Orality and Narration. Performance and Mythic-Ritual Poetics in the Ancient World

Myths can be defined as traditional stories that societies pass on from generation to generation, constantly reinventing and reshaping them through oral, written or visual representations. Rituals and cults, on the other hand, are the festive celebrations that punctuate social life, providing the occasion for the community to perform and reflect on mythic stories or mimetic plays about or by gods and heroes. How do then the recent advances in narratology, sociolinguistics, and anthropology lead us to reconsider the complex relationships between myth and ritual in ancient traditional societies, both literate and non-literate? The papers in this groundbreaking volume explore and compare these dynamic interactions across diverse cultures, including archaic and classical Greece, the ancient Near East, and imperial Rome.

Anton Bierl, Ph.D. (Munich, 1990), Habil. (Leipzig, 1999), is Professor of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Basel. He was Senior Fellow at Harvard’s CHS (2005-2011). He is director of Homer’s Iliad: The Basel Commentary and series-editor of MythosEikonPoiesis. His research interests include Homeric epic, drama, song and performance culture, the ancient novel, Greek myth and religion.

David Bouvier, Ph.D. (EHESS, 1984; University of Geneva, 1997), is Professor emeritus of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Lausanne. He has extensively published on Homeric poetry, Greek literature, and reception studies. He leads the digital project Iliadoscope.

Ombretta Cesca, Ph.D. (University of Lausanne, 2018) is Assistant Professor of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Lausanne. Her research interests include Homeric poetry, media and communication in Ancient Greece, and the representation of gods in epic poems and Attic theater. Her scientific approach combines oral theory, narratology and history of ancient religions.

Contributors are: Dylan Bovet, Sandra Fleury, Jasper Gaunt, Claas Lattmann, Anna Lefteratou, Elizabeth Minchin, Gregory Nagy, Raymond F. Person, Jr., Ruth Scodel, Niall W. Slater.