Browsing by Subject "Homer"
Now showing 1 - 16 of 16
- Results Per Page
- Sort Options
Item Approaches to the performance of the Odyssey(2010-08) Tosa, Dygo Leo; Beck, Deborah; Palaima, Thomas G.This report examines different approaches to the performance of the Odyssey. The first approach focuses on the internal evidence of the Odyssey, looking at how the Homer’s poems define the singer as a type. The second approach analyzes a selection of sources from the classical period that attests to the performance of the Odyssey. The third approach uses material evidence as a means to reconstruct the music of performance. The internal evidence provides a consistent model for performance that can be correlated with external context. This model can then be used to show how the Odyssey makes use of its own performance. These approaches demonstrate that the material of the poem provides the most compelling account of performance of the Odyssey. The Odyssey presents a consistent model of performance that describes the performer, the manner of performance, and makes use of performance in its own poetry.Item Bob Dylan: Our Homer(2006-03-01) Palaima, Thomas G.The thesis of Palaima's presentation is that, first of all, more than any other American popular artist during the last half century, Bob Dylan has the qualities of an oral poet; and second, that Dylan’s songs serve the same functions of social enculturation and witness to key realities of life that were the hallmark of ancient Greek oral poetry like Homer’s Iliad and Hesiod’s Works and Days.Item From the [purgos] to the [teichos] : the social nature of walls in the Iliad and Archaic Greece(2021-07-30) Thomas, Zoé Elise; Beck, DeborahThis report uses spatial theory to analyze the social nature of walls in the Bronze Age and Archaic Aegean and the literary manifestation of the social nature of walls in the Iliad. It begins with an overview of the historical and archaeological evidence for walls as a social phenomenon in the Bronze Age and Archaic Aegean, including relevant artistic evidence in addition to settlement patterns and excavation reports. Then, it analyzes all instances of the words τεῖχος and πύργος within the Iliad and the narrative context for their usage. The findings of this report show that there are two main categories of usage: military interest settings (battle scenes, construction of fortifications, and strategizing and ordering troops) and community interest settings (expressions of social bonds, especially anxiety over their preservation, scenes of high emotion, and similes). Of these, τεῖχος is more commonly used for military scenes, while πύργος is more commonly used for community scenes. The result of this pattern indicates an attention paid by the poet to the use of these specific vocabulary words to denote the overall effect of a scene for the audience. Τεῖχος reinforces for the audience the military setting of the Iliad, while πύργος signals a greater level of emotional weight for both the characters and for the audience. In combination with the audience’s previous knowledge of the story and other forms of foreshadowing, τεῖχος and πύργος help to guide audience interpretation by signaling the tone of a scene. Moreover, τεῖχος and πύργος provide a framework for understanding the narrative for those audience members who were not previously familiar with the stories by drawing on their experiences of the logistical and social nature of the walls around them. While the binary distinction between military and community should be expanded upon, this initial foray into examining the vocabulary of the built environment of the Iliad from a spatial perspective provides a new way of discussing the cultural context and impact of the epic.Item Homer and the Foundation of Classical Civilization(2009-11-20) Ahrensdorf, PeterItem Homer in Eighteenth Century America(2014-12-12) Essary, LaurenItem Iliadic and Odyssean heroics : Apollonius' Argonautica and the epic tradition(2014-12) Van der Horst, Rebecca; Beck, DeborahThis report examines heroism in Apollonius’ Argonautica and argues that a different heroic model predominates in each of the first three books. Unlike Homer’s epics where Achilles with his superhuman might and Odysseus with his unparalleled cunning serve as the unifying forces for their respective poems, there is no single guiding influence in the Argonautica. Rather, each book establishes its own heroic type, distinct from the others. In Book 1, Heracles is the central figure, demonstrating his heroic worth through feats of strength and martial excellence. In Book 2, Polydeuces, the helmsmen, and—what I have called—the “Odyssean” Heracles use their mētis to guide and safeguard the expedition. And in Book 3, Jason takes center stage, a human character with human limitations tasked with an epic, impossible mission. This movement from Book 1 (Heracles and biē) to Book 2 (Polydeuces/helmsmen and mētis) to Book 3 (Jason and human realism) reflects the epic tradition: the Iliad (Achilles and biē) to the Odyssey (Odysseus and mētis) to the Argonautica (Apollonius’ epic and the Hellenistic age). Thus, the Argonautica is an epic about epic and its evolving classification of what it entails to be a hero. The final stage in this grand metaphor comes in Book 3 which mirrors the literary environment in Apollonius’ own day and age, a time invested in realism where epic had been deemed obsolete. Jason, as the representative of that Hellenistic world, is unable to successively use Iliadic or Odyssean heroics because he is as human and ordinary as Apollonius’ audience. Jason, like his readers, cannot connect to the archaic past. Medea, however, changes this when she saves Jason’s life by effectively rewriting him to become a superhuman, epic hero. She is a metaphor for Apollonius himself, a poet who wrote an epic in an unepic world. The final message of Book 3, therefore, is an affirmation not of the death of epic but its survival in the Hellenistic age.Item Kosmos in the Mycenaean Tablets: The Response of the Mycenaean 'Scribes' to the Mycenaean Culture of Kosmos(2014) Palaima, Thomas G.Paper delivered at the 13th Annual International Aegean Conference at the University of Copenhagen. Palaima considers the idiosyncrasies of individual Mycenaean scribal hands in light of palace architecture and the material surroundings of their day-to-day world.Item Letter from Beatrice Gwynn to William C. Brice, February, 22, 1970(1970-02-22) Gwynn, BeatriceItem Letter from Cyrus H. Gordon to Emmett L. Bennett Jr., February 15, 1962(1962-02-15) Gordon, Cyrus H.Item Letter From Emmett L. Bennett Jr. to Thomas G. Palaima, August 14, 1995(1995-08-14) Bennett, Emmett L., Jr.Item Letter from Leopold John Dixon Richardson to Emmett L. Bennett, Jr., November 25, 1958(1958-11-25) Richardson, Leopold John DixonItem Letter from No Sender to Alfred R. Bellinger, May 17, 1955(1955-05-17) UnknownItem Managing public perceptions : reading success in Agamemnon's diapeira(2016-12) Shrout, William Clay IV; Beck, DeborahThe success of Agamemnon’s test (diapeira) in Iliad 2 is still a matter of debate among Homeric scholars. This report not only argues that Agamemnon’s test was successful, but also will examine how skillfully Agamemnon manipulates his subordinates. Unlike his brash and shameless attempt to subordinate Achilles in Iliad 1, the Homeric poet depicts Agamemnon as conforming to more socially acceptable behavior in order to maintain his position as chief of the Achaean army. However, I argue that Agamemnon’s attempt to present a more positive public image is a shrewd ploy to subordinate both the host of laoi and the elite gerontes in the wake of Achilles’ rebellion. Agamemnon’s test unfolds gradually in four distinct narrative sections in Iliad 2. In Narrative Section 1 Zeus’ deceptive dream, in the form of Nestor, serves as a catalyst for Agamemnon’s behavioral change. This section also serves as a narrative turning point away from Agamemnon's failure to control Achilles in Iliad 1. In the Narrative Digression, a genealogy of Agamemnon’s skeptron illustrates the ease with which chiefly power can be transferred and foreshadows his temporary bestowal of his power on Odysseus. In Narrative Section 2, Agamemnon presents himself to the boule of gerontes as acting with communal cohesion in mind, but omits his intention to capitalize on the laoi’s desperation and thus to force the gerontes to support his position as chief. Finally, in Narrative Section 3 Odysseus reveals to the gerontes that Agamemnon has deceived them and successfully carries out Agamemnon's plan to ensure the loyalty of of both elites and non-elites through two different rhetorical strategies.Item Mycenaean Society and Kingship: Cui Bono? A Counter-Speculative View(2007) Palaima, Thomas G.In this paper, delivered at the 11th International Aegean Conference, Palaima responds to the negative appraisals of Mycenaean palace-states and their rulers by Deger-Jalkotzy, Sherratt, and Kopcke.Item The overburdened Earth : landscape and geography in Homeric epic(2011-08) Lovell, Christopher; Riggsby, Andrew M.; Beck, Deborah; Cook, Erwin F.; Purves, Alex C.; Kim, LarryThis dissertation argues that Homer's Iliad depicts the Trojan landscape as participant in or even victim of the Trojan War. This representation alludes to extra-Homeric accounts of the origins of the Trojan War in which Zeus plans the war to relieve the earth of the burden of human overpopulation. In these myths, overpopulation is the result of struggle among the gods for divine kingship. Through this allusion, the Iliad places itself within a framework of theogonic myth, depicting the Trojan War as an essential step in separating the world of gods and the world of men, and making Zeus’ position as the father of gods and men stable and secure. The Introduction covers the mythological background to which the Iliad alludes through an examination of extra-Homeric accounts of the Trojan War’s origins. Chapter One analyzes a pair of similes at Iliad 2.780-85 that compare the Akhaian army to Typhoeus, suggesting that the Trojan War is a conflict similar to Typhoeus’ attempt to usurp Zeus’ position as king of gods and men. Chapter Two demonstrates how Trojan characters are closely linked with the landscape in the poem’s first extended battle scene (4.422-6.35); the deaths of these men are a symbolic killing of the land they defend. Chapter Three discusses the aristeia of Diomedes in Book 5, where his confrontations with Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo illustrate the heroic tendency to disrespect the status difference between gods and men. Athena’s authorization of Diomedes’ actions reveals the existence of strife among the Olympian gods, which threatens to destabilize the divine hierarchy. Chapter Four examines the Akhaian wall whose eventual destruction is recounted at the beginning of Book 12. The wall symbolizes human impiety and its destruction is a figurative fulfillment of Zeus’ plan to relieve the earth of the burden of unruly humanity. Finally, Chapter Five treats the flußkampf and Theomachy of Books 20 and 21, episodes adapting scenes of divine combat typically associated with the struggle for divine kingship. In the Iliad, these scenes show that Zeus’ power is unassailable.Item Suppliant, guest, and the power of Zeus in Homeric epic(2009-08) Tworek-Hofstetter, Miriam; Hubbard, Thomas K.; Kim, Lawrence Y.This report investigates the theme of supplication in both the Iliad and Odyssey especially in regards to the role of Zeus as protector of suppliants in each of the poems. Although Zeus is never given the epithet Hikesios in the Iliad as is the case in the Odyssey, he nevertheless acts as such in the Iliad’s final scenes of supplication. The scenes discussed in this paper include the supplication between Thetis and Zeus, Adrastos and Menelaus, Hektor and Achilles, Priam and Achilles, Odysseus and the Cyclops, and Odysseus and Arete. While Zeus appears indifferent to the battlefield suppliants in the Iliad such as Adrastos in the beginning of the Iliad, his own interest in justice as well as an increasing value of the suppliant draw Zeus into a more active role in supplications. This phenomenon is further supported by supplication scenes in the Odyssey that refer to events of the Iliad and in which Zeus is explicitly called “protector of suppliants.”