{"title":"Intertextual Agōnes in Archaic Greek Epic: Penelope vs. the Catalogue of Women","authors":"T. J. Nelson","doi":"10.1163/24688487-00501002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688487-00501002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Archaic Greek epic exhibits a pervasive eristic intertextuality, repeatedly positioning its heroes and itself against pre-existing traditions. In this article, I focus on a specific case study from the Odyssey: Homer’s agonistic relationship with the Catalogue of Women tradition. Hesiodic-style catalogue poetry has long been recognized as an important intertext for the Nekyia of Odyssey 11, but here I explore a more sustained dialogue across the whole poem. Through an ongoing agōn that sets Odysseus’s wife against catalogic women, Homer establishes the pre-eminence of his heroine and—by extension—the supremacy of his own poem.","PeriodicalId":251958,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic Online","volume":"111 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132029753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Homer’s Moving Pictures: Audio-Visual Aspects of the Scar Episode (Odyssey 19.386–504)","authors":"M. Finkelberg","doi":"10.1163/24688487-00601002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688487-00601002","url":null,"abstract":"Although it is a matter of common knowledge that the cultural context in which the Homeric poems were communicated both before and after their fixation in writing was one of public performance, more often than not the reception of Homer’s narrative by the audience is addressed in scholarly literature in terms of the experience of a reader. It seems, however, that no interpretation of Homer’s narrative would be adequate if it neglects the fact that the ancient audience experienced a live performance which resulted in a form of enactive narration resembling the visual juxtaposition of scenes in modern cinema.","PeriodicalId":251958,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic Online","volume":"68 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125016513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Commenting on Homer","authors":"S. Schein","doi":"10.1163/24688487-00601006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688487-00601006","url":null,"abstract":"I first reflect generally on the aims, audiences, and pedagogical goals of my recently published commentary on Homer’s Iliad, book 1. Then I discuss several exemplary passages in order to illustrate in detail my methodological concerns and ways of reading Homeric poetry, with a particular focus on its traditional meter, language, and style and on the interpretive significance of the fulfillment or disappointment of listeners’ or readers’ expectations.","PeriodicalId":251958,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic Online","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131582799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Raising the Dead: The Neo-Assyrian Ideological Background of Odyssey 11","authors":"Marcus Ziemann","doi":"10.1163/24688487-00601005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688487-00601005","url":null,"abstract":"This article reanalyzes the Near Eastern background for the ritual that Odysseus performs at the entrance of the Underworld in Odyssey 11. The scholarly consensus is that this ritual was borrowed from the Hittites during the Late Bronze Age and survived until it appears in the text of the Odyssey. Recent work has shown that the Sargonid Assyrian kings also performed a similar ritual in the same era as the textualization of the Homeric poems and invested it with ideological importance. Using the globalization phenomenon of glocalization as a frame, this article resituates Homer’s adaptation of the ritual against this background to argue that the adaptation has important implications for how Greeks conceived of themselves in the wider Mediterranean world and how we should approach Greco-Near Eastern literary parallels.","PeriodicalId":251958,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic Online","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130552775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Formular Mutation and the Oral Character of the Cyclic Thebaid","authors":"Connor Wood","doi":"10.1163/24688487-00601004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688487-00601004","url":null,"abstract":"The disparate and fragmentary states of Cyclic poems make quantitative studies of their features impossible. However, qualitative methods exist for comparing the mobility of their formular language to that of known oral-derived epic. The common noun-epithet formulaic expressions in surviving fragments of the Cyclic Thebaid, when they do not appear verbatim in Homeric poetry, only vary along lines well-established in early epic tradition, not in other ways. This suggests a position for the Thebaid within the development of epic relatively close to that of the Homeric poems and not from a later stage either of literacy or of self-consciously archaizing orality.","PeriodicalId":251958,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic Online","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133825968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Heroism and Loot in the Iliad","authors":"D. Quint","doi":"10.1163/24688487-00601003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688487-00601003","url":null,"abstract":"The Iliad takes for granted the material motives of war and its heroes’ pursuit of booty, exchangeable wealth as well as tokens of honor. The poem nonetheless prefers that the hero fight for epic praise, and it shows that a warrior’s acquisitiveness may get in the way of his glory. It explores the issue in a subplot built around the actions of Diomedes in books 5–6 and 10–11: the hero obtains horses and armor in alternation, and his desire for spoils is mirrored by Hector’s in book 17. The subplot contrasts with the main plot of Achilles, who refuses to be bought off by Agamemnon’s gifts and who for a while stands outside of material exchange. But such exchange—the prizes Achilles gives out at the funeral games in book 23, the ransom he accepts from Priam in book 24—enables the hero’s return to human community and dignifies the taking of loot itself.","PeriodicalId":251958,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic Online","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128775100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Suicide in Homer and the Tale of the Heike","authors":"N. Yamagata","doi":"10.1163/24688487-00401004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688487-00401004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Comparison of suicides and suicidal wishes in Homer and the Tale of the Heike reveals significant similarities. In both worlds, shame, loyalty, and grief are the main causes of suicidal wishes. However, Heike characters are more prone to suicide, while Homeric characters never actually commit suicide. Heike suicides can be seen to derive from the desire to be with one’s community and loved ones, enhanced by the Buddhist belief in an afterlife. Homeric characters display much stronger attachment to life, based on the belief that there is no existence or fame after death worth dying for.","PeriodicalId":251958,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic Online","volume":"113 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117286810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Revising Athena’s Rage: Cassandra and the Homeric Appropriation of Nostos","authors":"J. Christensen","doi":"10.1163/24688487-00301004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688487-00301004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article approaches the relationship between the Odyssey’s nostos and other Nostoi from the perspective of the epic’s treatment of Cassandra. In doing so, I emphasize two perspectives. First, rather than privileging either “lost” poems or our extant epic as primary in a “vertical” relationship, I assume a horizontal dynamic wherein the reconstructed poems and the Odyssey influenced each other. Second, I assume that, since little can be said with certainty about lost poems, references to other traditions attest primarily to the compositional methods and the poetics of our extant poem. After outlining the major narrative features of the story of Cassandra that were likely available to Homeric audiences, I argue that the suppression of her story in the Odyssey is both part of the epic’s strategy to celebrate Odysseus and Penelope and a feature of the enforcement of a male-dominated ideology.","PeriodicalId":251958,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic Online","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126021425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Traveling with Helen: The Itineraries of Paris and Menelaus as Narrative Doublets","authors":"K. Solez","doi":"10.1163/24688487-00301003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688487-00301003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The journey of Paris from Sparta to Troy and the journey of Menelaus from Troy to Sparta are narrative doublets that feature in the Epic Cycle. Both men follow a typical and historical pattern of mobility between Greece and the Levant before reaching their destination. These similarities constitute a proleptic doublet, where Paris’s journey is a less elaborate iteration of a story pattern that appears again in the nostos of Menelaus. In our known epics, the doublets appear near the beginning of the Cypria and at the very end of the Nostoi.","PeriodicalId":251958,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic Online","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133693122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Agnoēsis and the Death of Odysseus in the Odyssey and the Telegony","authors":"Justin Arft","doi":"10.1163/24688487-00301007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/24688487-00301007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This essay explores the death of Odysseus in the Telegony and the Odyssey through the diction of agnoēsis (nonrecognition) and anagnōrisis (recognition). Agnoēsis is a motif in the stories of both Telegonus and the death of Odysseus, allowing the Odyssey’s presentation of agnoēsis to reference the Telegony tradition. Moreover, the deadly consequences of agnoēsis are inimical to the Odyssey’s vision of Odysseus’s kleos, and Odysseus’s death in the Telegony results in an alternative vision of his immortality. Examination of these contrasts between traditions sheds light on how the Odyssey negotiated dissonant elements from the Telegony tradition to enhance its own meaning.","PeriodicalId":251958,"journal":{"name":"Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic Online","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133815432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}