Richard P Martin - Stanford University (original) (raw)
Papers by Richard P Martin
Hearing epic, living heroes: cult-connected moments in Homeric poetry
Synthesis 29.1, 2022
on cult related to Zeus and some passages in the Iliad
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2005
An ethnography-of speaking-approach to proverb-use lets us explore the deployment of this genre a... more An ethnography-of speaking-approach to proverb-use lets us explore the deployment of this genre as part of personal self-projection and of social life. Greek drama, by presenting proverbs in the mouths of its staged characters, makes use of the ordinary performance value of this "genre of speaking" while constructing a broader theatrical event. Characters can be judged on the basis of their skill at proverb-use, and important junctures in the plays can be marked by the employment of gnômai. Resistance to proverbs, and misuse of the genre (whether or not intentional) further mark speakers. This paper will appear in the Festschrift for John Papademetriou.
Keens from the Absent Chorus:" Troy to Ulster
Western folklore, 2003
... 16 In this interpretation, the divine performance recounted in Odyssey 24 would match lament ... more ... 16 In this interpretation, the divine performance recounted in Odyssey 24 would match lament performance ... life; and the attitudes towards kin, death, religion and work that these songs embody. ... Rather, my Helleno-Hibernian coda is an attempt to make connections at a broader ...
Cut These Words into My Stone, 2012
Translations by Michael Wolfe of ancient Greek epitaphs
The Scythian Accent: Anacharsis and the Cynics
The Cynics The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and its Legacy ( ed. R. Bracht Branham & Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé), 1996
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: Poems of Many Turnings
A Companion to World Literature, edit. K. Seigneurie et al. Vol. 1. , 2020
The complex and varied pathways that brought Homeric epic from its beginnings on the coast of Asi... more The complex and varied pathways that brought Homeric epic from its beginnings on the coast of Asia Minor to worldwide appreciation involved changes of media (oral transmission to papyrus scrolls to handwritten manuscripts to printed texts and ultimately paperbacks and digital editions), empires (Athenian, Roman, Byzantine), continents, and languages. This chapter traces key stages in the journey of Homer from the eighth century bce to the twenty-first century ce, and asks what features of the Iliad and Odyssey may have prepared the poems for globally broad reception.
Homer in a World of Song
The Cambridge Guide to Homer, ed C. Pache, 2020
The Iliad and Odyssey from their earliest stages coexisted with smaller performative genres, many... more The Iliad and Odyssey from their earliest stages coexisted with smaller performative genres, many involving music (hymns to humans or gods; tunes to accompany work) or music and dance together, as well as paraliterary “genres of speaking” that had neither musical accompaniment nor strict formal rules. A survey of Homeric allusions to, and embedding of, performance events finds them to be further marked by distantiation and imaginative stylization, thus complicating any mining of epic as an historical source for early song-making traditions.
Hesiodic Theology
The Oxford Handbook of Hesiod Edited by Alexander C. Loney and Stephen Scully, 2018
The Hesiodic view of the supernatural varies within individual compositions, in tune with oral-tr... more The Hesiodic view of the supernatural varies within individual compositions, in tune with oral-traditional poetic practice. The flexibility and dramatization inherent in the medium led ancient philosophers to treat Hesiod and Homer as deficient “theology.” Taken as religious fictions, with attention to their diction and devices, the Hesiodic poems are distinct from the Homeric in orientation toward and expressions about the divine world. The Theogony frames itself as a praise poem to Zeus but must downplay the self-interested character of such compositions. Zeus’s sovereignty is depicted in diachronic terms as wisely integrating earlier powers. The Works and Days deals synchronically with the upshot of the world-shaping Prometheus and Pandora complex, projecting onto the mythic level its tale of contemporary fraternal strife and advice for living under a regime of divine justice.
Introduction to H. Monsacré, The Tears of Achilles
H. Monsacré, The Tears of Achilles, 2018
An overview of scholarship and methods for analyzing thematics of Homeric epic over three decades... more An overview of scholarship and methods for analyzing thematics of Homeric epic over three decades since the initial French publication.
Achilles without End
Vina Diem Celebrent: Studies in Linguistics and Philology in Honor of Brent Vine., 2018
A literary semantic study of Achilles' other name ("Aspetos") in relation to epic diction.
Onomakritos, Rhapsode: Composition-in-Performance and the Competition of Genres in 6th -century Athens
Animo decipiendi? : rethinking fakes and authorship in classical, late antique, & early Christian works, 2018
Onomakritos—“distinguished for his name”—has become, for us, mostly just a name. What fame he has... more Onomakritos—“distinguished for his name”—has become, for us, mostly just a name. What fame he has, from the meagre remains that mention this figure from the late sixth century BC , arises from his reputation as a forger—the first to appear in Greek history (if we consign to heroic legend the story of the letter forged at the command of Odysseus in order to frame his nemesis Palamedes). This chapter argues that Onomakritos acted like an archaic Greek rhapsode. It further seeks to explain his interaction with Lasus of Hermione in terms of generic competition within Athens.
Stesichorus and the Name Game
Reception in the Greco-Roman World Literary Studies in Theory and Practice, 2021
The naming of poetic predecessors within one’s own composition, often associated with a so-called... more The naming of poetic predecessors within one’s own composition, often associated with a so-called Hellenistic aesthetic, has a less explored heritage going back to the sixth century BCE. This chapter traces the strategy in its earliest phases, especially as we find it within lyric poetry, from the reported statement by Stesichorus [fr. 168 Finglass] that the Shield of Heracles was indeed composed by Hesiod, to the Simonidean allusion to Homer as his forerunner in praise-poetry (fr.11.15–18), and on to Pindar’s complex and varied namings of Archilochus, Terpander, and the masters of hexameter verse.
The Cultures Within Ancient Greek Culture, 2003
The aulos functioned as an important signifier of class and musical subculture within Athenian so... more The aulos functioned as an important signifier of class and musical subculture within Athenian society, attached as it was to significant institutions of the democratic polis, in tension with other performance instruments and venues.
Oral Tradition, 2003
Chinese version of The Grain of Greek Voices
The Princeton University Library Chronicle , Vol. 68, No. 1-2 (Winter 2007), pp. 82-114, 2007
Chapter in Richard Hunter, Ian Rutherford (ed.), Wandering Poets in Ancient Greek Culture: Travel... more Chapter in Richard Hunter, Ian Rutherford (ed.), Wandering Poets in Ancient Greek Culture: Travel, Locality and Pan-Hellenism. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. xiv, 313. ISBN 9780521898782. $99.00.
Chapter in Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato’s Laws. Cambridge; ... more Chapter in Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato’s Laws. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xi, 460. ISBN 9781107016873. $99.00.
Article in The Encyclopedia of Ancient History (Wiley)
Chapter in Ethnographica Moralia, edit. N. Panourgia and. G. Marcus (Fordham, 2008)
Hearing epic, living heroes: cult-connected moments in Homeric poetry
Synthesis 29.1, 2022
on cult related to Zeus and some passages in the Iliad
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2005
An ethnography-of speaking-approach to proverb-use lets us explore the deployment of this genre a... more An ethnography-of speaking-approach to proverb-use lets us explore the deployment of this genre as part of personal self-projection and of social life. Greek drama, by presenting proverbs in the mouths of its staged characters, makes use of the ordinary performance value of this "genre of speaking" while constructing a broader theatrical event. Characters can be judged on the basis of their skill at proverb-use, and important junctures in the plays can be marked by the employment of gnômai. Resistance to proverbs, and misuse of the genre (whether or not intentional) further mark speakers. This paper will appear in the Festschrift for John Papademetriou.
Keens from the Absent Chorus:" Troy to Ulster
Western folklore, 2003
... 16 In this interpretation, the divine performance recounted in Odyssey 24 would match lament ... more ... 16 In this interpretation, the divine performance recounted in Odyssey 24 would match lament performance ... life; and the attitudes towards kin, death, religion and work that these songs embody. ... Rather, my Helleno-Hibernian coda is an attempt to make connections at a broader ...
Cut These Words into My Stone, 2012
Translations by Michael Wolfe of ancient Greek epitaphs
The Scythian Accent: Anacharsis and the Cynics
The Cynics The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and its Legacy ( ed. R. Bracht Branham & Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé), 1996
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: Poems of Many Turnings
A Companion to World Literature, edit. K. Seigneurie et al. Vol. 1. , 2020
The complex and varied pathways that brought Homeric epic from its beginnings on the coast of Asi... more The complex and varied pathways that brought Homeric epic from its beginnings on the coast of Asia Minor to worldwide appreciation involved changes of media (oral transmission to papyrus scrolls to handwritten manuscripts to printed texts and ultimately paperbacks and digital editions), empires (Athenian, Roman, Byzantine), continents, and languages. This chapter traces key stages in the journey of Homer from the eighth century bce to the twenty-first century ce, and asks what features of the Iliad and Odyssey may have prepared the poems for globally broad reception.
Homer in a World of Song
The Cambridge Guide to Homer, ed C. Pache, 2020
The Iliad and Odyssey from their earliest stages coexisted with smaller performative genres, many... more The Iliad and Odyssey from their earliest stages coexisted with smaller performative genres, many involving music (hymns to humans or gods; tunes to accompany work) or music and dance together, as well as paraliterary “genres of speaking” that had neither musical accompaniment nor strict formal rules. A survey of Homeric allusions to, and embedding of, performance events finds them to be further marked by distantiation and imaginative stylization, thus complicating any mining of epic as an historical source for early song-making traditions.
Hesiodic Theology
The Oxford Handbook of Hesiod Edited by Alexander C. Loney and Stephen Scully, 2018
The Hesiodic view of the supernatural varies within individual compositions, in tune with oral-tr... more The Hesiodic view of the supernatural varies within individual compositions, in tune with oral-traditional poetic practice. The flexibility and dramatization inherent in the medium led ancient philosophers to treat Hesiod and Homer as deficient “theology.” Taken as religious fictions, with attention to their diction and devices, the Hesiodic poems are distinct from the Homeric in orientation toward and expressions about the divine world. The Theogony frames itself as a praise poem to Zeus but must downplay the self-interested character of such compositions. Zeus’s sovereignty is depicted in diachronic terms as wisely integrating earlier powers. The Works and Days deals synchronically with the upshot of the world-shaping Prometheus and Pandora complex, projecting onto the mythic level its tale of contemporary fraternal strife and advice for living under a regime of divine justice.
Introduction to H. Monsacré, The Tears of Achilles
H. Monsacré, The Tears of Achilles, 2018
An overview of scholarship and methods for analyzing thematics of Homeric epic over three decades... more An overview of scholarship and methods for analyzing thematics of Homeric epic over three decades since the initial French publication.
Achilles without End
Vina Diem Celebrent: Studies in Linguistics and Philology in Honor of Brent Vine., 2018
A literary semantic study of Achilles' other name ("Aspetos") in relation to epic diction.
Onomakritos, Rhapsode: Composition-in-Performance and the Competition of Genres in 6th -century Athens
Animo decipiendi? : rethinking fakes and authorship in classical, late antique, & early Christian works, 2018
Onomakritos—“distinguished for his name”—has become, for us, mostly just a name. What fame he has... more Onomakritos—“distinguished for his name”—has become, for us, mostly just a name. What fame he has, from the meagre remains that mention this figure from the late sixth century BC , arises from his reputation as a forger—the first to appear in Greek history (if we consign to heroic legend the story of the letter forged at the command of Odysseus in order to frame his nemesis Palamedes). This chapter argues that Onomakritos acted like an archaic Greek rhapsode. It further seeks to explain his interaction with Lasus of Hermione in terms of generic competition within Athens.
Stesichorus and the Name Game
Reception in the Greco-Roman World Literary Studies in Theory and Practice, 2021
The naming of poetic predecessors within one’s own composition, often associated with a so-called... more The naming of poetic predecessors within one’s own composition, often associated with a so-called Hellenistic aesthetic, has a less explored heritage going back to the sixth century BCE. This chapter traces the strategy in its earliest phases, especially as we find it within lyric poetry, from the reported statement by Stesichorus [fr. 168 Finglass] that the Shield of Heracles was indeed composed by Hesiod, to the Simonidean allusion to Homer as his forerunner in praise-poetry (fr.11.15–18), and on to Pindar’s complex and varied namings of Archilochus, Terpander, and the masters of hexameter verse.
The Cultures Within Ancient Greek Culture, 2003
The aulos functioned as an important signifier of class and musical subculture within Athenian so... more The aulos functioned as an important signifier of class and musical subculture within Athenian society, attached as it was to significant institutions of the democratic polis, in tension with other performance instruments and venues.
Oral Tradition, 2003
Chinese version of The Grain of Greek Voices
The Princeton University Library Chronicle , Vol. 68, No. 1-2 (Winter 2007), pp. 82-114, 2007
Chapter in Richard Hunter, Ian Rutherford (ed.), Wandering Poets in Ancient Greek Culture: Travel... more Chapter in Richard Hunter, Ian Rutherford (ed.), Wandering Poets in Ancient Greek Culture: Travel, Locality and Pan-Hellenism. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. xiv, 313. ISBN 9780521898782. $99.00.
Chapter in Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato’s Laws. Cambridge; ... more Chapter in Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato’s Laws. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xi, 460. ISBN 9781107016873. $99.00.
Article in The Encyclopedia of Ancient History (Wiley)
Chapter in Ethnographica Moralia, edit. N. Panourgia and. G. Marcus (Fordham, 2008)
This book explores the representation of the gods in Greek hexameter poetry in its many forms, in... more This book explores the representation of the gods in Greek hexameter poetry in its many forms, including epic, hymnic and didactic poetry, from the archaic period to late antiquity. Its twenty-five chapters, written by an international team of experts, trace a broad historical arc, reflecting developments in religious thought and practice, and ongoing philosophical and literary-critical engagement with the nature and representation of the divine and the relationship between humans and gods.
Classical Mythology: The Basics
An introduction to the materials and to means of analysis.
Bulfinch's Mythology, edited by R.P. Martin
A study in literary semantics and historical anthropology
Myths of the Ancient Greeks
The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad
Exemplaria Classica 27, 2023
Exemplaria Classica 27, 2023, 251-425. https://www.uhu.es/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/exemplaria
Review of (R.L.) Fowler Pindar and the Sublime. Greek Myth, Reception, and Lyric Experience. Bloomsbury Academic, 2022.
The Classical Review 73.2, 2023
Review of F.-H. MUTSCHLER (ed.) The Homeric Epics and the Chinese Book of Songs (2018)
Journal of Hellenic Studies 140, 2020
The Classical Review, 2007
Review of Fritz-Heiner Mutschler, The Homeric Epics and the Chinese 'Book of Songs'
Journal of Hellenic Studies 140, 2020
Journal of Folklore Research, 2020
online Jan 23 2020
Preview Every scrap and spill from the table of Aristophanes is welcome nourishment for starved r... more Preview Every scrap and spill from the table of Aristophanes is welcome nourishment for starved readers lacking nearly three-quarters of the feast that began with his Banqueters of 427 BCE. In this second of three volumes covering the incertarum fabularum fragmenta, Bagordo serves up mostly lower-calorie crumbs — of the 146 fragments, 68 contain just one word, and 29 are phrases of two or three words; none exceeds three lines of verse. The presentation is lucid and accessible, the commentary meticulous, cautious, and erudite. It will remain, without doubt, the essential resource for years to come. The extended excursuses on a number of relevant philological and dramatic problems raised by the fragments make this, as well, an eminently useful book for anyone dealing with Greek and Latin poetry and poetics, comedic or other.
American Journal of Philology, Volume 139, Number 2, Summer 2018,
Journal of Folklore Research Aug. 2018
Classical Philology, Vol. 88, No. 1 (Jan., 1993), pp. 77-84
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2017.07.46
BMCR 2016.10.3
Appeared in The Journal of Hellenic Studies (127) 2007: 175 - 175
