This is brilliant approach to connecting the oral origins to the text of the Homeric epics. Seeing the poem as a series of episodes--experienced communally, spoken to and from the cultural ethos, and crafted for the moment rather than some imagined posterity, brings an authenticity and immediacy that radically transforms our understanding of epic--and in fact changes our sense of how poetry is delivered and received.
And the idea of connecting Greek to English through homonyms is not only an original prosodic technique to find new expressions of words and phrases long varnished by canonical translations ("menace" for instance slants the light of menin--so often translated as 'rage' or 'anger' or 'wrath'). More than that, though, it suggests a chthonic thread thrumming beneath denotation and syntax--connecting utterances of distant times and languages. Real magic at work here.
I look forward to having a leisurely read of the translations. But first, this jumped out at me:
"Two lines of trimeter can sound like a line of hexameter; three tetrameters like two hexameters..."
Because I happen to be reading Longellow's Evangeline, which is in dactylic hexameter, and these things happen continually. Very often a line wants to be two sets of three, or three sets of two. Really often, not just a relatively rare variation. I don't think it works very well. For me at any rate it creates a jerky sort of effect. I don't read Greek so this is not a comment on Homer or any other Greek verse.
I am reading the Iliad right now with my young high schooler, and this is exactly the kind of contextual information and “audience experience” I was wondering about. This is lovely. What a great project. Can’t wait to read more!
This is brilliant approach to connecting the oral origins to the text of the Homeric epics. Seeing the poem as a series of episodes--experienced communally, spoken to and from the cultural ethos, and crafted for the moment rather than some imagined posterity, brings an authenticity and immediacy that radically transforms our understanding of epic--and in fact changes our sense of how poetry is delivered and received.
And the idea of connecting Greek to English through homonyms is not only an original prosodic technique to find new expressions of words and phrases long varnished by canonical translations ("menace" for instance slants the light of menin--so often translated as 'rage' or 'anger' or 'wrath'). More than that, though, it suggests a chthonic thread thrumming beneath denotation and syntax--connecting utterances of distant times and languages. Real magic at work here.
I look forward to having a leisurely read of the translations. But first, this jumped out at me:
"Two lines of trimeter can sound like a line of hexameter; three tetrameters like two hexameters..."
Because I happen to be reading Longellow's Evangeline, which is in dactylic hexameter, and these things happen continually. Very often a line wants to be two sets of three, or three sets of two. Really often, not just a relatively rare variation. I don't think it works very well. For me at any rate it creates a jerky sort of effect. I don't read Greek so this is not a comment on Homer or any other Greek verse.
I am reading the Iliad right now with my young high schooler, and this is exactly the kind of contextual information and “audience experience” I was wondering about. This is lovely. What a great project. Can’t wait to read more!