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Narratology and Intertextuality: New Perspectives on Greek Epic from Homer to Tzetzes

Abstracts

[1] The Motif of Oroskopia in Ancient Epic

Irene de Jong (Amsterdam) We all know the motif of the teichoskopia which, initiated by Homer, knew a long history in classical literature. In this paper I want to look at a related motif: the view from a mountain. Homer makes Zeus regularly watch the battle before Troy while sitting on Mt. Ida. This motif of the oroskopia, as one could call it, has also turned out productive, in both prose (historio-graphy) and poetry. In my paper, which forms part of a larger research project on oroskopia, I will focus on the use of the motif in (Greek and Latin) epic texts. Who occupy this elevated position; what do they watch; what associations does the position have; in how far are there conscious signs of intertextual play with predecessors, notably Homer’s Zeus? De Jong, Irene J.F. & René Nünlist. 2004. “From Bird’s Eye View to Close Up: the Standpoint of the Narrator in

the Homeric Epics.” In: Anton Bierl, Arbogast Schmidt & Andreas Willi (eds.), Antike Literatur in neuer Deutung. Leipzig, 63–83.

Lovatt, Helen. 2013. The Epic Gaze: Vision, Gender and Narrative in Ancient Epic. Cambridge.

[2] The Intertextuality of Iliad and Odyssey: A Narratological Perspective

Bruno Currie (Oxford)

The intertextual relationship between the Odyssey and Iliad has been frequently investigated, but largely from thematic and/or phraseological points of view (e.g. Pucci 1987; Usener 1990; Rutherford 1991–93; Danek 1998). It therefore seems worthwhile and in the spirit of a call for a ‘diachronic narratology’ to review the issue through a specifically narratological lens. The aim of the proposed paper will therefore be to explore shared narratological features that either singly or cumulatively can plausibly be ascribed to an intertextual relationship between the two poems, rather than to chance or to tradition. Some examples of the kind of thing en-visaged: (1) First, the coarse-grained, and very well known: the in medias res approach of Iliad and Odyssey, carving out a story of 51 and 41 days from a fabula of 10 and 20 years respec-tively (de Jong 2007: 19), contrasts strikingly, as far as we can tell, with the approach of the Cyclical epics (e.g. Rutherford 1991–93; Rengakos 2015: 155). (2) The ‘interlace technique’, a seeming speciality of Odyssey (de Jong 2001: 589–90), is arguably modelled on a use of the technique in the Iliad (Hölscher 1989: 85–6; Rengakos 2015: 156–7).

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(3) More fine-grained: at Il. 2.300–332 and Od. 2.163–176, a secondary narrator (Odysseus, Halitherses respectively), speaking in the tenth or twentieth year of the fabula, recalls an omen at the very start of the fabula and anticipates the imminent conclusion of the fabula (sack of Troy, Odysseus’ homecoming). Here, the Iliad’s very complicated narratol-ogical treatment of the ‘omen of the sparrows at Aulis’ episode, very precisely replicated by the Odyssey, contrasts with its apparently uncomplicated treatment in the Cypria (argumen-tum Procli p. 40.33–5 Bernabé; Ps.-Apollod. Epit. 3.15; Ov. Met. 12.11–23). Not only the Odyssey-poet, but also Quintus of Smyrna (Posthomerica 8.474–80) subsequently picks up on the Iliad’s “complex anachrony” (Schmitz 2007: 79). As this example shows, there will be scope here to pursue ‘diachronic narratology’ beyond the Iliad and Odyssey. The paper would aim to contribute to the controversial topic of the intertextuality of the Iliad and Odyssey, but would also necessarily imply conclusions about what narrative techniques the early epic poets and their audiences were consciously attuned to: ‘diachronic narratology’ would here involve identifying narratological techniques that ancient Greek ‘readers’ very close to the production of the texts themselves putatively identified and appre-ciated (though not, of course, in the conceptualized way of the scholia: Nünlist 2009).

[3] Epic Apostrophe from Homer to Nonnus

Thomas A. Schmitz (Bonn) As is well known, the Homeric epic makes use of the rhetorical figure of apostrophe, i.e., the narrator addresses one of his characters. Critics are divided over the question whether this is a meaningful device or mainly used for metrical convenience. On a narratological level, it con-stitutes a metalepsis since it breaks down the boundary between extradiegetic narrator and intradiegetic characters. In a recent study, Jacqueline Klooster has suggested that the device originates in hymnic addresses to the gods. My paper will examine the diachronic develop-ment of apostrophe. I want to argue that its use in Hellenistic and imperial epic can be under-stood as an implicit commentary on the Homeric device and thus tell us about the way in which later periods made sense of this unusual feature.

[4] The Judgemental Narrator in a Diachronic Perspective: νήπιος-Passages from Homer to Nonnus

Anastasia Maravela (Oslo)

In Iliad 2.38 the narrator lays bare Agamemnon’s illusion following the misleading dream sent to him by Zeus that he would capture Troy on that very day: “Foolish man! He was ignorant of what Zeus had contrived.” This is the first of a series of passages that express the Homeric narrator’s evaluation of the characters’ flawed thoughts or actions by means of the strongly judgemental adjective νήπιος. In archaic epic this mode of judgement, employed also by narrators in Hesiodic epic poems (Works and Days, Ehoiae) and amply in character speech, has received plenty of scholarly attention.

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This paper will explore the trajectory and variations of this mode of (mainly) narrato-rial judgement in later Greek epic, more specifically in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica, in Oppianus’ Halieutica, in Triphiodorus’ The Sack of Troy, in Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthome-rica and in Nonnus’ epic production. The question that I will attempt to address is: can cases of ‘deeper’, more specific intertextuality – at narrative and/or phraseological level – be found in later occurrences of the judgemental narrator or is it all about redeploying a characteristic mode of the Homeric narrator?

[5] Heracles from Homer to Nonnus: Narratological Character Analysis in a Diachronic Perspective

Silvio Bär (Oslo)

‘Character’ is a narrative parameter that has, arguably, resisted narratological analysis longer than anything else. As late as 2004, Fotis Jannidis introduced the concept of ‘narratological character analysis’ into narratology, arguing that ‘character’ can be regarded, described and analysed in narratological terms as much as parameters such as narrator-narratee, focalisation, time, space, etc. According to Jannidis, characters are, by default, prototypically organised, featuring human beings at its center, but also including human-like figures such as gods or demons. In this paper, I wish to use the concept of narratological character analysis from a diachronic perspective in order to describe and analyse the appearance of Heracles, the perhaps most multi-faceted hero and demi-god in ancient mythology, in the Homeric epics the Iliad and the Odyssey and, in particular, in later Hellenistic and imperial epic, viz. in Apollo-nius’ Argonautica, Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica, and Nonnus’ Dionysiaca. In essence, it will be argued that each of these epic poems uses the Heracles-figure as a mirror-image of some sorts, each in its very idiosyncratic way, and that narratological character analysis, applied from a diachronic angle, can help us understand these appearances as recurring narra-tive devices that serve, on many occasions, analeptic, proleptic and, above all, metaliterary ends. Jannidis, Fotis. 2004. Figur und Person: Beitrag zu einer historischen Narratologie. Berlin, New York.

[6] “In the Whirl of Dust”: Epic Obituaries from the Archaic to the Late Byzantine Eras

Eric Cullhed & Dimitrios Iordanoglou (Uppsala)

Ever since Jasper Griffin’s (1980) influential study Homer on Life and Death, the short ‘obituary’ has been considered an important Homeric device. Illuminating his heroes’ lives at their moment of death, the poet would use it to express pathos with their fate. Griffin could think of nothing more characteristic or unique of the Iliad, recalling no parallels in the Nibe-lungenlied or Song of Roland (Griffin 1980: 103). Within the Greek epic tradition, however, Griffin left many stones unturned. Departing from the definitions of Tsagalis (2004), we will

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look at the criteria for identifying an obituary and develop categories based on how obituaries are employed by the long succession of Ancient and Medieval Greek epic voices. We will ap-proach the obituaries as meta-narrative asides, diachronically tracing and analysing their form and function from the Iliad to the Byzantine Achilleid, asking what we can learn about the history of Greek epic from looking at its poets looking at death. Studying this historical devel-opment through different cultural and communicative conditions is important, we will argue, insofar as it sheds light on how narrators employ specific modulations of narrative voice in order to engage with cognitive processes and mental states of audiences, instilling norms and cultivating empathy. Griffin, Jasper. 1980. Homer on Life and Death. Oxford. Tsagalis, Christos. 2004. Epic Grief: Personal Laments in Homer’s Iliad. Berlin, New York.

[7] Epic Heroes on a Smaller Scale?

Characterization Strategies in Four Imperial Greek ‘Epyllia’

Berenice Verhelst (Gent) The modern term ‘epyllion’ commonly refers to a narrative poem in hexameters, which is shorter than a full epic. Literary overviews tend to focus on Hellenistic Greek epyllia, con-sidered pioneers of the genre, and the classical Latin tradition, chiefly represented by Catullus’ Poem 64. This rather limited scope resulted in further specifications of the genre as light, unheroic and primarily concerned with love and female characters. The same generic label is, however, also in use for a number of Greek imperial poems: especially Musaeus’ Hero and Leander, but also – although not entirely “fitting the pattern” (Fantuzzi 2004) – Colluthus’ Abduction of Helen and Triphiodorus’ Sack of Troy. The lesser-known Orphic Argonautica is usually regarded too long and – like Triphiodorus’ and Colluthus’ poems – too ‘epic’ in subject matter. But what is ‘epyllion’ but a modern label conceived to subcategorize the shorter specimens of the essentially ‘epic’ genre of hexameter narrative? In this paper, I want to approach the question of genre in these four poems from a dif-ferent perspective. Leaving the modern definitions of epyllion aside, I will look at how genre is reflected on in the poems themselves, and more specifically in the characterization strate-gies used by the narrator. Epyllia are short by definition, but the limited space does not neces-sarily result in stereotypes or flat characterization. Characters are represented that are familiar from the literary and mythological tradition, which allows narrators to present them without introduction, but also to build on and play with the expectations of their narratee regarding the character’s looks and personality by applying a process that I will call ‘re-characterization’. Combining the methodological toolkits of narratology, intertextuality and genre studies, I hope to be able to reveal something of the multi-layered engagement with the literary tradition inherent to this process and, eventually, to give a more nuanced answer to the question of how to situate these four late antique ‘epyllia’(?) on the continuum ‘from Homer to Tzetzes’.

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[8] An Epic Novel and a Novelistic Epic: A Transtextual Approach to Heliodoros’ Aithiopika and Hero and Leander

Ingela Nilsson (Uppsala)

The last of the ancient Greek novels, Heliodoros’ Ethiopian Story (or Theagenes and Charik-leia), by most scholars dated to the late fourth century, has often been described as the most ‘epic’ text of the novelistic genre. The author’s use of Homeric narrative techniques and his explicit references to Homer, “the wise poet” (3.12), makes this work stand out from the other novels, and its epic tone probably contributed to its huge popularity in the Renaissance and the early modern period. A similar popularity was enjoyed by the anonymous hexameter poem Hero and Leander, most likely composed in the second half of the fifth century. But while the Ethiopian Story is described as an ‘epic novel’, Hero and Leander is usually seen as a ‘novelistic epic’, or as an epyllion “between epic and novel”, as was recently argued (Dümmler 2012). While such descriptions of works may not be very useful in themselves, they indicate some sort of generic affinity, in most cases based on narratological similarities and ‘intertextual’ links. In this paper, I should like to approach the two texts from the trans-textual perspective proposed by Gérard Genette (1982). According to Genette, all literature is marked by its textual transcendence: all literary texts are inevitably linked to other texts, and they are linked to each other in different ways. In order to distinguish these different kinds of relationships, Genette made a distinction between five kinds of transtextual relations. This approach seems like an interesting methodological tool for the study of thoroughly estalished genres such as epics, but also for generically undefined or unstable genres such as the novel. Dümmler, Nicola. 2012. “Musaeus, Hero and Leander: Between Epic and Novel.” In: Manuel Baumbach &

Silvio Bär (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Epyllion and Its Reception. Leiden, Boston, 411–446. Genette, Gerard. 1982. Palimpsestes: la littérature au second degré. Paris.

[9] Immorality and Amorality in Tzetzes’ Allegories of the Iliad and Allegories of the Odyssey

Adam J. Goldwyn (North Dakota State University)

“Homer’s pet”, as John Tzetzes calls Odysseus (All.Il.7.32), has been a controversial figure since antiquity, with writers such as Euripides and Pindar condemning him as much as Homer celebrated him. In his Allegories of the Iliad and Allegories of the Odyssey, Tzetzes follows in the tradition of these anti-Odyssean writers, repeatedly excoriating Odysseus for a variety of faults and sins. In so doing, Tzetzes offers a reversal of the moral value not just of this par-ticular Homeric hero, but of the Homeric value system as a whole, thus offering a new heroic ideology to the Constantinopolitan elite who were the work’s primary audience. Narratologists have long recognized that constructing a narrative is itself an ideologi-cal act, and thus a narratological analysis is also an analysis of ideology. Applying this insight, I argue that the way Tzetzes depicts Odysseus – what episodes about him are included or ex-cluded, expanded or commented upon, and from whose perspective they are told – reflects the shift in values between Homer and Tzetzes: the characteristics which made him a hero to Homer made him a villain in the ideological and moral world of the 12th-century grammarian. Using the critical vocabulary provided by de Jong in her commentaries on Homer, I argue that

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though Tzetzes is a faithful follower of Homer’s plot, his position as primary narrator-focalizer causes him to radically transform the rhetoric surrounding the events he narrates; he filters the Homeric Odysseus through his own moral framework, thus also revealing his mo-rality to us.