The Dark Age (1200-c.800 BC)
1200 "Sea People"
attack E. Mediterranean
Mycenaean sites abandoned
Linear A & B vanish
Palace rulers -> local chiefs
<...>
800/700 New "Geometric" pottery
700 Burials more elaborate
?Iliad & Odyssey composed
Alphabetic writing in use
The Homeric Poems
Homeric verse
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Dactylic: X o o (vs. iambic o X)
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Hexameter: 6 ‘feet’ (vs. pentameter)
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Un-rhymed but strict metrical rules
Síng, góddess, the ánger of Péleus’són
Achilléus
And its dévastátion, which put paíns
thoúsandfold upón the Achaíans,
Húrled in their múltitudes to the hoúse
of Hádes stróng soúls
Of héroes, but gáve their bódies
to bé the délicate feásting
Of dógs, of áll bírds, and the wíll
of Zeús was accómplished
(trans. R. Lattimore)
Homer & Oral Epic
Milman Parry (1902-1935)
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American Homer scholar
-
researched oral epic in Bosnia
Characteristics of Oral Poetry
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Formulas ("Then dawn spread out her rosy fingertips")
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Epithets ("swift-footed Achilles"; "the warlord
Agamemnon")
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Repetition & "Type Scenes" (e.g. arming, feasting, sacrificing)
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Fossilized (archaic) words & forms
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Mixture of different dialects
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Set in distant, idealized heroic past
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Musical accompaniment (lyre etc.)
The "Homeric Question(s)"
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One master poet? or editor(s) combining different versions?
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Did poet dictate or write?
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One poet for Iliad and Odyssey?
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