Definitions and Theories of Epic Flashcards
Aristotle said epic poetry was a…
Representation of serious people which uses speech in verse
The Iliad and the Odyssey are part of the…
Trojan epic cycle
To epos means…
Word, utterance
Hē aoidē means…
Song
Hē oimē (aoidēs) means…
Path (of song)
The Unitarian view of Homeric epic is…
The belief that they were written by one author: Homer. Also called Homerists.
The analyst view of Homeric epic is…
The belief that they were written by multiple authors / compiled together
The orally-derived traditional poetry theory’s best known scholar is…
Milman Parry
Milman Parry discussed…
How the epic poems stemmed from traditional oral poetry, and one could tell by the formulaic epithets etc.
The traditional referentiality theory was described by…
J.M. Foley
J.M. Foley defined traditional referentiality as…
Referential meaning in writing as a pointer to tradition
Sēmata means…
Referential signs
J.M. Foley focuses on epithets as a form of traditional referentiality. These include…
Names with connotative meanings;
Astyanax = Lord of the citadel
Hektor = the keeper
Hector’s death foreshadows Astyanax’s death and also references the fall of Troy
J.M. Foley discusses foreshadowing in traditional referentiality, lines used for death include…
“Mightily in his might” describes a dead or dying person, also used to describe Patroklos ergo foreshadowing his death
In traditional referentiality there are instances of linguistic repetition, these include…
Swift-footed Achilleus Apollo the far-shooter son of Atreus The white-armed goddess (Formulaic epithet and reminder of character)
The rationalisation of gods is a theory by…
Schein
Schein’s theory of rationalisation states that…
A God is neither a cause not agent of an event but is a post facto explanation, but some gods are causation of effects
Schein’s counterpoint theory states that…
The immortality of the gods is used as a counterpoint to humans and the human condition; immortality makes mortals seem ephemeral and limited but also makes their actions significant through mortality
Albin Lesky says that divine intervention is…
Mostly negative in the Iliad, and mostly positive in the Odyssey
Lesky also says that few forms of conduct result purely from…
Human deliberation, as most things Halle. As a result of the gods’ will
Lesky’s divine causation argument is almost the opposite to…
Schein’s rationalisation theory
The Homeric question asks…
Who wrote the Iliad and the odyssey and when was it even written though
The modern debate over the Homeric question began in…
1788 with Villoison’s publication that included ancient scholarship
The epic poems are often argued to be transitional texts, which are…
Partly oral and partly written, produced by an orally-derived poet
Milman Parry has been subject to criticism for…
The rigidity of the formulas he describes and his vapid notion of their content
Robert Fowler argues that premeditation is…
Possible in an oral context
It has been suggested that the poems were written down at…
The panathenaic festival (Peisistratid redaction) of 6th century Athens
Fowler describes Foley’s traditional referentiality theory as the oral equivalent to…
Intertextuality
Robert Fowler argues that the Iliad and the odyssey were conceived as…
New kinds of texts by their oral poets, fixed through premeditation
