Relative Chronology in Early Greek Epic Poetry

This book investigates the relative chronology of early Greek poetry through linguistic and literary analyses of the texts themselves.

Øivind Andersen (Edited by), Dag T. T. Haug (Edited by)

9781107525917, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 May 2015

292 pages, 6 b/w illus. 15 tables
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.6 cm, 0.43 kg

This book sets out to disentangle the complex chronology of early Greek epic poetry, which includes Homer, Hesiod, hymns and catalogues. The preserved corpus of these texts is characterized by a rather uniform language and many recurring themes, thus making the establishment of chronological priorities a difficult task. The editors have brought together scholars working on these texts from both a linguistic and a literary perspective to address the problem. Some contributions offer statistical analysis of the linguistic material or linguistic analysis of subgenres within epic, others use a neoanalytical approach to the history of epic themes or otherwise seek to track the development and interrelationship of epic contents. All the contributors focus on the implications of their study for the dating of early epic poems relative to each other. Thus the book offers an overview of the current state of discussion.

Introduction
1. Relative chronology and the literary history of the early Greek epos Richard Janko
2. Relative chronology and an 'Aeolic phase' of epic BRANDTLY JONES
3. The other view: focus on linguistic innovations in the Homeric epics Rudolf Wachter
4. Late features in the speeches of the Iliad Margalit Finkelberg
5. Tmesis in the epic tradition Dag T. T. Haug
6. The Doloneia revisited Georg Danek
7. Odyssean stratigraphy Stephanie West
8. Older heroes and earlier poems: the case of Heracles in the Odyssey Øivind Andersen
9. The Catalogue of Women within the Greek epic tradition: allusion, intertextuality and traditional referentiality Ian C. Rutherford
10. Intertextuality without text in early Greek epic Jonathan S. Burgess
11. Perspectives on neoanalysis from the archaic hymns to Demeter Bruno Currie
12. The relative chronology of the Homeric Catalogue of Ships and of the lists of heroes and cities within the Catalogue Wolfgang Kullman
13. Towards a chronology of early Greek epic Martin West.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]