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In recent decades, the evidence for an oral epic tradition in ancient Greece has grown enormously along with our ever-increasing awareness of worldwide oral traditions. John Foley here examines the artistic implications that oral tradition holds for the understanding of the Iliad and Odyssey in order to establish a context for their original performance and modern-day reception. In Homer's Traditional Art, Foley addresses three crucially interlocking areas that lead us to a fuller appreciation of the Homeric poems. He first explores the reality of Homer as their actual author, examining historical and comparative evidence to propose that "Homer" is a legendary and anthropomorphic figure rather than a real-life author. He next presents the poetic tradition as a specialized and highly resonant language bristling with idiomatic implication. Finally, he looks at Homer's overall artistic achievement, showing that it is best evaluated via a poetics aimed specifically at works that emerge from oral tradition. Along the way, Foley offers new perspectives on such topics as characterization and personal interaction in the epics, the nature of Penelope's heroism, the implications of feasting and lament, and the problematic ending of the Odyssey. His comparative references to the South Slavic oral epic open up new vistas on Homer's language, narrative patterning, and identity. Homer's Traditional Art represents a disentangling of the interwoven strands of orality, textuality, and verbal art. It shows how we can learn to appreciate how Homer's art succeeds not in spite of the oral tradition in which it was composed but rather through its unique agency.
In recent decades, the evidence for an oral epic tradition in ancient Greece has grown enormously along with our ever-increasing awareness of worldwide oral traditions. John Foley here examines the artistic implications that oral tradition holds for the understanding of the Iliad and Odyssey in order to establish a context for their original performance and modern-day reception. In Homer's Traditional Art, Foley addresses three crucially interlocking areas that lead us to a fuller appreciation of the Homeric poems. He first explores the reality of Homer as their actual author, examining historical and comparative evidence to propose that "Homer" is a legendary and anthropomorphic figure rather than a real-life author. He next presents the poetic tradition as a specialized and highly resonant language bristling with idiomatic implication. Finally, he looks at Homer's overall artistic achievement, showing that it is best evaluated via a poetics aimed specifically at works that emerge from oral tradition. Along the way, Foley offers new perspectives on such topics as characterization and personal interaction in the epics, the nature of Penelope's heroism, the implications of feasting and lament, and the problematic ending of the Odyssey. His comparative references to the South Slavic oral epic open up new vistas on Homer's language, narrative patterning, and identity. Homer's Traditional Art represents a disentangling of the interwoven strands of orality, textuality, and verbal art. It shows how we can learn to appreciate how Homer's art succeeds not in spite of the oral tradition in which it was composed but rather through its unique agency.
This is a book about Homer, myth and art. The Iliad and Odyssey so dominate our view of ancient Greece that our natural reaction on viewing certain works of early Greek art is to identify them as 'scenes from Homer'. However, Anthony Snodgrass argues that, so far from 'illustrating' the Homeric poems, these works very rarely show signs of acquaintance with the Iliad or Odyssey, seldom even choosing their subject-matter from them. When the subjects do overlap, the artists occasionally give positive signs of preferring a non-Homeric version of the episode. He then attempts to explain why this should be so: despite Homer's unique standing in antiquity, the artists inhabited an independent world, where their own inspirations and concerns dominated their production. It is only the traditional dominance of the literary study of antiquity which has hidden this from us.
What kind of allusion is possible in a poetry derived from a centuries-long oral tradition, and what kind of oral-derived poetry are the Homeric epics? Comparison of Homeric epic with South Slavic heroic song has suggested certain types of answers to these questions, yet the South Slavic paradigm is neither straightforward in itself nor necessarily the only pertinent paradigm: Augustan Latin poetry uses many sophisticated and highly self-conscious techniques of allusion which can, this book contends, be suggestively paralleled in Homeric epic, and some of the same techniques of allusion can be found in Near Eastern poetry of the third and second millennia BC. By attending to these various paradigms, this challenging study argues for a new understanding of Homeric allusion and its place in literary history, broaching the question of whether there can have been historical continuity in a poetics of allusion stretching from the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh, via the Iliad and Odyssey, to the Aeneid and Metamorphoses, despite the enormous disparities of time and place and of language and culture, including those represented by the cuneiform tablet, the papyrus roll, and by an oral performance culture. The fundamental methodological problems are explored through a series of interlocking case studies, treating of how the Odyssey conceivably alludes to the Iliad and also to earlier poetry on Odysseus' homecoming, the Iliad to earlier poetry on the Ethiopian hero Memnon, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter to earlier poetry on Hades' abduction of Persephone, and early Greek epic to Mesopotamian mythological poetry, pre-eminently the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh.
Although the Iliad and Odyssey narrate only relatively small portions of the Trojan War and its aftermath, for centuries these works have overshadowed other, more comprehensive narratives of the conflict, particularly the poems known as the Epic Cycle. In The Tradition of the Trojan War in Homer and the Epic Cycle, Jonathan Burgess challenges Homer's authority on the war's history and the legends surrounding it, placing the Iliad and Odyssey in the larger, often overlooked context of the entire body of Greek epic poetry of the Archaic Age. He traces the development and transmission of the Cyclic poems in ancient Greek culture, comparing them to later Homeric poems and finding that they were far more influential than has previously been thought.
Published to great success in Europe, Joachim Latacz's bookHomer, His Art and His Worldis now widely available to an English-speaking audience.Homer, His Art and His Worldtakes Homer out of the preserve of specialists, and carefully outlines the historical background to Homer and his poetry. Current perspectives on the Iliad and the Odyssey are explained clearly, and narrow philological questions are deliberately avoided. Written in an accessible style for lovers of Homer and all who would like to be, Latacz's book brings Homer closer to the modern audience as a poet, and not as a historical source.Homer, His Art and His Worldincludes sections on the relevance of Homer to modern issues in literary criticism; on contemporary culture and history, including the Mycenaean era; the renaissance of the eighth century B.C.E.; and the poetical context of Homer's work; as well as specific chapters on theIliadandOdysseyand features peculiar to each poem. Homer, His Art and His Worldwill be of interest to a broad range of readers, including those interested in the literary history of Western culture. Joachim Latacz is Professor of Greek at the University of Basel, Switzerland. James P. Holoka is Professor of Classics and Ancient History at Eastern Michigan University.
Andrew 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 its ancient incarnation as a song to recent translations in modern languages, Homeric epic remains an abiding source of inspiration for both scholars and artists that transcends temporal and linguistic boundaries. The Cambridge Guide to Homer examines the influence and meaning of Homeric poetry from its earliest form as ancient Greek song to its current status in world literature, presenting the information in a synthetic manner that allows the reader to gain an understanding of the different strands of Homeric studies. The volume is structured around three main themes: Homeric Song and Text; the Homeric World, and Homer in the World. Each section starts with a series of 'macropedia' essays arranged thematically that are accompanied by shorter complementary 'micropedia' articles. The Cambridge Guide to Homer thus traces the many routes taken by Homeric epic in the ancient world and its continuing relevance in different periods and cultures.
Draws on Plato to argue that Homer elevated private life as the locus of true friendship and the catalyst of the highest human excellence. Offering a new, Plato-inspired reading of the Iliad and the Odyssey, this book traces the divergent consequences of love of honor and love of one’s own private life for human excellence, justice, and politics. Analyzing Homer’s intricate character portraits, Michelle M. Kundmeuller concludes that the poet shows that the excellence or virtue to which humans incline depends on what they love most. Ajax’s character demonstrates that human beings who seek honor strive, perhaps above all, to display their courage in battle, while Agamemnon’s shows that the love of honor ultimately undermines the potential for moderation, destabilizing political order. In contrast to these portraits, the excellence that Homer links to the love of one’s own, such as by Odysseus and his wife, Penelope, fosters moderation and employs speech to resolve conflict. It is Odysseus, rather than Achilles, who is the pinnacle of heroic excellence. Homer’s portrait of humanity reveals the value of love of one’s own as the better, albeit still incomplete, precursor to a just political order. Kundmueller brings her reading of Homer to bear on contemporary tensions between private life and the pursuit of public honor, arguing that individual desires continue to shape human excellence and our prospects for justice. “A beautiful account of the Homeric hero, in all his complexity.” — Mary P. Nichols, author of Thucydides and the Pursuit of Freedom
The role of poetic allusion in classical Greek poetry, to Homer especially, has often largely been neglected or even almost totally ignored. This book, first published in 1990, clarifies the place of Homer in Greek education, as well as adding to the interpretation of many important tragedies. Focussing on the dramatic masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and how these writers imitated and alluded to other poetry, the author reveals the immense dependence on Homer which can be seen throughout the corpus of Attic tragedy. It is argued that the practice of the art of allusion indicates certain conventions in fifth-century Athenian education, and perhaps also suggests something in the way of public, political, and historical self-awareness. Invaluable to anyone interested in the reception of Homer in the classical age, and to students of comparative literature and linguistic theory.