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A characteristic of Homer's style is the use of epithets, as in "rosy-fingered" Dawn or "swift-footed" Achilles.Epithets are used because of the constraints of the dactylic hexameter (i.e., it is convenient to have a stockpile of metrically fitting phrases to add to a name) and because of the oral transmission of the poems; they are mnemonic aids to the singer and the audience alike.
The locus classicus for oral-formulaic poetry, however, was established by the work of Parry and his student Lord, not on oral recitation of Homer (which no longer was practiced), but on the (similar) Albanian, Bosnian and Serbian oral epic poetry in the Balkans, where oral-formulaic composition could be observed and recorded ethnographically.
The Homeric Question concerns the doubts and consequent debate over the identity of Homer, the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey, and their historicity (especially concerning the Iliad). The subject has its roots in classical antiquity and the scholarship of the Hellenistic period , but has flourished among Homeric scholars of the 19th, 20th ...
Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in that same epic cycle. [ 2 ] As the son of Laërtes and Anticlea , husband of Penelope , and father of Telemachus , Acusilaus, and Telegonus , [ 3 ] Odysseus is renowned for his intellectual brilliance, guile, and versatility ( polytropos ), and he is thus known by the epithet ...
Argos, loyal hunting dog of Odysseus.; Laertes, father of Odysseus.; Penelope, Odysseus' faithful wife.She uses her quick wits to put off her many suitors and remain loyal to her errant husband.
Homer and His Guide (1874) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Today, only the Iliad and the Odyssey are associated with the name "Homer". In antiquity, a large number of other works were sometimes attributed to him, including the Homeric Hymns, the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, several epigrams, the Little Iliad, the Nostoi, the Thebaid, the Cypria, the Epigoni, the comic mini-epic ...
Strabo, quoting Posidonius notes that Homer sometimes used epithets of qualitative attributes to append ordinal directions to the cardinal winds, e.g. as western winds bring rain, then when Homer says a "stormy Boreas" he means a different wind from a "loud Boreas" (i.e. wet north = NW, loud north = N) [30] Nonetheless, while it seems that ...
Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used in the Iliad, Odyssey, and Homeric Hymns. It is a literary dialect of Ancient Greek consisting mainly of an archaic form of Ionic , with some Aeolic forms, a few from Arcadocypriot , and a written form influenced by Attic . [ 1 ]