Homer, Hesiod and the Hymns: Diachronic Development in Epic Diction (original) (raw)
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In: AOQU. Forme e modi dell'epica 1, 2020, pp. 9-101, 2020
This paper hosts three case-studies that are meant to be representative of paradigm-shifting trends in Homeric Studies and to cater to specialists and non-specialists alike. Boosted by new archaeological findings and by an increased awareness of Homer’s Near-Eastern entanglements, the “historicity” of the poems has regained centre stage. Against this backdrop, Andrea Debiasi develops a persuasive interpretation of Homer’s name, whose meaning points to the performative-agonistic dimension of Homeric poetry in the context of the clashes that characterized Euboia in the archaic age. By contrast, George Gazis focuses on the one aspect of the Homeric world that cannot possibly be mapped onto space and history, namely Hades. The underworld is unfathomable even for the gods, which accounts for its potential as a trigger of poetic invention. No less than Debiasi’s, this approach resonates with recent scholarship: a return to “history” is often complemented by an opposite, but fully compatible, “symbolic” trend, which has unraveled the systematic juxtaposition, in Homer’s world, between “history” and symbolic constructs. Finally, Cecilia Nobili shows that Homeric epics builds on pre-existing poetic genres such as elegy, although the earliest extant examples of the latter date to a later time. The claim that lyric poetry emerges though a confrontation with epics, then, is no less plausible than its opposite. One more important consequence of Nobili’s approach is that the “subjective” turn scholars have long recognized in Hellenistic and Roman epics is in fact firmly grounded in Homer himself.
On some naming constructions in Homeric Greek
2021
G. K. Giannakis, L. Conti, J. de la Villa and R. Fornieles (eds.), Synchrony and Diachrony of Ancient Greek. Language, Linguistics and Philology. Essays in Honor of Emilio Crespo (Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes, 112), Berlin – Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2021, 129-138
The paper discusses the presence (and its function) of Heracles in the Homeric epics. In the Iliad, Heracles is the most important “role model” for the Greeks fighting in the Trojan War, and he is this even more as he is still perceived as being fully mortal. In the Odyssey, Heracles has a much lesser (and, at least in one instance, a decidedly more negative) role, and the one episode in which he appears more extensively (Od. 11.601–27) is most likely a later addition.
New Trends in Homeric Scholarship. Homer’s Name, Underworld and Lyric Voice
2020
This paper hosts three case-studies that are meant to be representative of paradigm-shifting trends in Homeric Studies and to cater to specialists and non-specialists alike. Boosted by new archaeological findings and by an increased awareness of Homer’s Near-Eastern entanglements, the “historicity” of the poems has regained centre stage. Against this backdrop, Andrea Debiasi develops a persuasive interpretation of Homer’s name, whose meaning points to the performative-agonistic dimension of Homeric poetry in the context of the clashes that characterized Euboia in the archaic age. By contrast, George Gazis focuses on the one aspect of the Homeric world that cannot possibly be mapped onto space and history, namely Hades. The underworld is unfathomable even for the gods, which accounts for its potential as a trigger of poetic invention. No less than Debiasi’s, this approach resonates with recent scholarship: a return to “history” is often complemented by an opposite, but fully compatib...
From 5-7 June 2024 the international conference “The Poet of the Greeks. The Genesis and Reception of Homer in Archaic and Classical Greece” took place in Basel. It was initiated by Lars Hübner, organised and hosted in cooperation with Johannes Bernhardt, Anton Bierl, and Alexandra Trachsel; it was made financially possible by the generous support of the Swiss National Science Foundation’s Exchange programme and the Basel Department of Greek Studies. The conference centred on the question of when and, above all, how Homer became the poet of the Greeks. Against the background of the various turns in cultural studies, it was based on three premises: First, it was assumed that the Homeric epics are based on an oral narrative tradition that goes, at least in parts, back to the Mycenaean period. Second, it was based on a pre-Aristotelian concept of Homer, which encompassed the entire pre-, side-, and post-stories of the Trojan War, as they have come down to us in the so-called Epic Cycle, the Thebais, and the Homeric Hymns. Third, the concept of “reception” was conceived not only as an aesthetic, but also as a historical category. By involving philology, archaeology, and history, the aim was to challenge the widespread view that it was Athens which had a decisive role in the shaping and dissemination of the Homeric epics. Instead, it aimed to take a Panhellenic perspective and record the genesis, reception, and geographical dissemination of the Homeric tradition in the stream of Greek literature, imagery, and history at a crucial time when the Greek world was taking shape.
Uses of names and variation in the Greek tradition
E. Berardi, M.- P. Castiglioni, M.-L. Desclos, P. Dolcetti (eds.), Filosofia, storia, immaginario mitologico. Nuovi approcci, 2022
For the ancient Greeks, the relationship between names and the things they designate was of considerable importance, found in various forms and in different kinds of text throughout ancient Greek history. From the «whatever name you want to be called» in hymns to the gods, to philosophical discussions about the connection between words and concepts, between names and things. Both these concerns are found throughout antiquity. The etymologizations that we often find in poetry, as far back as the Homeric tradition, are another aspect of the interest aroused by names, as is the frequency of speaking names and the attention paid to the etymologies of characters’ names. In all these cases, the assumption is that there is some sort of relationship between name and thing named that is not purely arbitrary. In this paper we will present these various phenomena in relation to what is maybe the most defining characteristic of the Greek tradition, variability, and also in connection with the fact that one of the words for ‘character’ in Aristotle’s Poetics is precisely ὄνομα.