Description
Book SynopsisThis edited volume, arising from the 2019 conference “Orality and Literacy: Repetition,” explores some of the many forms and uses of repetition, in poetry, philosophy, and inscriptions, from Homeric epic through the Latin novel and the Gospels to reception in the twentieth century. All human communication depends on repeating signs that are comprehensible to the speaker and the addressee. Yet “repetition” takes many specific forms, in different performance contexts, time periods, and literary genres. Repetition may operate within one utterance, or across several times, places, and artists. The relationship between two repeated utterances cannot always be determined with certainty. But repetition offers exciting ways to understand the communicative process in oral and literate contexts across the ancient world.
Trade Review''[T]he volume offers interesting and mind-broadening prompts. Homeric scholars will take advantage of the problematization of the category of “repetition” in an oral context, especially in the opening papers, and will be pleased to re-encounter Homer at the end, re-discussed in the light of modern (and unusual) performances thanks to Duffy’s and Minchin’s contributions. Each paper is clearly structured and completed by copious and recent bibliography.'' Ombretta Cesca, in Bryn Mawr Classical Review (06.2022)
Table of ContentsPreface Notes on Contributors Introduction Deborah Beck 1 Repetition or Recurrence? A Traditional Use for ἄνδρεσσι μελήσει in Archaic Greek Poetry Justin Arft 2 Enumeration and Embodiment in Homeric Repetition Alexander Forte 3 Odysseus’ Scar Once More: Repetition, Tradition and Fiction in the Story of Odysseus’ Hunting in the Mountains of Parnassus Françoise Létoublon 4 Repetition, Sortition, and Abbreviations in the Cypro-Minoan Script Cassandra M. Donnelly 5 Repeating the Unrepeated: Allusions to Homeric Hapax Legomena in Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry Thomas J. Nelson 6 Repetition and the Creation of “Sappho” Peter A. O’Connell 7 Repetition, Disanalogy, and Reflexivity in Hesiod’s Theogony: About the Fate of the Cyclopes, of the Hundred-Handers, and of the Children of Iapetus Xavier Gheerbrant 8 Reperformance, Writing, and the Boundaries of Literature Ruth Scodel 9 Other-Initiated Repetition and Fictive Orality in the Dialogues of Plato Rodrigo Verano 10 Repetition, Improvisation, and Parody: Eumolpus Re-takes Troy in Petronius’s Satyrica 83–90 Niall W. Slater 11 Oral Prayer Patterns in Epigraphic Songs to Asklepios Hanna Golab 12 Harmonization in the Pentateuch and Synoptic Gospels: Repetition and Category-Triggering within Scribal Memory Raymond F. Person, Jr. 13 “Godlike” Grappling: Professional Wrestling as a Model for the Shifting of Epithet Significance in Oral Poetry William Duffy 14 The Creation of a Storyrealm: The Role of Repetition in Homeric Epic and Alice Oswald’s Memorial Elizabeth Minchin Index
