Homer and the Homeric Hymns

This paper explores how prayers in Homer’s Iliad are rhythmically distinct from other speech-acts. To date scholars have established how an epic poet can differentiate individual speakers and groups by modulating the vocabulary and world-view expressed (Parry 1956; Reeve 1973; Friedrich and Redfield 1978; Scully 1984; Griffin 1986; Scodel 1989; Martin 1989; Mackie 1996; Beck 2009, 2012, 2017); others have explored the phrasing and colometry of epic Greek in light of differing genres and speech-acts (Bakker 1997; Edwards 2002; Blankenborg 2017).

Of all the language that characterizes women and their sphere of action in the Odyssey, the formulaic system involving the upper/inner rooms is the only one used exclusively of Penelope. Scholars, especially since Nagler’s influential article (1974), have linked the formula with Penelope’s faithfulness to Odysseus.

Humor as Praise: Hermes and Apollo in Homeric Hymn 4

Over the last sixty years, various studies have contended that the Homeric language was more flexible than the Parry-Lord model allowed. These discussions have frequently reopened the question of whether, and in what way, certain epithets relate to the narrative context in which they appear. Did the poet ever call Odysseus πολύμητις or πολυμήχανος to highlight a moment of intelligence, πόλυτλας or ταλασίφρων a moment of suffering, and πτολίπορθος a moment of dominance and triumph? Did he ever use these terms ironically or humorously?

This paper takes a literary perspective to the study of Homer’s use of epithets (Vivante, A.Parry, etc.), and adopts the term “contextual field” (Scully, Ch. 3) to describe the suitability of Hector’s epithet koruthaiolos to its regular narrative context. With his distinctive epithet, concentrating in Book 6, Hector consistently divides his attention between multiple people or objects — Troy, his family, his fellow-soldiers, the gods, the Greeks, to name some — requiring his head to turn in all directions. Sometimes, the text makes head movement explicit (e.g.