Actions for Pointing at the past : from formula to performance in Homeric poetics

Email RIS file
Bookmark
Report an Issue

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

Author
Bakker, Egbert J.
Published
Washington, D.C. : Center for Hellenic Studies, Trustees for Harvard University ; Cambridge, Mass. ; London : Harvard University Press, 2005.
Physical Description
205 pages ; 23 cm.
Additional Creators
Center for Hellenic Studies (Washington, D.C.)

Availability

Browse Nearby on Shelf
I Want It
I Want It

Finding items...

Series
Contents
Machine generated contents note: 1.Peripheral and nuclear semantics -- 2.Formula, context, and synonymy -- 3.How oral is oral composition? -- 4.Mimesis as performance -- 5.The poetics of deixis -- 6.Storytelling in the future -- 7.Similes, augment, and the language of immediacy -- 8.Remembering the God's arrival.
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." --Book Jacket.
Subject(s)
ISBN
0674019555
9780674019553
Bibliography Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes.
Source of Acquisition
UP-PAT copy: Purchased with funds from the Gift of the Tombros Libraries Endowment in Classics ; 2011.
View MARC record | catkey: 7870500