Homer: The Poetry of the PastAndrew Ford here addresses, in a manner both engaging and richly informed, the perennial questions of what poetry is, how it came to be, and what it is for. Focusing on the critical moment in Western literature when the heroic tales of the Greek oral tradition began to be preserved in writing, he examines these questions in the light of Homeric poetry. Through fresh readings of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and referring to other early epics as well, Ford deepens our understanding of what poetry was at a time before written texts, before a developed sense of authorship, and before the existence of institutionalized criticism. Placing what is known about Homer's art in the wider context of Homer's world, Ford traces the effects of the oral tradition upon the development of the epic and addresses such issues as the sources of the poet's inspiration and the generic constraints upon epic composition. After exploring Homer's poetic vocabulary and his fictional and mythical representations of the art of singing, Ford reconstructs an idea of poetry much different from that put forth by previous interpreters. Arguing that Homer grounds his project in religious rather than literary or historical terms, he concludes that archaic poetry claims to give a uniquely transparent and immediate rendering of the past. Homer: The Poetry of the Past will be stimulating and enjoyable reading for anyone interested in the traditions of poetry, as well as for students and scholars in the fields of classics, literary theory and literary history, and intellectual history. |
From inside the book
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... across poems. Other readings, like that of great invocation to the Muses in Chapter 2 or of the Phaeacian games in Chapter 3, can at the least be assigned to the poet composing the passage in question, or to the one who gave it final form.
... Invocations. and. Ethos. The beginning of a work of art must also in a sense be its definition, since it acts like a frame to set that work apart from others and to enclose it as a single thing in itself. As Edward Said observes in his ...
... invocation is essentially a prayer to the Muse to tell a story: formally, it is initiated by an imperative (“sing ... invocation is more than this; in fact, invocations are prayers, and they are formally based on prayers and hymns ...
... invocation is beginning to conclude, and at this point the poet specifies where the tale is to begin. Hence the “wrath of Peleus's son Achilles,” which caused “many woes” for the Achaeans and was accomplished through the plans of Zeus ...
... invocation in line 75, where the noun and dependent genitives are followed by a relative clause that expands to sketch out the action (76– 81). The paraphrase concludes with the mention that this was the beginning of something ...
Contents
Homers Muses and the Unity of Epic | |
Tradition Transmission and Time | |
Signs of Writing in Homer | |
The Voice of Song | |
Conclusion | |
Index Locorum | |
General Index | |