Building on
numerous original close readings of works by Homer, Hesiod, and other
ancient Greek poets, Richard P. Martin articulates a broad and precise
poetics of archaic Greek verse. The ancient Greek hexameter
poetry of such works as the Iliad and the Odyssey differ from most
modern verbal art because it was composed for live, face-to-face
performance, often in a competitive setting, before an audience well
versed in mythological and ritual lore. The essays collected here span
Martin’s acclaimed career and explore ways of reading this poetic
heritage using principles and evidence from the comparative study of
oral traditions, literary and speech-act theories, and the ethnographic
record.
Among topics analyzed in depth are the narrative
structures of Homer’s epics, the Hesiodic Works and Days, and the
Homeric Hymn to Apollo; the characterization of poetic and musical
performers within the poems; the social context for verses ascribed to
the legendary singer Orpheus; the significance of various rituals as
stylized by poetic performances; and the interrelations, at the level of
diction and theme, among the major genres of epic and hymn, as well as
“genres of speaking” such as lament, praise, advice, and proverbial
wisdom.
