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The descent of the Greek epic: a reply

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

M. L. West
M. L. West
Affiliation:
All Souls College, Oxford
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Extract

In JHS cx (1990) 174-7 Dr John Chadwick expresses scepticism about certain lines of argument followed in my article ‘The Rise of the Greek Epic’ (JHS cviii [1988\ 151-72). He will not expect me to be heartened by his remarks. But I am. If this (I reflect) is the worst that the linguistic establishment can throw at me, there cannot be too much wrong with my approach.

His paper consists largely of a rehearsal of elementary facts and principles familiar to me and to everyone in the field. We differ, evidently, in our assessments of the bearing of these facts and principles on my reconstruction of the main phases of the epic tradition. I will try to explain succinctly why his representations leave me so unabashed.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 112 , November 1992 , pp. 173 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1992

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References

1 Cf. 166 of my article.

2 Amorgos belongs here as a Samian colony.

3 I did suggest that the Odyssey might be a Euboean poem, but I made it clear that I believe the Iliad to have been com posed in Asia Minor (172).

4 ‘Have we Homer's Iliad?’, YCS xx (1966) 175-216, reprinted in Latacz, J. (ed.), Homer. Tradition und Neuerung (Darmstadt 1979) 428-66Google Scholar, and in Parry, A.M., The language of Achilles and other papers (Oxford 1989) 104-40Google Scholar. Cf. West, M.L., ‘Archaische Heldendichtung: Singen und Schreiben’ in Kullmann, W. and Reichel, M. (ed.), Der Übergang von der Mündlichkeit zur Literatur bei den Griechen (Tübingen 1990) 33–50Google Scholar.

5 CEG 454; see P. A. Hansen's addenda and corrigenda in CEG ii (304), where Risch's supplement (favoured by Chadwick) is refuted.

6 G. Zuntz, Drei Kapitel zur griechischen Metrik (Österr. Akad. Sitzungsber. ccccxliii [1984]) 12 n. 10. Zuntz asserts that the Indian metres adduced are ‘so variabel, dass sich für jede denkbare Form eine Parallele finden dürfte’. I cannot agree. They have characteristic rhythms which make a verse easily recognizable as such; and Meillet's comparisons are based on standard, not aberrant forms.

7 Cf. CQ xxiii (1973) 191; JHS cviii (1988) 163 n. 79, where I point out that this sound-change must have been completed relatively late, after Πρίαμος had become established in Ionian poetry.