Have We
Homer's Iliad (Again)
by Prof. Steve Reece,
Saint Olaf College
Original text
2000 Steve Reece. All rights reserved.
Four Features in Our Inherited Texts that Point to the Oral Dictation
Model
I favor the oral-dictation model because
of four prominent features of the narratives of our epics: the
unity of the narratives, the inconcinnities that remain embedded
in the narratives, the absence of multiple versions of the Iliad
and Odyssey, and the fixation in time of the epic art-language
of our inherited texts. Let me mention the first two features
very briefly, and reserve the rest of my time for the latter
two.
I. The Unity of the Narratives of Our
Inherited Texts
Our epics are unified narratives whose
structures are most clearly observed, whose plots are most intelligently
followed, and whose nuances are most pleasurably appreciated,
whether by ancient listeners or modern readers, when experienced
in their entirety and within a limited time frame. Episodes
are not simply heaped one upon the other; they are rather organized
in a thoughtful sequence from beginning to end and bound together
by a network of interconnected references, by anticipatory and
retrospective allusions, by comparative and contrasting parallelisms,
and many other similar structuring devices. Further, although
the events of the Trojan War are well understood to have consumed
ten years, and the adventures of Odysseus' return home an additional
ten years, in both the Iliad and Odyssey the narratives
cover only a very narrow time frame -- a matter of days rather
than years -- the rest being related by means of flashback through
stories and allusions and anticipation through prophecy and foreshadowing.
This unity of plot and time struck Aristotle as a unique feature
of Homeric epic as early as the 4th C. B.C., and most critics
and commentators since then have continued to be struck by the
architectonic unity of each epic as a whole.
I need not remind this audience of the
details of the thematic unity of the Iliad and the narratological
unity of the Odyssey. I simply note for the present
purposes that this unity points to epics that were intended to
be performed in toto on some occasion that provided
considerable leisure time (a festival, perhaps, or a nobleman's
funeral or wedding). The length of the two epics was no
detriment to performance (as is often claimed): if the 5th century
Athenians had the patience to sit through 17,000 verses of tragedy
during the three days of the Greater Dionysia, surely the 8th
century Ionians could endure -- over the course of perhaps three
or six days -- a 16,000 verse performance of the Iliad
or a 12,000 verse performance of the Odyssey.
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