Imparting Textuality
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Forward planning and rehearsal were essential to a successful oral performance of the Homeric kind. Drawing on the work of linguistic anthropologist Karin Barber, on research in cognitive psychology, and ethnographical studies, I propose that we may find in the epics good evidence for poetic preparation. I present a number of passages from the Homeric epics that, I argue, were the product of composition and rehearsal in tandem; to use Barber’s phrase, they “pre-existed the moment of utterance.”
Author: Elizabeth Minchin
Institution: Australian National University
Language: English
Topic: Classical Antiquity Studies
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4404615440