Research Catalog

Title

Pointing at the past : from formula to performance in Homeric poetics / by Egbert J. Bakker.

Author

Bakker, Egbert J.

Publication

Washington, D.C. : Center for Hellenic Studies, Trustees for Harvard University ; Cambridge, Mass. : Distributed by Harvard University Press, 2005.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Center for Hellenic Studies (Washington, D.C.)

Description

xiii, 205 p.; 23 cm.

Summary

• "Homeric epic is concerned with the past. Its heroes are larger than life and accomplish their exploits in a bygone age outside the reach of ordinary mortals. Yet epic is not only a nostalgic memory of a remote past, but also, as performance, a deliberate act in the present. In fact, as this book argues, memory is itself a deliberate act when it is turned into epic language. With numerous fresh linguistic observations the author shows that the epic narrator makes the epic past come to the present: epic is not only a verbal artifact that points to the past: it also is a performer's act of pointing at a past that has become present in and through language.
• Building on his earlier work, Bakker demonstrates the power of discourse analysis, in this case a detailed analysis of the language of "deixis" as an essential tool for elucidating the poetics of the Homeric tradition. The book deals with such varied topics as epic formulas, grammatical tense, and the celebrated "vividness" of the Homeric poems."--Jacket.

Series Statement

Hellenic studies ; 12

Uniform Title

Hellenic studies ; 12.

Subject

• Homer > Technique
• Homer > Language
• Epic poetry, Greek > History and criticism
• Performing arts > Greece
• Epic poetry > Authorship
• Oral tradition > Greece
• Oral-formulaic analysis
• Rhetoric, Ancient

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 177-190) and indexes.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Peripheral and nuclear semantics -- Formula, context, and synonymy -- How oral is oral composition? -- Mimesis as performance -- The poetics of deixis -- Storytelling in the future -- Similes, augment, and the language of immediacy -- Remembering the god's arrival -- Mohammed and the mountain.

ISBN

0674019555 (pbk.)

LCCN

^^2005020621

OCLC

• 61130773
• SCSB-12012470

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library