Ancient literary criticism on the nature of hexametrical poetry and its subgenres is traced in Hellenistic poets who experimented with the so-called idea of πολυειδεία (‘generic versatility’) and refashioned the Archaic poetic genres in a new meta-poetic level. Alan Cameron concluded that any ‘hexameter-poet’ could be called ἐποποιός (Callimachus and His Critics (New York 1995), 268–69); categories, such as the subversion or parody of the (male) heroic ideal, a focalization on femininity and on non-canonical versions of stories and myths, emotionality or subjectivity, were different aspects of hexametrical poetry that many times were blended or were embedded in larger epic narratives (see Silvio Bär, ‘Inventing and Deconstructing Epyllion: Some Thoughts on a Taxonomy of Greek Hexameter Poetry’, Thersites 2 (2015), 23–51, at pages 29–31). Within this context, Faraone’s new book is an insightful addition to modern scholarship about embedded hexametrical subgenres, such as hymns, incantations, oracles and laments, found in longer epic narratives. The book consists of a thorough introduction, five chapters on the main hexametrical subgenres, five appendices that serve as examples par excellence for the theoretical background discussed in these chapters, a detailed bibliography and four indexes.
In the first two chapters, Faraone briefly and substantially exploits some aspects of the theoretical background of hexametrical genres; more specifically, Mikhail Bakhtin’s observation on the shorter genres incorporated into modern novels is also applicable to Homeric poetry, which embedded shorter genres in its longer narratives, composed in dactylic hexameters. These hexameters were well-known to their audience and enhanced a dramatic or narrative situation, fulfilling or disrupting the audience’s generic expectations (4–7). What is more, Hellenistic poets revived the older hexametrical poetry, providing some otherwise lost details about ritual performance, place and timing, as well as the identity of performers and audience (8). It is worth noting here that a valuable source for these genres were lyric and iambic poets of the Archaic and Classical periods, who sometimes used hexametrical verses in ways that suggest they were guided by ‘generic constraint’. For example, we may observe Alcman’s hexametrical prooimia before his partheneia, or the fact that the Homeric Hymns were considered themselves to be introductions to a performance of epic narrative. Then, Faraone makes some preliminary remarks by reviewing two cases: epitaphs and the so-called genre of hupothekai (a speech of advice normally given by an older to a younger man), to indicate that Homeric poetry used a pre-existing oral tradition recited in hexameters (21–30). In addition, Sappho’s hexametrical fragments (epithalamia) show how readers might handle a mimetic poem like Theocritus’ Idyll 18 in order to understand its original performative context (31–40). At the same time, we may examine the Pseudo-Herodotean Life of Homer to explore in a broader sense the variety of hexametrical genres the poet performed in the late Archaic or early Classical period (41–48).
Let me draw some striking notes on Faraone’s thorough argumentation in the following chapters about hymns, oracles, incantations and laments. Cult hymns (chapter 3) normally focused on human and divine interactions and on aetiological explanations of the origins of rituals, temples or festivals. Callimachus refashioned the Homeric hymns to Apollo and Demeter in his mimetic poems, where he described rituals and gave aetiologies for them. Faraone suggests that the composers of the Homeric hymns knew and embedded local cult hymns from Delos, Crisa or Eleusis into their own Panhellenic narratives. The same fact is also applied for oracles (chapter 4) narrated by Aristophanes or Herodotus, which share common features with the speeches of some Odyssean characters, such as Teiresias (he is called a prophet in Odyssey 11) and Circe (in Odyssey 10). These instructional speeches imitate the hexametrical genre of oracle probably to invest these characters with a kind of authorial voice. Besides, it was believed that dactylic hexameters bridged the gap between gods and mortals as a kind of ‘ritualised communication’ (18 n.74). This special status was probably extolled, as we see in chapter 5, because the Muses or Apollo inspired human performers or otherwise transmitted through them. Faraone explores some texts from the Classical period that claim that it was Paean or Orpheus who composed hexametrical incantations to protect humankind, or that it was Aphrodite who taught the first erotic incantation to mortals. Finally, in chapter 6, Faraone tries to answer the question of whether Greeks sung, chanted or simply spoke when they performed these dactylic hexameters. We may claim that the level of musicality was rather low and singers ranged from simple speech to chanting to recitation. However, there is some evidence for group laments in dactylic hexameters where different women sung short solos punctuated by communal responses. The brevity of these solos suggests that they might have been sung in a simple or repeated melody, a format also traced in Theocritus’ Idyll 18 that imitates an epithalamium of Helen’s girlfriends when she and Menelaus retire to their wedding chamber.
Overall, this book offers convincing evidence of a number of hexametrical genres that already existed in the early Archaic period and were performed in a variety of ritual contexts, such as religious festivals, oracular consultations, weddings or funerals. From Homer down to Hellenistic poetry, experts in hexametrical poetry knew these subgenres (probably from an oral tradition), they embedded or imitated them in their poems and experimented with them as a play on the generic expectations of their audiences or readers.
