scholarly journals WHAT IS AN ORAL HEROIC EPIC POETRY? – OVERCOMING THE LIMIT OF THE ILIAD

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 57-65
Author(s):  
Jongseong Park
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
General Pattern ◽  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Narrative Poetry ◽  
European Literature ◽  
Heroic Epic ◽  
Greek Epic ◽  
General Aspects

The ancient Greek epic Iliad, including the oral epic and the written epic, has enjoyed a solid status as a ‘heroic epic’ (or ‘narrative poetry’) of European literature. But if a reader takes look at the general aspects of the heroic epic of oral tradition, it turns out that Iliad is not a typical work of a typical epic, but rather an individual one. Because the birth, trials, performance, and ending of a hero’s life are divided relatively evenly, and the general pattern of transferring the hero’s life to the heroic epic of oral tradition can be found in such cases as Manas, Jangar, Gesar and Mwindo.

Epic Poetry

2009 ◽  
pp. 441-453
Author(s):  
Johannes Haubold
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Narrative Poetry ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Greek Epic ◽  
Ancient Greek Literature

The term ‘epic’, when applied to ancient Greek literature, refers to a set of texts that may be loosely defined as narrative poetry about the deeds of gods and heroes. To a very large extent, this is a reflection of Homer's authority as the most famous epic poet. This article argues that recent comparisons between early Greek epic and modern oral traditions, as well as the discovery and investigation of ancient Hittite and Near Eastern texts, place Greek epic in a much wider literary and historical context.

Jacob Baldes Batrachomyomachia Homeri Tuba Romana cantata (1637) und der Dreißigjährige Krieg

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 214-228
Author(s):  
Dirk Werle ◽  
Katharina Worms
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
European Literature ◽  
Greek Epic ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Latin Version

Abstract One of the most extensive texts of the neolatin poet and Jesuit Jacob Balde is his ›Battle of the Frogs and Mice‹, a Latin version of the Batrachomyomachia, an ancient Greek epic, which for a long time was seen as a work of the founder of European literature, Homer. The pseudo-Homeric Batrachomyomachia was read as a humorous travesty of the Iliad. By assigning the comic text to Homer, scholars implied the appealing, yet wrongful idea that the author of the greatest mythical war was mocking his own work, thereby parodying the respectable genre of heroic epics. With Balde’s creation of a new version of this Greek poem during the Thirty Years’ War, the question arises as to whether his text is no more than an intertextual play on a famous literary genre, or whether it reacts to the recent historical events in early modern Europe - or both.

Homer's linguistic forebears

1992 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 167-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
William F. Wyatt
Keyword(s):  
Poetic Language ◽  
Correct Interpretation ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Heroic Epic ◽  
Greek Epic ◽  
History Of

M. L. West has recently presented a magisterial account of the history of Greek epic in which Aeolic phases and other entities are assumed. His account is the more impressive because it combines linguistic features skilfully handled with an account of the thematic development of epic, and also specifies at what stages the various linguistic features entered the tradition. West assumes an Aeolic phase, or phases, of heroic epic composition, and accounts for the presence of Aeolic forms (162): ‘It has usually been inferred that they are just a residue left after Ionian poets had adapted an Aeolic poetic language into their own dialect as far as it would go. This is, I have no doubt, the correct interpretation.’ I think it is not.

The Aorist Infinitives in -EEIN in Early Greek Hexameter Poetry

2013 ◽  
Vol 133 ◽  
pp. 81-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Nikolaev
Keyword(s):  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Poetic Language ◽  
Phase Theory ◽  
Total Absence ◽  
Greek Epic

AbstractThis paper examines the distribution of thematic infinitive endings in early Greek epic in the context of the long-standing debate about the transmission and development of Homeric epic diction. There are no aorist infinitives in -έμεν in Homer which would scan as ◡◡ – before a consonant or caesura (for example *βαλέμεν): instead we find unexplained forms in -έειν (for example βαλέειν). It is argued that this artificially ‘distended’ ending -έειν should be viewed as an actual analogical innovation of the poetic language, resulting from a proportional analogy to the ‘liquid’ futures. The total absence of aoristic -έειν in Hesiod is unlikely to be coincidental: the analogical form must have been the product of a specifically East Ionic Kunstsprache, and so could have been simply unknown in some other Ionian school of epic poetry where Hesiod was trained. Finally, the striking avoidance of anapaestic aorist infinitives in -έειν is argued to be explained better under the ‘diffusionist’ approach to the Aeolic elements in Homeric diction than under the ‘Aeolic phase’ theory.

The antiquity of the Greek epic tradition: some new evidence

1980 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
G.C. Horrocks
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Poetic Tradition ◽  
Epic Tradition ◽  
Narrative Poetry ◽  
Greek Epic ◽  
Careful Handling ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Bronze Age

Since the decipherment of Linear B a number of scholars have argued, on the basis of supposed Mycenaean survivals in the Homeric poems, that the Greek legendary poetic tradition ran continuously from the Bronze Age through the Dark Age down to the singers of the Ionian towns in the ninth and eighth centuries. However, the directness of the connection between the narrative poetry of the Mycenaean Age, if indeed such existed, and the subsequent development of the Epic in Greece has been called into question. Thus Shipp, for example, has argued that most of the items listed by Chadwick in his article Mycenaean elements in the Homeric dialect in fact left their mark for a time at least on forms of Greek other than that of the Epic, and so could well have entered this tradition in post-Mycenaean times and in some other way than through a direct poetical current from the Bronze Age. A similar conclusion has been reached by Kirk, who has expressed his views forcefully in a series of publications. Consider the following:The two objective criteria for dating elements within the Homeric poems, namely archaeology and language, require careful handling and reveal less than is generally claimed for them. They enable certain elements to be recognized as having existed as early as the late Bronze Age, but do not necessarily prove that these all passed into the Ionian Epic tradition by the medium of late Bronze Age poetry.

Greek Epic Poetry: From Eumelos to Panyassis

1970 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 86
Author(s):  
Charles Rowan Beye ◽  
G. L. Huxley
Keyword(s):  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Greek Epic

Conventions of Form and Thought in Early Greek Epic Poetry

1986 ◽  
Vol 79 (5) ◽  
pp. 340
Author(s):  
Walter Donlan ◽  
William G. Thalmann
Keyword(s):  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Greek Epic

scholarly journals Histórias de Homero: um Balanço das Propostas de Datação dos Poemas Homéricos * Homer’s Histories: a Balance of the Dating Proposals of Homeric Poems

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 126
Author(s):  
GUSTAVO OLIVEIRA
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Greek Epic

<p><strong>Resumo:</strong> A datação dos poemas homéricos é um assunto polêmico e repleto de dificuldades. Mesmo diante de tal cenário, sua utilização como fonte histórica tem ocorrido, em geral sem maiores considerações acerca da dificuldade de resolver problemas centrais para a maneira de como os poemas são contextualizados. O presente estudo tem como objetivo fazer um levantamento das possibilidades de abordagens históricas destes poemas, apontando as particularidades, os pressupostos e problemas relacionados a cada uma. Por fim é apresentada uma sugestão alternativa de abordagem, que toma como ponto de partida a datação da tradição da qual os poemas fazem parte, encarando-os como testemunhos válidos desta tradição de longa duração oral.</p><p><strong>Palavras-chave:</strong> Sociedade Homérica – Épica Grega – Tradição Oral.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Abstract:</strong> Dating the Homeric poems is a polemic subject, filled with difficulties. Even so, the poems have been used as historical sources, generally without any significant remarks about the difficulty in solving main problems in how the poems are put into context. The focus of this paper is to trace the possibilities of historical approaches which use the Homeric poems as sources and pointing out the particularities, the assumption and the problems presented in each type of approach. At last, it is suggested an alternative approach which has, as the starting point, the dating of  the tradition to which the poems belong, considering them valid testimonies of such a long-lasting oral tradition.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Homeric Society – Greek Epic – Oral Tradition.</p>

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