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1 results

1 - A Number of Things
Athena Kirk, Cornell University, New York
Book:

Ancient Greek Lists

Published online:

05 March 2021

Print publication:

11 March 2021, pp 17-47
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Summary

Chapter 1 argues that the list in Homer serves as a mode of counting and establishing authoritative standards of numeration. In the pre-coinage context of the Homeric poems, authors and speakers use lists to project authority and accountability to an audience; the poet himself, moreover, emerges as the ultimate meta-counter. More than a literary device, catalogues of objects in Homer allow for the comparison, valuation, and trade of items in the absence of other standards of measurement. Finally, drawing on Eco’s conception of the list as “potentially infinite,” I suggest further that these sets of texts engage in a paradoxical and deliberately obfuscating practice of presenting their contents as uncountably large.