wide difference between the hearing and the reading of oral poetry.
page no 35 note 3 Especially those executed by minor warriors, Fenik, Typical Battle Scenes, 15.
page no 35 note 4 e.g. Murray, Rise of the Greek Epic, 126 ff.
page no 36 note 1 The most recent discussion of the similes is that of Lee, D.J.N., The Similes of the Iliad and the Odyssey compared (Melbourne, 1964)Google Scholar, who supplies full lists. His interpretations sometimes appear to me too rigid. For other functions of the simile see Coffey, M., ‘The function of the Homeric Simile’, AJP 78 (1957), 113-32Google Scholar.
page no 36 note 2 On Homeric religion generally see Guthrie, W.K.C., ‘The religion and mythology of the Greeks’, Cambridge Ancient History, vol. ii, ch. 40 (revised edn., 1961)Google Scholar, with bibliography, or Severyns, A., Les Dieux d’Homère (Paris, 1966)Google Scholar.
page no 36 note 3 Grube, G.M.A., Studies presented to Gilbert Norwood (Toronto, 1952), 15 Google Scholar, puts this well.
page no 36 note 4 Snell, Discovery of the Mind, 23 ff.
page no 36 note 5 Whitman, Homer and the Heroic Tradition, 248 and note.
page no 37 note 1 Lesky, , Göttliche und menschliche Motivation im homerischen Epos (Heidelberg, 1961)Google Scholar, but cf. Snell, ’s response, Gesammelte Schriften (Göttingen, 1966) 55 ffGoogle Scholar. On Agamemnon’s crime see especially Dodds, E.R., The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1953), 1 ffGoogle Scholar.
page no 37 note 2 Whitman, op. cit., 228-9.
page no 37 note 3 Dietrich, B.C., Death, Fate and the Gods (London, 1965)Google Scholar.
page no 37 note 4 Adkins, A.W.H., Merit and Responsibility (Oxford, 1960), 17 ffGoogle Scholar.
page no 38 note 1 Reinhardt, Die Ilias und ihr Dichter, 338.
page no 38 note 2 Adkins, op. cit., 31 ff.; Finley, World of Odysseus, 125 ff.; Bowra, C.M., The Greek Experience (London, 1957), 20 ffGoogle Scholar.
page no 38 note 3 Whatever rationale of the Trojan War may later have been devised (cf. Kull- mann, W., ‘Zur Aiòs βουλή des Iliasproömiums’, Philologus 100 [1956], 132 ff.)Google Scholar, the Διόβουλή of A 5 naturally refers merely to Zeus’ assent to the plea of Thetis.
page no 38 note 4 See Harrison, F.E., ‘Homer and the Poetry of War’, Greece & Rome 7 (1960), 9-19CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Valk, Van der, ‘Homer’s Nationalistic Attitude’, L’Antiquité classique 22 (1953), 5-26CrossRefGoogle Scholar, overstates the Achaean bias.
page no 39 note 1 Richmond Lattimore’s translation.
page no 39 note 2 See Stanford, ’s excellent study in The Ulysses Theme (Oxford, 1954)Google Scholar.
page no 39 note 3 Cf. Sale, W., ‘Literary Values and the Homeric Question’, Arion 2 (1963), 86-100Google Scholar.
page no 39 note 4 See Page, History and the Homeric Iliad, 297 ff.
page no 39 note 5 For an exposition of similar value systems in modern times see Peristiany, J.G. (ed.), Honour and Shame (London, 1965)Google Scholar.
page no 39 note 6 ‘The Language of Achilles’, TAPA 87 (1956), 1-7 (= Language and Background, 48 ff.).
page no 40 note 1 On the characterization of Achilles (and other principal figures) see Whitman, Homer and the Heroic Tradition, 181 ff.
page no 40 note 2 Merit and Responsibility, 38 ff.
page no 40 note 3 On the nature of their crime see Levy, H.L., ‘The Odyssean Suitors and the Host-Guest Relationship’, TAPA 94 (1963), 145-53Google Scholar.
page no 40 note 4 No scene has been more harried by the critics; see Kirk, Songs, 245 ff.; it is defended by Besslich, Schweigen-Verschweigen-Übergehen.
page no 41 note 1 Greeks and the Irrational, 33.
page no 41 note 2 Songs, 355 ff.
page no 41 note 3 Annie F., Dekker, Ironie in de Odyssee (Leiden, 1965 Google Scholar, with summary in English).
page no 41 note 4 I mean the Slaughter. As for the notorious Continuation, the arguments have been stated, definitively and at length, by Page, Homeric Odyssey, 101 ff. Yet I feel that something must have stood there since the Slaughter leaves too much unsettled.