Applying linguistic theory to the study of Homeric style, Egbert J.
Bakker offers a highly innovative approach to oral poetry,
particularly the poetry of Homer. By situating formulas and other
features of oral style within the wider contexts of spoken language
and communication, he moves the study of oral poetry beyond the
landmark work of Milman Parry and Albert Lord. One of the book's
central features, related to the research of the linguist Wallace
Chafe, is Bakker's conception of spoken discourse as a sequence of
short speech units reflecting the flow of speech through the
consciousness of the speaker. Bakker shows that such short speech
units are present in Homeric poetry, with significant consequences
for Homeric metrics and poetics. Considering Homeric discourse as a
speech process rather than as the finished product associated with
written discourse, Bakker's book offers a new perspective on Homer
as well as on other archaic Greek texts. Here Homeric discourse
appears as speech in its own right, and is freed, Bakker suggests,
from the bias of modern writing style which too easily views
Homeric discourse as archaic, implicitly taking the style of
classical period texts as the norm. Bakker's perspective reaches
beyond syntax and stylistics into the very heart of Homeric—and,
ultimately, oral—poetics, altering the status of key features
such as meter and formula, rethinking their relevance to the
performance of Homeric poetry, and leading to surprising insights
into the relation between "speech" and "text" in the encounter of
the Homeric tradition with writing.
General
Imprint: |
Cornell University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Myth and Poetics |
Release date: |
July 2018 |
First published: |
1997 |
Authors: |
Egbert J. Bakker
(Alvan Talcott Professor of Classics)
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 20mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
256 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-5017-2276-9 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
1-5017-2276-X |
Barcode: |
9781501722769 |
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