Reading Homer in the 21st Century

8/9/2019 Reading Homer in the 21st Century

1/27

Reading Homer in the 21st CenturyAuthor(s): Pura Nieto HernándezSource: College Literature, Vol. 34, No. 2, Reading Homer in the 21st Century (Spring, 2007),pp. 29-54Published by: College LiteratureStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25115420 .

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2/27

Reading

Homer

n

he 21st

Century.

Pura Nieto

Hern?ndez

Unlike the

original

audiences that

partic

ipated

in

the oral culture of

the

Greeks,

in

our

day

we

access

the

two

Greek

epic

poems

that

have

come

down

to

us

under the

name of Homer1

through

the act of

reading,

whether

in their

original

language

or

in

modern translations.

The

Homeric

poems

have been transmitted

to

us

and

achieved

their canonical

status

in

our

culture

as

writ

ten

texts,2

but

we

have

reason

to

assume

that

they

are

the result

of

a

long

tradition

of

poet

ry,

developed

in

oral

performance,

and

only

secondarily put

into

writing.

Even

though

it

is

impossible

to

demonstrate

to

everyone's

satisfaction

that the Iliad and the

Odyssey

were

composed

and

initially

transmitted

without

writing,

there

are

characteristics

in

their

style

which

are

best understood and

explained

if these

texts

started

as

oral

compo

sitions.3

The

terms

just

used,

oral

as

opposed

to

written,

and

reception

in

per

formance as

opposed

to

reading,

need

qualification.

First

of

all,

oral

has

very

dif

ferent

meanings

in

English.

It

can,

for

exam

Pura Nieto

Hern?ndez obtained

her Ph.D.

in

Classics

at

the

University

of

Salamanca

(Spain).

She is

currently

a

Lecturer

in

Classics

at

Brown

University


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3/27

30

College

iterature

4.2

[Spring

007]

pie,

when

applied

to

language, simply

mean

spoken.

Now,

there is

a

com

mon awareness

that,

when

we

speak,

even

in

the

most

formal

situations,

we

use

language

in

a

way that

is

clearly different from the way

in

which

we

write. In

this

sense,

then,

as means

of

communication,

oral

can

be taken

as

the

opposite

of

written.

But

in

our

culture,

as

E.

J.

Bakker

puts

it

either

medium

. .

.

speech

or

writing,

comes

with its

own

set

of

associations,

even

its

own

mentality.

In

this

regard,

we

could understand oral

as

the

concep

tion

that underlies

a

discourse,

and

oppose

it

not to

written

but

to

literate

(2005,39).

Even

today,

in

our

heavily

literate

culture,

most

linguistic

situations lie

at

some

point

or

other

on

the

continuum between

the

two

extremes

repre

sented

by

oral and literate. In

addition,

as Bakker

notes,

we endow the

terms

oral and literate with cultural

value

and

we

tend

to

consider

texts

that

are

oral

as

to

their

conception

as

crude

or

primitive

...

or,

in

another

context,

as

'archaic'

simply

because

we use our own sense

and

conception

of

writing

as a

norm

(2005, 42).

All this becomes

particularly

relevant

when

dealing

with

poetry,

and

particularly

Homeric

poetry,

since

we are

evaluat

ing

a

discourse

that

was

never

meant to

be

read

but

was

produced

only

as

speech

from

the

perspective

of

our

norm,

which

is

literate,

not

oral.

In

sum,

we

speak of oral poetry

as

something else, different from

our

cultur

al

norm,

that

is,

literate

poetry.

But

in

a

society

without

any

use

of

writing

in

which

poets

might

compose

poetry,

they

would

be

simply

poets,

not

oral

poets,

in the

absence

of

literate

poets

to

whom

they

could

be

con

trasted.

The

same

could

be

said

of oral

composition,

or

oral

style,

whose

existence

makes

sense

only

in

contraposition

to

a

literate

style.

Concerning

Homer,

for

years

a

battle has been

going

on

between

hard

oralists

(who

exclude

the intervention of

writing

at

any

moment

of the

composition,

performance

or

transmission

of

the

poems)

and those

who

defend the idea that these

poems

were

composed

with the

help

of

writing.

But

numerous

studies

on

the

workings

of traditional oral

poetry

as

well

as

of

ordinary spoken

language

have

helped

us

understand

the

concepts

oral and

written

not

as

mutually

exclusive,

but

in

a more

flexible,

open

way.

In

the

Greek archaic

period

writing

must

have been

so

different from

our own

con

ception

of

writing

that

the

dichotomy

between

orality

and

literacy

again

breaks down

(Bakker

2005,45).

Although

the

Homeric

poems

were

put

into

writing,

and have been

transmitted

to

us

in

that

form

(that

is,

they

have been

textualized ),4

we

should bear inmind, when

we

read them, that they

retain

many

traits

revealing

their

origin

as

spoken

language.5

We

should

not

simply

transfer

onto

this

kind

of

discourse

our

conceptions

of

poetry

or

style

that has

developed

within

a

quite

different

conception

of

the

use

of

language,

that

is,

a

literate

one.




4/27

Pura

Nieto

Hern?ndez

31

Since

terms

such

as

formula,

ringcomposition, typical

scenes

(all

of

which involve

repetition

at

some

level),6

or

parataxis

and additive

syntax

(which suggest

a

kind of staccato

at

the syntactical level),

are

commonly used

to

characterize

the oral

style

of

Homer,

it

is

not

otiose

to

include here

some

thoughts

on

these notions.The

groundbreaking

work of Milman

Parry

and

his

disciple

Albert

Lord,

which

inaugurated

the

field

of

oral

poetry,

concentrated

initially

on

the

study

of

the formula. 7

High

formulaic densi

ty

in

a

text

became

the decisive

criterion

for

considering

it

oral

or

not.8

It

is

true

that oral

texts

make

use

of formulae

in

a

way

that

literate

texts

do

not,

but

from the

time

of

Parry's

work the

concept

has been

expanded

and

re-defined,

often

according

to

different

evolving

trends and models

in

the

field of

linguistics.9

Linguists

in their

analysis

of

language

have found and

defined

a

series

of basic

units

such

as

word

or

sentence.

The

formulae

we

find

in

oral

poetry

fall

somewhere

between these

units:

they

are more

than

a

word but less

than

a

sentence.

In

spoken

discourse

in

any

language

there is

another unit

that

seems to

be

more

relevant

than

either

the

word

or

the

sen

tence:

it is

variously

called tone

group

or

intonation

unit.

It

isWallace

Chafe's achievement

to

have

paid

due attention

to

these

intonation

units

and

Egbert

Bakker's

to

have

applied

Chafe's research

to

Homeric

poetry.10

Intonation units

are

usually four

to

seven

words long, they

can

constitute

a

complete

syntactical

unit

or

need

some

complementation

to

make

sense

syn

tactically,

and

in

spoken language they

are

marked

by

intonation

boundaries

and, often,

by

pauses.

Although

intonation units

are

universal

properties

of

ordinary speech, they

can

be

stylized

into

metrical

properties

in

special,

poet

ical

speech.

In

other

words,

the

formulae

of

poetical language

coincide with

the intonation units of

spoken language.

They

are,

then,

not

so

much

a

characteristic feature of

an

oral

style

as

a

property

of

spoken

language

in

general.

The

same

can

be

said

concerning

Homeric

syntax.

The famous

Homeric

parataxis

or additive

style

is better understood ifwe

compare

it to

the

way

our own

syntax

is

produced

in

speech.

For

example,

an

expression

such

as

that

boy,

who

came

this

morning,

I

gave

him

the letter is

very

fre

quent

in

spoken language,

but would be

unacceptable

when

written. Instead

we

would write

I

gave

the letter

to

the

boy

who

came

this

morning.

Homeric

syntax

seems

also

to

operate

in

accord

with

the

parameters

of

speech

more

than the

norms

of written

language.

We

can

ascertain this

prop

erty

by

comparing

a

Homeric

passage

in

a

conventional

translation

to

the

effect of

the

movement

of

the

syntax

in the

original, preserved

as

much

as

possible

in,

for

example,

Bakker's

rendering

of Iliad XXIV. 391-93:

him

in

the battle

that

gives

men

kudos,

very

often

with

my eyes

I

have

seen

him,

also when

drawing

close

to

the

ships




5/27

32

College

iterature4.2

[Spring

007]

he would

kill

the

Argives, lacerating

them

with

sharp

bronze.

(Bakker

2005,

31)

Here is Lattimore's rather literal version:

whom

many

a

time

my

eyes

have

seen

in the

fighting

where

men

win

glory,

as

also

on

that

time

when he

drove back

the

Argives

on

their

ships

and

kept killing

them

on

the stroke

of

the

sharp

bronze.

And

here

an even

freer

and

more

literate

rendering by Fitzgerald:

Never surmise

I

have

not

seen

him

with

my

very eyes,

and often, on the field. I saw him chase

Argives

with

carnage

to

their

own

shipways

.. .

We

can

appreciate

that

the

flow of

language

in

the

original

is

much

closer

to

the

way

we

all

speak

than

to

the

perfectly

balanced

sentences

we

tend

to

use

in

writing.

Thus far

I

have

attempted

to

convey

to

a

Greekless

reader

some sense

of

what Homer's

language

is

like and how

it

works. The

experience

of

reading

Homer in

Greek

is

an

intense

one:

the richness

of

the

language

at

all

levels,

its directness, the precision of words and constructions, the repetition of for

mulae

and formulaic elements

or even

of

whole

verses,

itsmetrical

nature,

all

these elements contribute

to

rendering

Homeric

language

a

very

peculiar,

idiosyncratic,

form of

Greek.

These

particularities

of Homeric

language,

of

course,

get

for the

most

part

lost

even

in

the excellent translations available.

But

even

deprived

of

these

fundamental

features,

transformed

into

other

words

and

adapted

to

other

cultural

contexts,

the Iliad

and the

Odyssey

are

still

immensely

attractive.

As

a

reader who has

spent

much time with the

Homeric

texts

in their

Greek

original,

I

have

often

wondered about

the

power

they

exert on Greekless

readers,

which I

experience

every

year

with

diverse

groups

of

students who

read

the

poems

in

English.

How

is

it

possible

to

capture

fully

the

joy

of

Homer

when read

in

translation?

Why

do

people

without

a

background

in

classical culture

or

languages

enjoy

reading

these

works? What do these

poems

have that make them

so

universal,

and

so

appeal

ing

even

when rendered

in

another

language?

What do

their

stories

have that

can

be transmitted

and which touches readers

beyond

the

language

itself?

The Iliad and the

Odyssey

as

texts

are

quite demanding

for

their

public.

When we start reading both poems we face a series of characters, both divine

and

human,

about whom

practically

nothing

is

said:

no

formal

presentation,

no

true

introduction

is

given.

We

can

extract

some

information about the

characters

from

other

speakers

in

the

text,

from

the situations

in

which

they

are

placed,

and also from the

epithets

and

patronymics

that

often

accompany




6/27

Pura

NietoHern?ndez

33

their

names.

Thus,

for

example,

the

first

verse

of the Iliad

mentions

Achilles,

of whom

we are

told

his

wrath

is

the

subject

of

the

poem

and

that

he is the

son

of Peleus. Nothing else. A few lines later, when Agamemnon is

men

tioned

for the first

time

(1.7),

his

name

is

not

even

given:

the

son

of

Atreus,

lord

of men.

The

same

happens

with

the

introduction

of

the first

divine

character,

Apollo.

He is

presented

only

as

the

son

of

Leto

and

Zeus.

The

text

assumes

in

the

reader

or

listener

of this

poetry

a

lot of

previous

knowledge,

a

knowledge

that

must

necessarily

be shared

by

the

poet

and his

public.11

Obviously,

in

the

context

of

Greek

culture the

ancestry

of

Apollo

was

well

known.

Even

today,

with

a

very

limited, basic,

knowledge

of

mythology

it

is

perfectly possible

to

follow

the

main narrative

line

of

both

poems

without

too much trouble. But the Homeric

poems

are much more than their basic

storylines.

The

main

actions of the Iliad and

Odyssey

are,

in

fact,

set

against

the

background

of

a

much

larger

mass

of stories

involving

the human and

divine characters

that

figure

in

the

poems.

In

fact,

one

of the

surprising

fea

tures

of this

poetry

for

a

first-time reader

is

the

richness and

density

of

its

contents,

the fact

that

one

needs

to

read and re-read the

texts

to

appreciate

all that

is

going

on

within their lines and

to reconstruct

all

the

information

that

is

either

assumed

or

indirectly

alluded

to.

Both

poems present many

sec

ondary plots that involve

the main

characters and hundreds of minor char

acters

with

their lives

and

stories. Some

of

these

stories

are

clearly

expound

ed

by

the

characters

or

the

poet,

and

constitute

what

we

could call

para

narratives ;12

at

other

times,

though,

there

are

only

obscure

allusions,

scat

tered

throughout

the

text,

and

it is

very

difficult

to

reconstruct

the

full

story

just

from the

text

of Homer

alone.

In

these

cases

it

is

quite

obvious that the

poems

assume a

lot

of

information

as

well-known

by

the

public,

so

that

no

further

explanation

is

needed.

If

we

limit

ourselves

to

reading

and

explaining

Homer from

Homer,

following

the

principle

favored

by

the Hellenistic scholar

Aristarchus,13

it is

still

possible

to

enjoy

the

poems

as

self-standing

works of

art,

fully satisfying

even

without the

support

of

a

lot

of

external

information.14 The

many

lev

els

at

which

the

poems

develop

their

narrative

plots

are

sufficient

in

them

selves

to

achieve

two

fundamental

goals:

1)

to

produce

a

basic coherence

in

the tale:

the

narrative,

all

in

all,

makes

sense,

is

a

whole.

2)

to

accumulate

a

sufficient richness of

elements,

levels,

contrasts,

parallels,

etc.,

to

keep

the

interest

and the

attention

of

the

readers

or

listeners. And

yet,

a

reader

who

participates

as

fully

as

possible

in

the

cultural ambience

that lies

behind all

the

secondary

narratives

presented

in

the

poems

will

gain

a

much

deeper

appreciation

of them. These

secondary

stories

are,

as

Alden

puts

it

relevant

in

some

way

either

to

the

interpretation

of

their

immediate

context

or

to

that of the

main

narrative,

or

to

both

(2000,1).

Often the

relevance of

these




7/27

34

College

iterature4.2

[Spring

007]

stories is

ambiguous,

since

the

narrator

presents

them

as

simply

the

point

of

view

of

the

character who tells the

story.

When the tale of

Agamemnon's

unfortunate return home is told in the Odyssey, it certainly creates suspense

about

Odysseus's

behavior

and the

outcome

of

his

trip.

But

it

is also

impor

tant

to

bear

in

mind how

the

story

is

told,

by

whom,

to

whom,

and

under

which

circumstances

(as

Olson

1990

showed).

Homeric

poetry

was

not

born

in

a

vacuum,

but

rather

in

the medium

of

the

rich and

highly developed

Greek culture

of

the

end of

the so-called

Dark

Age

and

the

beginning

of the Archaic

Age. 15

In

the cultural ambi

ence

that

produced

the

Homeric

poems

there

was a

large

mass

of folk

tradi

tions,

legends,

tales,

and indeed other

poems,

epic

poems

that

unfortunately

are

now

lost

to

us

but

about

which

we can

still know

something through

fragments

and

notices

in later

authors.

Besides the

major

episode

of

the

Trojan

War

that

produced

a

full

cycle

of

poetry

to

which Iliad

and

Odyssey

belong,

other

major mythical

events

were

also recounted

in

poems,

sto

ries

and

cycles

of

poetry.

Thus,

the

set

of

legends

centered

on

the

city

of

Thebes

and

the

story

of

Oedipus

and

his

family

were

the

subject

of

poems

such

as

the

Oedipodeia,

the

Thebais

and the

Epigoni;

several other

poems

dealt

with

Heracles and his

exploits.16

The

subset

of

these

poems

which

dealt with the Trojan War became known in the tradition collectively as the

Epic Cycle.

We

only

have

scant

fragments

from this

cycle,

but

are

informed

about

its

contents.17

Although highly

selective

in

regard

to

its

contents,

the

Homeric

tradi

tion

was

not

isolated from that

mass

of

cultural

elements and

poetry,

but

rather embedded

in

it,

and

preserves

traces

of

these

other

collateral traditions

and

poems.18

The

problem,

of

course,

is

to

determine what kind of relation

ship

exited between

the

Homeric

poems

and those other

works,

and

more

precisely

between

the Homeric

poems

and

the

poems

of

the

Epic

Cycle.19

Was the

Epic

Cycle

modelled on

Homer,

or the reverse? The first

problem

we

meet

in

trying

to

answer

this

question

is

that the

dating

of the

Cycle

remains

uncertain.20

Even

if

we

admit

(as

I

think

we

should)

that these

were

oral

poems

before

they

were

put

into

writing,

and

that

they

were

coeval

with

the

Homeric

poems,

comparison

between them

is

still

difficult,

given

that

we

only

possess

bare resumes of

their

plots

and

some

isolated

lines.

The school of

criticism

that has taken Homer's

connection

to

the

Epic

Cycle

most

seriously

and

explored

its

possibilities

in

depth

is

Neo-analysis.

Burgess provides a good definition of the purpose and method of the school:

In

more

general

terms

neoanalysis

can

be

described

as a

willingness

to

explore

the influence of

pre-Homeric

material

on

the

Homeric

poems.

In

this

respect

theories

concerning

the effect of folktales

or

Near Eastern

motifson the

Homeric

poems

are

comparable.

But

neoanalysis

has been




8/27

PuraNietoHern?ndez

35

especially

concerned with the

pre-Homeric

tradition of the

Trojan

War

as

it

is

represented

by

the

Epic Cycle.

Because the

Iliad and

Odyssey

often

con

tain

direct references

to

such

a

tradition,

neoanalysts

propose

that

there

are

also indirect reflections

of this

Cyclic

tradition within the

Homeric

poems.

(Burgess

2001,

62)

Neo-analysis

has

attempted

to

demonstrate the

strict

d?pendance

of

certain

Homeric

passages

on

poems

of

the

Cycle.

Although

the

achievements of this

school

should

not

be dismissed

out

of

hand,

its

conclusions

have

not

been

accepted by

oralists,

since,

following

Parry

and

Lord,

they

believe

this

type

of

allusion

to

be

impossible

in

oral

traditions.21

The

question,

then,

remains: is Homer

alluding

to

poems

that

had

an

existence as texts, or simply using in particular ways the richness of the oral

tradition

of which those other

poems

also

were a

part.

As

one

commentator

puts

it:

There

is

no

way

of

telling

...

whether

Homer

refers here

to common

sto

ries

or

particular

poems.

The

number

of

these

references,

however,

does

show his

concern

to

place

his

own

work

in

a

context

of

other

epics

and

to

give

it

a

sense

of

reaching

out to

the

rest

of the

legendary

world.

(Dowden

1996,

52)

We should

at

this point go back

to

the notion of text and

its

value when

applied

to

the Homeric

poems.

Dowden

explains:

By

the word text

I

refer

to

a

fixed

poem.

...

A

narrative

may

indeed

become such

a

text

thanks

to

writing,

but

only

because

writing

fixes

it,

not

because there

is

something special

about

writing.

It is

perfectly possible

to

have

a

fixed

(memorized)

text

in

an

oral

tradition,

and

Nagy, noting

the

archaic accentuation

preserved

by

rhapsodes,

has

argued

that

Homer's

own

text

is

a case

in

point,

preserved

fixed

in

an

oral tradition. Between

the

two

extremes

of

total

fixity

and

utter

fluidity

lie

various

levels

of

semi-fixity.

.

. .

Amongst these

.

.

.

lies a firm and standard sense of how the story goes

(Procloss

summaries

of the

poems

of

the

Cyclic

epics

may

serve as a

model

for

this). (Dowden

1996,

47)22

In

regard

to

the

Iliad,

Dowden

notes

that

the author of the

poem

must

have

had

a sense

of his

own

text.

We

cannot

doubt that the

making

of such

a

poem

requires

a

good

deal of

planning

and

careful

preparation

of

events

in

the

nar

rative,

but

one

may

observe here that

a

Faktenkanon

or

fixed

order

of

events

and

a

full

poem

such

as our

Iliad

are

two

very

different

things.

And

precise

ly

one

of the

problems

that

we

face

in

comparing

Homer

with the

poems

of

the

Cycle

is

that

we

have

only

a

list of

the

events

narrated

in

the

poems,

but

not

those

poems

themselves,

except

for

some

scant

fragments.

Although

it is

common

to

refer

to

the

poems

of

the

Epic

Cycle

collectively,

as

if

they

were

uniform

and

together

constituted

some

kind

of

unity,

the

truth is far from




9/27

36

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Literature4.2

[Spring

007]

this.

The

Cycle

comprises

works that

are

very

different from

each

other

in

subject-matter,

quality, length,

etc.,

works that

were

probably composed

at

different

times,

and

each of them

bears its

own

particular relationship

to

Homer.23

The

situation,

then,

is

as

follows:

1)

The

texts

of the Homeric

poems

fre

quently

allude

to events

or

characters that

are

only

marginal

in

the Iliad

or

the

Odyssey

but

which,

aswe

know

from

other

sources,

had been much

more

developed

in

cyclic

poems.

2)

Although

we can

read the Homeric

poems

without

catching

every

allusion,

our

comprehension

of

certain

concrete

pas

sages,

and,

in

general,

of the

poems

is

considerably

richer

to

the

extent

that

we

do.

3)

We

do

not

know

whether

these

references

are

to concrete

texts,

or

even

passages

of

texts,

or

simply

evocations of common motifs of the tradi

tion

concerning

the

capture

of

Troy

set

of

legends.

The

problem

is,

then,

to

find

an

answer

to

two

questions:

in

Homer,

how

is

a

reference made

to

a

specific

item

which

lies outside

the

text

and

which the

singer

presumes

the

recipient

will

understand? And how

is

the

text

thereby

enriched

with

addi

tional

meaning?

(Danek

2002,

5).

The

subject-matter

of

Homeric

poetry

is

constituted

by

what

we

call

myths.

In

regard

to

this

concept

we

should

always

bear in

mind

that

myth

is

not

an

indigenous Greek category, but rather

a

practical way for

us

to

designate

a

complex

of

information about

the Greeks'

own

past

created

and transmitted from

generation

to

generation

and

which consists

of

a

mix

ture

of elements that

we

would

label

variously

as

historical,

legendary,

religious,

ethnographic,

scientific,

etc.

We

may

understand

myths

to

work in

a

similar

way

to

what

cognitive

scientists

have

described

as

scripts :

A

script

is

a

predetermined,

stereotyped

sequence

of

actions that

defines

a

well-known

situation

(Schank

and

Ableson

1977,

41,

ctd.

in

Rubin

1995,

24).

Thus,

for

example,

a

statement

such as: Richard went into a restaurant;

they

did not have fish is

perfectly

understandable;

the

same

is

true

of

Michael

visited his

doctor;

he

ordered

some

blood

tests.

A

statement

however,

such

as

Richard

went

into

a

restau

rant;

he ordered

some

blood

tests

is,

to

say

the

least,

surprising,

and,

in

prin

ciple,

does

not

make

a

lot of

sense.

The

actions

of the

first

parts

of

these

two

statements

evoke

other

actions and

objects

that

are

assumed

by

the

listener,

even

if

they

are

not

explicit.

A

second

property

of

scripts

is

that

members of

a

culture have

considerable

knowledge

about

the

kinds

of

routine activities

that

scripts describe,

and

they

can use

this

knowledge

to

make inferences

and

set

expectations

(Rubin

1995,

24).

With

myths

and the

stories

of

mythical

characters

something

similar

happens.

For

example,

the

mention

of Achilles

in

Iliad

1.1

as son

of

Peleus

evokes

at

a

certain

level

also

his

mother Thetis

and

their

wedding

and

problematic

union,

at

least for

participants

in

the

cul




10/27


11/27

38

College

Literature4.2

[Spring

007]

Epic

poetry

was,

thus,

a

most

important

vehicle for the

transmission

of

all this cultural

baggage.

Each

performance

reenacted

stories of the

past,

which

were

presented

and

taken

as

truth.

Homeric

poets

hide themselves

behind

their

text.

Poetry

is

not

viewed

in this

tradition

as

the

product

of the

poet's

own

creativity

as

much

as a

reproduction

of

knowledge kept by

the

Muses.

The

conservative

character

of

epic

language

and

the transfer of

authority

over

the

text

to

the

Muses

are

fundamental factors

in

maintaining

the illusion

that all

performances

are

identical,

since

they

all

express

the truth

about

the heroes

of

the

past.

In

addition,

audiences

were

familiar with

the

main characters and their basic

stories

and,

in

particular,

with

the

chrono

logical

order of

events

in

those

stories;

they

could, therefore,

ratify

the

truth

of the tale.27 All this made

epic

poetry

an

important

factor of social cohe

sion.

If all

performances

are

assumed

to

be the

same,

if

repetition

creates

tra

ditional

referentiality,

which in

turn

creates

meaning,

then

variation,

when it

happens,

is

especially

relevant.

Here

we

observe

again

a

basic

principle

of

Homeric

composition:

meaning

is

created

through

variation

within

repeti

tion

(Scodel

2004,

49).

Thus

Foley

writes,

The

art

of the

Iliad

and

Odyssey

stems

neither

solely

from

the

uniqueness

of the instance

nor

solely

from

its

traditional

meaning,

but

rather

from

their

interaction

(1999,

7).

We

tend

to

consider

the Iliad and

Odyssey

as

the

most

traditional

exam

ples

of

Greek

epic

poetry,

and look

at

the remains

of

the

rest

(such

as

the

poems

of

the

Epic

Cycle

mentioned

before)

as

being

poorer

stuff28

But

it is

extremely

difficult

to

make

strong pronouncements

on

the

nature

and

artis

tic

quality

of those

other

poems,

since

we

have them

in

such

fragmentary

form.

There

are,

though,

certain

reasons

to

believe that the other

poems

were

rather

the

norm,

whereas

Iliad

and

Odyssey

were

highly

innovative and raised

the

tradition

to

another

level.29

To

begin

with,

both Homeric

poems

are

very

ambitious

in their

con

tents, much more than what we know of the rest of the

epic

tradition, and

not

only

by

the sheer

amount

of information

included

in

them,

but also

by

the

way

in

which

this

information

gets

organized.

Instead

of

presenting

a

lin

ear

succession

of

several

major

events

developed

in

so

many

consecutive

actions

(as

the

poems

of the

Cycle

seem to

have

done),

the Iliad and

Odyssey

concentrate

their

plots

on one

single

action

(the

quarrel

of

Agamemnon

and

Achilles for the

Iliad,

the

return

of

Odysseus

in the

Odyssey).30

In

addition,

the

actions of

the

Iliad and

Odyssey

are

only

minor

episodes

in

the whole

pic

ture

of

the

Trojan

War

and

its

aftermath.

And

yet, although they

are

much

more

limited and

specific

in

their

plots,

they

are

at

the

same

time

far

more

ambitious

in their

scope

and

their

temporal

dimension.

Thus,

even

if

the

Iliad

presents

its

subject

as

the

wrath

of Achilles

(just

one

episode

among

many

in

the

larger

story

of

the

fall of

Troy

at

Achaean

hands),

and

its

whole action




12/27

PuraNieto

Hern?ndez

39

lasts

for

only

ten

days,

the

poem

in effect relates the

ten

years

of the

war

through

allusions

to

past

events

and

projections

of

future

ones.

The

Odyssey,

too, although

in

principle

a

poem

about the difficult

return

home

of

Odysseus

after the

war,

is

far-reaching

in

telling

us

the

stories

of

many

other

heroes who

fought

at

Troy.

This kind of

all-embracing

scope

within

a

single

action

seems

to

have

been

a

Homeric

innovation;

the

poems

of the

Cycle,

in

what

we

know

of

them,

were

more

Hrnited.

In

this

sense

at

least the

Homeric

poems

must

have

constituted

novelties,

very

much

appreciated

by

their audi

ences.

Telemachus himself

in

the

Odyssey

expresses

as a

matter

of fact the

preference

of

the

public

for

the

newest

song.31

This

is

his

response

to

Penelope's

request

that Phemius

stop

singing

the

Return

of the

Achaeans.

Since this

passage

is

placed

at the

very

beginning

of the

Odyssey,

Telemachus's

statement

seems

programmatic.

Phemius

s

audience

enjoys

his

song

because,

as

Telemachus

says,

it is

new.

But

the audience of the

Oydssey

is

hearing

even

a newer

song,

a

song

in

which Phemius's

poem

is

already

part

of

the

past.32

And thus the

Odyssey,

a

poem

that seeks

to

become the

Return

Song

par

excellence

and

presents

itself

as

the

final

poem

of

the

aftermath

of

Troy,

embraces

all

major

events

at

the

end of

the

war,

and

all

other

possible

Return

Songs :

we

hear about the death

of

Achilles,

the

Trojan

Horse,

the

destiny

of

Ajax,

the

safe

return

of

Nestor and

Menelaus,

and the

unfortunate

end of

Agamemnon. Through

this

sort

of

ambitious

scope,

the

Odyssey,

a

deeply

self-conscious

narrative,

places

itself

as

the

final word

on

the

Troy

tradition,

and

plays

off

the

Iliad and

several

poems

of the

Epic Cycle

(Aethiopis,

Hias

Miera,

Ilioupersis).

The

treatment

of

the

temporal

dimension

in

the

poems

is

very

much

connected

to

their ambitious

scope.33

Among

the

elements

that

are

often

taken

for

granted

in

the Iliad and

Odyssey,

and

therefore

need

not

be

explained

in

detail,

are

many

events

of the

past,

but

also of the

future. Past

and future are here used as relative terms in

regard

to the time of the main

narrative

of the

poems.34

Homeric

characters,

both

men

and

gods,

are

his

torical:

they

have

a

past,

a

present,

and

a

future.

Stories from

the

past

come

up

here

and

there

through

the

text.

Some

are

of

little

immediate

importance

for

the

main

plot,

and

serve

mainly

for

characterization and

individualiza

tion,

for

example,

the

biographical

vignettes

that

reflect

the

origins

and

life

at-home of

many

minor

warriors,

which the

poet

introduces

at

the

moment

of their

deaths.

Any

one

of these

episodes

has

very

little

bearing

on

the

action

of

the

Iliad,

and

yet,

taken

together, they

contribute

greatly

to

making

the

Iliad

what

it is:

not

only

the

poem

of

the

quarrel

between

Agamemnon

and

Achilles,

but also

the

poem

of the

Trojan

War. The

descriptions

of

these men's

previous

histories,

of

their time

at

home

before

the

war,

introduce

another

world

into

the

poem

that

contrasts

strongly

with the

main

narrative of

bat




13/27

40

College

iterature

4.2

[Spring

007]

ties.

They

are

also

a

way

for the

poet

to

arouse

pathos:

these

warriors

are

not

just

numbers,

or

simple

names

in

a

list,

but

men

who

had

a

history

and

a

fife

that is

now

lost.35 They follow

a

traditional pattern and show many

common

elements,

whereas,

at

the

same

time,

they

present

original

combinations

of

those elements and

may

be

just

created

ad

hoc,

to

fit

a

concrete

passage.36

They

show

variation

in

length

too;

sometimes

they

are

just

a

few

words,

or

a

single

verse;

other

times,

they

constitute

a

full tableau.

Contrast,

for

exam

ple,

The lord

of

men,

Agamemnon,

brought

death

to

Elatos/

whose home

had been

on

the shores of

Satnioeis'

lovely

waters,

/sheer Pedasos

(VI.

34

35)37

with the

following

two

passages:

Diomedes of

the

great

war

cry

cut

down

Axylos,/

Teuthras'

son,

who

had

been

a

dweller

in

strong-founded

Arisbe,/

a man

rich

in substance and

a

friend

to

all

humanity/

since

in his

house

by

the

wayside

he

entertained

all

comers./

Yet

there

was none

of these

now

to

stand

before

him and

keep

off/

the

sad

destruction,

and Diomedes

stripped

life

from

both of

them,

Axylos

and his

henchman Kalesios....

(IliadVl. 12-18)

[Euryalos]

went

in

pursuit

of

Aisepos

and

Pedasos,

those whom the

naiad/

nymph

Abarbare had born

to

blameless Boukolion.

/

Boukolion himself

was

the

son

of

haughty

Laomedon,

/

eldest

born,

but his

mother

conceived

him in darkness and secrecy. /While shepherding his flocks he laywith the

nymph

and

lover

her,

/ and she

conceiving

bore him

twin

boys.

But

now

Mekistios'

son

unstrung

the

strength

of these and the limbs

in

their

glory,

/

Euryalos,

and

stripped

the

armour

away

from

their

shoulders.

(Iliad

VI.

21-28)

On

other

occasions,

though,

the stories

from

the

past

do

not seem

to

have been

created ad

hoc,

but

rather

to

be

fully

traditional. Often

they

are

simply

alluded

to

and

no

details

are

given,

which

seems

to

imply

the audi

ence's

familiarity

with

them.

In

addition,

they

are

normally

much

more

important

for the

development

of the

plot.

In this

category

we could

place

histories

of the

Homeric

gods.

We

have

a

paradigmatic

case

in

Thetis's

sup

plication

to

Zeus

on

behalf

of her

son

Achilles that will result

in

the

famous

Zeus's

will

or

design,

which

is the

motor

of

the Iliadic

plot.

As

Achilles

explicitly

mentions when

requesting

her

intervention,

she

is in

a

position

to

ask Zeus's

help

on

his

behalf,

since she

had

done

a

big

favor

for Zeus in the

past,

and the

god

is

therefore

indebted

to

her.

Thetis,

summoning

the

Hundred-handed

Briareos,

had

liberated

Zeus

when

Hera,

Poseidon,

and

Athena (note that they

are

all pro-Achaean gods in the war) had tried to bind

him

(1.395-407).The goddess, though,

when

addressing

Zeus

directly,

uses

a

much

more

vague

formulation:

if

ever

before

in word

or

action

/

I

did

you

favor

among

the

immortals

(1.503-04)

which

falls within

the

traditional

pat




14/27

PuraNietoHern?ndez

41

tern

for the

beginning

of

a

prayer.38

We

cannot

be

sure

that

without

the

exis

tence

of

such debt

Thetis would have felt confident

of

securing

Zeus's

help.

The tension between Zeus and his brother Poseidon in the Iliad offers

another

case

in

which what

happened

in

the

past

is

meaningful

for

the

pres

ent.

Poseidon

conspires against

his

brother whenever

possible.

We

have

just

mentioned the

conspiracy

of

Hera,

Athena and Poseidon evoked

in

1.395

407.

InVII.446

Poseidon

complains

to

Zeus

about the wall the

Achaeans

are

building.

In

VIII.201-07

Hera

proposes

to

him

a new

conspiracy;

but

here

Poseidon refuses

to

join

in. In

book

XIV

Poseidon

joins

forces with

Hera

to

deceive

Zeus;

Hera

makes

love with

Zeus in

order

to

put

him

to

sleep,

and

Poseidon takes the

opportunity

to

fight

on

behalf of the Achaeans

(352

ff.),

leading

the attack himself

(384).

Zeus's instructions to Iris

when,

in the next

book,

she is

dispatched

to

stop

Poseidon from

fighting,

show

again

the

rival

ry

between

the

brothers,

since I

say

I

am

far

greater

than

he

is

/

in

strength,

and

elder

born;

yet

his inward heart shrinks

not

from

calling

himself

the

equal

of

me,

though

others shudder before me

(XV. 165-67).

Poseidon,

in

his

reply

to

Zeus's

message,

affirms his

equality

with

his

brother,

invoking

the

distribution of

powers among

the three

sons

of

Cronus,

No,

no.

Great

though

he

is,

this that

he

has

said is

too

much

if he will force me

against

my

will,

me,

who am his

equal

in

rank.

Since

we are

three

brothers

born

by

Rheia

to

Kronos,

Zeus,

and

I,

and

the third is

Hades,

lord of the

dead

men.

All

was

divided

among

us

three

ways,

each

given

his

domain.

I

when

the lots

were

shaken drew the

grey

sea

to

live

in

forever;

Hades

drew

the lot of

the

mists

and the

darkness,

and

Zeus

was

allotted

the wide

sky,

in the

cloud

and

the

bright

air.

But earth and

high

Olympos

are common to all three. Therefore

I

am no

part

of

the mind of Zeus.

Let him

in

tranquillity

and

powerful

as

he is

stay

satisfied with his third

share.

And let him

absolutely

stop

frightening

me,

as

if

I

were

mean,

with his

hands.

(Iliad

XV185-99)

The

issue

of Zeus's

supremacy

and the

distribution of

power

among

the

sons

of

Cronus,

which

is

behind the

rivalry

of

the

brothers,

is

mentioned

in

another

passage,

this

time

by

the

poet

himself,

who

explicitly opposes

one

brother

to

the

other;

Two

powerful

sons

of

Cronos,

hearts

divided

against

each

other,

were

wreaking

bitter

agonies

on

the

fighting

warriors

(XIII.345-56)

and

Indeed,

the

two

were

of

one

generation

and

a

single

father,

but

Zeus

was

the

elder born and

knew

more

(XIII.354-55).




15/27

42

College

Literature4.2

[Spring

007]

Therefore,

when

in

XXI.441-57 Poseidon mentions

his

time

as

a

servant to

Laomedon

in

Troy,

one

cannot

fail

to

perceive again

his

resentment

against

Zeus,

who

punished

him

by

means

ofthat servitude.

But

human

characters

too

have

events

in their

past

that

turn out

to

be

crucial for the

main

plot

of the

poem.

At several

points

in

the

poem,

for

example,

different characters

evoke

moments

of the

past

in which

the

Trojans

showed

themselves

as

treacherous and unable

to

keep

their

word.

Thus,

at

V.648-51

Sarpedon

mentions

the

treatment

of Heracles

by king

Laomedon.

Laomedon had enrolled

Heracles

s

help

and

promised

to

give

him

horses

in

payment

for

ridding

Troy

of

a

sea

monster

that

was

attacking

their

coast.

But

Laomedon

never

fulfilled his

promise,

and,

as

Sarpedon

puts

it:

he

(sc.

Heracles)

did

destroy

Ilion the sacred /

through

the senselessness of one man,

the

haughty

Laomedon,

who

gave

Heracles

an

evil word

for

good

treat

ment. 39

Later

on,

we

read

that

Laomedon treated

even

Poseidon and

Apollo

the

same

way.

Poseidon,

in

a

reproachful

address

to

Apollo,

recalls the

event:

the

two

gods

served

king

Laomedon for

one

full

year,

Poseidon

building

a

wall

that

would

make the

city

impregnable, Apollo

shepherding

his

flocks.40

But when the

changing

seasons

brought

on

the time

for

our

labour

/

to

be

paid,

then

headstrong

Laomedon violated

and

made void /

all

our

hire,

and

sent

us

away,

and

sent

threats after us

(XXI.441-57).

Indeed

Laomedon wanted

to

sell the

gods

as

slaves. Laomedon's

complete

disregard

for

elementary

norms

of

reciprocity

constitutes

a

precedent

for

Paris-Alexander's

betrayal

of Menelaos's

hospitality,

the

reason

why

Greeks

and

Trojans

are at

war.

Poseidon's

intention in

this

speech

is

not to

let

Apollo

forget

the

way

they

were

treated

by

the

Trojan

king.

The

situation

brings

to

mind

a

similar

address,

earlier

on

in

the

poem,

by Agamemnon

to

Menelaos.

When

Menelaos

is

on

the

point

of

sparing

the

life

of

the

Trojan

Adrestos

in

exchange

for ransom, Agamemnon rebukes him: Dear brother, O Menelaos,

are

you

concerned

so

tenderly

/

with these

people?

Did

you

in

your

house

get

the best of

treatment

/ from

the

Trojans?

(VI.55-57).

Agamemnon,

like

Poseidon,

bears

continually

in

mind the

underserving,

treacherous

nature

of

the

Trojans.

There

is

another

passage

that deserves consideration

in

this

con

nection.

During

his

aristeia

(episode

of

an

individual warrior's

prowess

in

bat

tle)

in

Book

XI,

Agamemnon

captures

two

Trojans,

Peisander

and

Hippolochus,

sons

of Antimachus. The

poet

indicates

that

Antimachus

had

taken

more

gold

than

any

others from the

treasure

brought

to

Troy by

Alexander when

he carried

Helen

away.

He

had also

opposed

the

return

of

Helen

to

Menelaos.

When

Agamemnon

is

on

the

point

of

killing

his

two

sons,

they

again

make

an

offer

of

ransom,

to

which

Agamemnon replies,

If

in

truth

you

are

the

sons

of wise

Antimachus,




16/27

PuraNieto

Hern?ndez

43

that

man

who

once

among

the

Trojans

assembled advised

them

that

Menelaos,

who

came as

envoy

with

godlike

Odysseus,

should be

murdered

on

the

spot

nor

let

go

back

to

the

Achaians,

so

now

your

mutilation

shall

punish

the shame of

your

father.

(Iliad

XI.138-42)

Agamemnon's

words

underscore

again

the

untrustworthy

nature

of

the

Trojans.They

do

not

honor their

contracts;

when offered

hospitality, they

pay

it

back

by stealing

away

the wife and

treasures

of their

host;41

and when

an

embassy

is

sent to

them with

the

purpose

of

achieving

a

peaceful

end

to

the

conflict

they

propose

to

kill the

envoys.42

These

passages

contribute to

building

up

an

image

of the

Trojans

as

peo

ple

who

cannot

be

trusted,

whose word

is

evil

(as

Sarpedon

characterizes

Laomedon's),

or

has

no

value.43

But

Sarpedon's

short

speech

makes

a

second

important point

for the

reader

or

hearer of

the

Iliad,

namely,

that,

due

to

the treacherous behavior

of

the

Trojan

kings,

a

Greek

hero,

Heracles,

destroyed

the

city

in

the

past;

Troy,

therefore,

can

be

taken

again

by

the

Greeks.44

There

is

a

third

category

of

events

of the

past

that have

bearing

on

the

present

of the

poem:

events

in

which

gods

and humans interacted with

each

other.

The

Judgment

of

Paris is

one

of those

events.

Although

mentioned

directly only

at

XXIV.28-30,

it

nevertheless lies behind the

support

that

Aphrodite

lends

to

Paris

and

Helen,

and

more

generally

to

the

Trojans,

and

the

resentment

against

Troy

shown

by

Hera

and Athena.45

These

stories

are

mentioned

at

different

moments

of

the

plot

but

togeth

er

greatly

contribute

to

justifying

the Achaean attack

against Troy

and

the

Greek

mistrust

of the

Trojans.

When

the

Trojans

break the

truce

in

Book IV

(by

a

divinely inspired

action),

their behavior

is, then,

expected.

In the Odyssey too, past events of gods and humans extend their influ

ence as a

kind of

mortmain

over

the

present.

The last

stages

of the

Trojan

War

and

its

aftermath,

the

return

of

other

heroes,

are

developed

thematically

and

serve

as

justification

for

many

actions

and

events

in

the

poem.46

We

have

already

mentioned the

song

of

Phemius

in

1.325 ff.

about the

return

of the

Achaeans,

and

the

return

stories of

Nestor,

Menelaus,

and other

heroes

(3.130-92,

4.351-586).

The unfortunate

homecoming

of

Agamemnon,

who

is

killed

upon

arrival

by

his unfaithful wife

Clytaemnestra

and her

lover

Aegisthus,

casts

a

permanent

shadow

over

the

outcome

of

Odysseus's

return

in

the first

part

of

the

poem,

and

helps

to

justify

Odysseus's carefully planned

vengeance

in

the

second.47

Many

events

of the last

moments

of

Troy

are

also

touched

upon

throughout

the

poem,

such

as

Achilles's death

(5.308-10;

at

24.36-92 his

elaborate

funeral and the

games

in

his honor

are

also

men




17/27

44

College

Literature

4.2

[Spring

007]

tioned),48

the

Trojan

Horse

(4.271-89,

8.

499-520),

the

dispute

of

Ajax

and

Odysseus

for

the

armor

of Achilles

(11.553-65),

events

narrated

in

the

cyclic

poems

Was

Miera

and

Woupersis. Odysseus

s

protracted

return

gives

him

expe

rience

and

prepares

him

for

the

situation he

will

be

facing

at

home.

His

past

as

ruler of

Ithaca,

as

husband

to

Penelope,

son

of

Laertes

and father of

Telemachus

is

precisely

what

moves

this

hero

forward,

to

continue his

voy

age,

to

make

it

back

home.

Odysseus

wants

to

return

to

that

past

situation

that

is

continually

evoked

through

the

poem,

and,

paradoxically,

as

he

des

perately

tries

to

get

back

to

his

past,

he advances

more

toward his

future.

His

is

a

collosal effort

to

get

things

back

to

the

way

they

were,

only

to

discover

that

things

have

dramatically changed.

When Teiresias reveals his

future

in the

underworld scene,

Odysseus

comes to terms with the

changes

and is himself

changed:

his

past,

as

he

remembered

and

wanted

it,

does

not

exist

anymore.

His

mother is

dead,

his

father

is

alienated from social

life,

and his

wife,

son,

and

household

are

under

siege.

In

spite

of

their

similar

scope,

and their similar ambitions

in

the devel

opment

of

their

plots

and their inclusion

of

past

events,

the

Iliad and the

Odyssey

also

present

major

differences.

One

point

in

which

the

two

poems

behave

very

differently

and

which

is

not

stressed

enough

in

current

scholar

ship is their

treatment

of the future. The Iliad often refers, through prophe

cies

and

anticipations,

to events

that

postdate

the end of the

poem,

above

all

to

the death

of Achilles and

the fall

of

Troy

and its immediate aftermath.

There

are

also

intimations

of

the future

in

the

Odyssey,

but all

events

that

are

predicted

in

the

Odyssey,

unlike the

Iliad,

come

to

full

realization

within

the

temporal

framework

of the

poem.

Projections

of

the

future

that

go

beyond

the time covered

by

its

own

narrative

are

practically

limited

to

the

predic

tion

of

Odysseus

s

death,

which has

some

bearing

but

whose

importance

cannot

be

compared

with

the

weight

attached

to

the

predictions

of Achilles's

death in the Iliad.

The different behavior

of

the

two

poems

in

regard

to

the

future

may

be

founded

on a

difference

of

scope

in

their

plots.

The

Iliad,

centered

on

the

episode

of Achilles's

dispute

with

Agamemnon

and

his

subsequent

wrath

against

the

Achaeans,

is also

a

poem

about

a

collective

enterprise:

the

war

of

Greeks

and

Trojans,

which

constitutes

the

last

major episode

in

the

Greek

mythical

tradition.

In

the character

of

Achilles the narrative

of

the

Iliad

binds

together

three

different,

and

traditional,

themes:

the

quarrel

of the

best

war

rior

with

the

figure

of

authority

in

a

war,

the

loss

of

a

very

close

friend,

and

the fulfillment

of

a

wish

which,

when

granted,

causes

greater

unhappiness

than before. The

quarrel

with

Agamemnon

leads

to

Achilles's

wish

to

see

the

Trojans

defeated and

to

be

himself honored

by

Zeus.

Zeus

grants

it, but,

at

the

Achaeans'

worst

moment,

when

Achilles's

best

friend, Patroclus,

takes

the




18/27


19/27

46

College

iterature

4.2

[Spring

007]

But the truth is

that,

as

R.

Rutherford

put

it in

a

review

of

some

recent

titles

on

Homer,

We

simply

have

no

idea

who,

when and where

Homer

was.

On

the cre

ation of

the

name

and

persona

of Homer

see

West

(1999).

2 See Bakker

(2005, ix).The

Homeric

texts,

in

addition,

aremuch more

regular

and uniform than

other

known

oral

texts

that have

been

also

put

into

writing.

Some

critics

see no

other

way

to account

for

this

striking uniformity

than

to

postulate

the

dictation of the

text in

the

VIII

c.

(see,

among

others,

Janko

[1992,29]).

Other

schol

ars

prefer

a

different

vision of

the

facts and

speak

of

a

progressive

textualization;

see,

especially,

Nagy:

The fundamental

question

here

is

the

concept

of

multiformity

itself. What

is

described

as

'the

remarkable

uniformity'

of

the Uiad

and the

Odyssey

could instead

be viewed

as

a

matter

of

relatively

less

multiformity

in

terms

of these

poems

evolu

tion.

...

Multiformity

and

'uniformity'

as

polar opposites

cannot

simply

be

mapped

onto

oral and

written

poetry

respectively.

(Nagy

2001,113)

See

a

radical defense

of oral

composition

in

Pavese

(1998,

72-73);

others,

even

accepting

a

previous

oral

tradition,

consider the

composition

of the Iliad

or

Odyssey

impossible

without the intervention

of

writing.

3

The

relationship

of the Homeric

texts to

their

oral traditional

background

is

one

of the thorniest

questions

of

Homeric

scholarship.

It is connected

to

the issue

of

the

use

of

writing

in the

composition

of

the

poems,

and

to

many

complex

ques

tions about transmission.

I

am

as

skeptical

as

Foley,

I

will make

no

special

claim

about

the

precise

relationship

between

our

texts

of the

Homeric

poems

and

their

oral traditional

background,

in

part

because

I

believe that the

evidence

is

insufficient

to

support

a

confident

final

pronouncement.

. .

.

(1999, 4).

For

an

informed

expo

sition

of several

possibilities,

see

Scodel

(2002,

42-64).

4

On the

concept

of textualization

applied

to

Homer,

see

Nagy

(2001,

esp.

110

11)

where he

proposes

five different

stages

of textualization

for the

Homeric

poems.

Cantilena

(1997,

150-51)

expresses

his disdain for those who

uncritically

apply

to

the

Uiad

and

the

Odyssey

the

category

of

text,

which

allows

them

to

demonstrate

and confirm

the

unity

of

poems

which

are,

due

to

their

origins, prob

lematic in that

respect.

5

We

cannot

overstress

the

fact that the

poems

were

born

in

the

context

of

live

performance.

See

Foley,

In

the

case

of

a

living

oral

tradition,

the

very

act

of

performance

bears

special

mean

ing.

...

In

the

case

of

an

oral-derived,

textualized

tradition,

performance

can

be

keyed

rhe

Documents

Reading Homer in the 21st Century