Mythologizing Performance (Myth and Poetics II) - Hardcover

Martin, Richard P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1501713094 ISBN 13: 9781501713095

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2020

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Richard P. Martin is the Antony and Isabelle Raubitschek Professor of Classics at Stanford University. Among his many books are Classical Mythology: The Basics; Myths of the Ancient Greeks; and The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the "Iliad."

Review

"Martin’s book is a major collection from one of the most significant scholars of archaic poetry working in the past several decades. In this richly synoptic and synthetic meditation on the complex workings of archaic poetry, Martin builds on and brilliantly transfigures the implications of oral poetics for any study of archaic (and Hellenistic) poetry―and indeed for poetics as a whole."

(Laura Slatkin, Professor of Classics, New York University)

Edition details

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2020
• ISBN 10: 1501713094
• ISBN 13: 9781501713095
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 540