Linda Hess and Shukdeo Singh
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195148763
- eISBN:
- 9780199869718
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195148762.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
Kabir, the fifteenth‐century weaver‐poet of Varanasi, is still one of the most revered and popular saint‐singers of North India. He belonged to a family of Muslim julahas (weavers of low‐caste ...
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Kabir, the fifteenth‐century weaver‐poet of Varanasi, is still one of the most revered and popular saint‐singers of North India. He belonged to a family of Muslim julahas (weavers of low‐caste status), is believed to have been a disciple of the Hindu guru Ramanand, and often sang of inner experience using language of the subtle yogic body. Yet he cannot be classified as Hindu, Muslim, or yogi. Fiercely independent, he has become an icon of speaking truth to power. In a blunt and uncompromising style, he exhorted his listeners to shed their delusions, pretensions, and orthodoxies in favor of a direct experience of truth. He satirized hypocrisy, greed, and violence—especially among the religious. Belonging to a social group widely considered low and unclean, he criticized caste ideology and declared the equality of all human beings. Kabir was an oral poet whose works were written down by others. His oral traditions have flourished for more than 500 years, producing a rich array of musical forms, folk and classical, in countless local dialects and regional styles. Thousands of poems are popularly attributed to Kabir, but only a few written collections have survived over the centuries. The Bījak is the sacred book of the Kabir Panth, or sect devoted to Kabir's teachings. This book presents about half of the Bījak; the translators have selected those poems which seem most representative and which work best in translation. The Bījak includes three main sections called Ramainī, Śabda, and Sākhī, and a fourth section containing miscellaneous folksong forms. Most of the Kabir material has been popularized through the song form known as śabda (or pada), and through the aphoristic two‐line sākhī (or doha) that serves throughout north India as a vehicle for popular wisdom. These two forms have been emphasized in this translation; a group of ramainīs have also been included. An introduction by Hess precedes the translations; scholarly notes and three appendices, including an essay on Kabir's ulatbamsi or “upside‐down language,” are also by Hess.Less
Kabir, the fifteenth‐century weaver‐poet of Varanasi, is still one of the most revered and popular saint‐singers of North India. He belonged to a family of Muslim julahas (weavers of low‐caste status), is believed to have been a disciple of the Hindu guru Ramanand, and often sang of inner experience using language of the subtle yogic body. Yet he cannot be classified as Hindu, Muslim, or yogi. Fiercely independent, he has become an icon of speaking truth to power. In a blunt and uncompromising style, he exhorted his listeners to shed their delusions, pretensions, and orthodoxies in favor of a direct experience of truth. He satirized hypocrisy, greed, and violence—especially among the religious. Belonging to a social group widely considered low and unclean, he criticized caste ideology and declared the equality of all human beings. Kabir was an oral poet whose works were written down by others. His oral traditions have flourished for more than 500 years, producing a rich array of musical forms, folk and classical, in countless local dialects and regional styles. Thousands of poems are popularly attributed to Kabir, but only a few written collections have survived over the centuries. The Bījak is the sacred book of the Kabir Panth, or sect devoted to Kabir's teachings. This book presents about half of the Bījak; the translators have selected those poems which seem most representative and which work best in translation. The Bījak includes three main sections called Ramainī, Śabda, and Sākhī, and a fourth section containing miscellaneous folksong forms. Most of the Kabir material has been popularized through the song form known as śabda (or pada), and through the aphoristic two‐line sākhī (or doha) that serves throughout north India as a vehicle for popular wisdom. These two forms have been emphasized in this translation; a group of ramainīs have also been included. An introduction by Hess precedes the translations; scholarly notes and three appendices, including an essay on Kabir's ulatbamsi or “upside‐down language,” are also by Hess.
Bruce Heiden
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195341072
- eISBN:
- 9780199867066
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195341072.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Although scholars routinely state that the Iliad is an “oral poem,” it has circulated as a text stabilized in writing since near the time of its composition. Thus, the Iliad undoubtedly has features ...
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Although scholars routinely state that the Iliad is an “oral poem,” it has circulated as a text stabilized in writing since near the time of its composition. Thus, the Iliad undoubtedly has features that render it satisfactory to readers and reading. But the question of what these features might be has been difficult for Homeric scholarship to address within the research paradigm of “oral poetics.” This book delineates a new approach aimed at evaluating what the Iliad furnishes to readers. Its program conceptualizes the act of reading as a repertoire of cognitive functions a reader might deploy in collaboration with the poem's signs. By positing certain functions hypothetically and applying them to the poem, its experiments uncover the kind and degree of suitable “reading material” the poem provides. These analyses reveal that the trajectory of events in the Iliad manifests the central agency of one character, Zeus, and that the transmitted articulation of the epic into “books” conforms to distinct narrative subtrajectories. The analyses also show that the sequence of “books” functions as a design that cues attention to the major crises in the story, as well as to themes that develop its significance. The transmitted arrangement therefore furnishes an implicit cognitive map that both eases comprehension of the storyline and indicates pathways of interpretation.Less
Although scholars routinely state that the Iliad is an “oral poem,” it has circulated as a text stabilized in writing since near the time of its composition. Thus, the Iliad undoubtedly has features that render it satisfactory to readers and reading. But the question of what these features might be has been difficult for Homeric scholarship to address within the research paradigm of “oral poetics.” This book delineates a new approach aimed at evaluating what the Iliad furnishes to readers. Its program conceptualizes the act of reading as a repertoire of cognitive functions a reader might deploy in collaboration with the poem's signs. By positing certain functions hypothetically and applying them to the poem, its experiments uncover the kind and degree of suitable “reading material” the poem provides. These analyses reveal that the trajectory of events in the Iliad manifests the central agency of one character, Zeus, and that the transmitted articulation of the epic into “books” conforms to distinct narrative subtrajectories. The analyses also show that the sequence of “books” functions as a design that cues attention to the major crises in the story, as well as to themes that develop its significance. The transmitted arrangement therefore furnishes an implicit cognitive map that both eases comprehension of the storyline and indicates pathways of interpretation.
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195148763
- eISBN:
- 9780199869718
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195148762.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
Part I gives a brief account of Kabir's life and work. Part II discusses his “rough rhetoric.”. Kabir's style is uniquely vivid, direct and hard‐hitting. This section demonstrates how it manages to ...
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Part I gives a brief account of Kabir's life and work. Part II discusses his “rough rhetoric.”. Kabir's style is uniquely vivid, direct and hard‐hitting. This section demonstrates how it manages to involve the reader/listener and why it is so potent and memorable. Part III, “The Untellable Story,” discusses how he uses language to hint at paradoxical or inexpressible experiences. Part IV recounts a meeting between Hess and a man she met in India, who, like Kabir, led to her to examine her own mind and to realize more deeply what Kabir's poetry is about.Less
Part I gives a brief account of Kabir's life and work. Part II discusses his “rough rhetoric.”. Kabir's style is uniquely vivid, direct and hard‐hitting. This section demonstrates how it manages to involve the reader/listener and why it is so potent and memorable. Part III, “The Untellable Story,” discusses how he uses language to hint at paradoxical or inexpressible experiences. Part IV recounts a meeting between Hess and a man she met in India, who, like Kabir, led to her to examine her own mind and to realize more deeply what Kabir's poetry is about.
Andrew Faulkner
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199589036
- eISBN:
- 9780191728983
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589036.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter gives an overview of issues central to the interpretation of the Homeric Hymns, and provides a foundation for approaching the arguments advanced in the subsequent chapters of the book. ...
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This chapter gives an overview of issues central to the interpretation of the Homeric Hymns, and provides a foundation for approaching the arguments advanced in the subsequent chapters of the book. Distinct sections examine the history of scholarship on the Hymns, the extent to which the poems can be considered examples of oral poetry, the Hymns' dates, circumstances of composition, language, and performance contexts.Less
This chapter gives an overview of issues central to the interpretation of the Homeric Hymns, and provides a foundation for approaching the arguments advanced in the subsequent chapters of the book. Distinct sections examine the history of scholarship on the Hymns, the extent to which the poems can be considered examples of oral poetry, the Hymns' dates, circumstances of composition, language, and performance contexts.
Gregory Nagy
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199589036
- eISBN:
- 9780191728983
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589036.003.0013
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines the earliest phases of the transmission and reception of the Homeric Hymns from the perspective of oral poetics and performance. Particular attention is given to the long ...
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This chapter examines the earliest phases of the transmission and reception of the Homeric Hymns from the perspective of oral poetics and performance. Particular attention is given to the long Homeric Hymn to Apollo and the quotations and commentary on that Hymn by the fifth‐century historian Thucydides. Close attention is given to the performance context of the Homeric Hymns and their relationship to longer epic recitation. It is argued that the hymn did not form an independent genre in its earliest attested phases.Less
This chapter examines the earliest phases of the transmission and reception of the Homeric Hymns from the perspective of oral poetics and performance. Particular attention is given to the long Homeric Hymn to Apollo and the quotations and commentary on that Hymn by the fifth‐century historian Thucydides. Close attention is given to the performance context of the Homeric Hymns and their relationship to longer epic recitation. It is argued that the hymn did not form an independent genre in its earliest attested phases.
Paula McDowell
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226456966
- eISBN:
- 9780226457017
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226457017.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
Eighteenth-century Britain saw the emergence of an extensive print discourse about ballads. Whereas early eighteenth-century commentators such as Joseph Addison took for granted the multimedia nature ...
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Eighteenth-century Britain saw the emergence of an extensive print discourse about ballads. Whereas early eighteenth-century commentators such as Joseph Addison took for granted the multimedia nature of balladry (oral, manuscript, printed), later ballad scholars such as Thomas Percy and William Motherwell posited a distinct “oral tradition” of balladry that was antithetical to and threatened by commercial print. The later eighteenth century saw landmark arguments for oral tradition: Robert Wood advanced the first detailed case for Homeric orality, while James Macpherson claimed to have translated the works of a third-century "Homer of the Highlands," Ossian. This chapter argues that eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century ballad scholars, influenced by and influencing these related debates, contributed significantly to the emergence of our modern secular concept of “oral tradition.” Editors and theorists such as Percy and Motherwell printed groundbreaking collections of ballads, yet their hostility towards broadside ballads (and more generally, commercial print) contributed to a problematic “displacement” model of media shift still with us today, whereby one mode of communication is imagined as destroying (rather than preserving) another. Ballad scholars also contributed to a binary model of orality and literacy by forging a sharp conceptual (not actual) separation between “oral” and “printed” ballads.Less
Eighteenth-century Britain saw the emergence of an extensive print discourse about ballads. Whereas early eighteenth-century commentators such as Joseph Addison took for granted the multimedia nature of balladry (oral, manuscript, printed), later ballad scholars such as Thomas Percy and William Motherwell posited a distinct “oral tradition” of balladry that was antithetical to and threatened by commercial print. The later eighteenth century saw landmark arguments for oral tradition: Robert Wood advanced the first detailed case for Homeric orality, while James Macpherson claimed to have translated the works of a third-century "Homer of the Highlands," Ossian. This chapter argues that eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century ballad scholars, influenced by and influencing these related debates, contributed significantly to the emergence of our modern secular concept of “oral tradition.” Editors and theorists such as Percy and Motherwell printed groundbreaking collections of ballads, yet their hostility towards broadside ballads (and more generally, commercial print) contributed to a problematic “displacement” model of media shift still with us today, whereby one mode of communication is imagined as destroying (rather than preserving) another. Ballad scholars also contributed to a binary model of orality and literacy by forging a sharp conceptual (not actual) separation between “oral” and “printed” ballads.
Jonathan L. Ready
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- November 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198802556
- eISBN:
- 9780191840838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198802556.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter aims to convince Homerists and their fellow travelers in classical studies that they will find this entire book of value and to persuade those with interests in comparative literature, ...
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This chapter aims to convince Homerists and their fellow travelers in classical studies that they will find this entire book of value and to persuade those with interests in comparative literature, ethnography, folkloristics, and linguistic anthropology that they should at least read Part I. The chapter reviews the precedents for and goals of this study, defends the choice of the phrases “the Iliad poet” and “the Odyssey poet,” explains the comparative methods used, provides a bibliographical survey of the modern oral poetries investigated in the book, defines a simile, and summarizes the contents of each chapter.Less
This chapter aims to convince Homerists and their fellow travelers in classical studies that they will find this entire book of value and to persuade those with interests in comparative literature, ethnography, folkloristics, and linguistic anthropology that they should at least read Part I. The chapter reviews the precedents for and goals of this study, defends the choice of the phrases “the Iliad poet” and “the Odyssey poet,” explains the comparative methods used, provides a bibliographical survey of the modern oral poetries investigated in the book, defines a simile, and summarizes the contents of each chapter.
Tim Fulford
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199273379
- eISBN:
- 9780191706332
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273379.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter focuses on songs, including ballads by white authors in the manner of Indians. Writers, novelists, and poets considered include Percy, Woodsworth, Southey, and Coleridge.
This chapter focuses on songs, including ballads by white authors in the manner of Indians. Writers, novelists, and poets considered include Percy, Woodsworth, Southey, and Coleridge.
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195148763
- eISBN:
- 9780199869718
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195148762.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
The translations from the Bījak of Kabir are presented in three sections: Śabda (72 poems), Ramainī (20 poems), and Sākhī (232 short verses).
The translations from the Bījak of Kabir are presented in three sections: Śabda (72 poems), Ramainī (20 poems), and Sākhī (232 short verses).
Jonathan L. Ready
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- November 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198802556
- eISBN:
- 9780191840838
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198802556.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The Homeric Simile in Comparative Perspectives: Oral Traditions from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia investigates both the construction of the Homeric simile and the performance of Homeric poetry from ...
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The Homeric Simile in Comparative Perspectives: Oral Traditions from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia investigates both the construction of the Homeric simile and the performance of Homeric poetry from neglected comparative perspectives. The first part considers similes in five modern oral poetries—Rajasthani epic, South Sumatran epic, Kyrgyz epic, Bosniac epic, and Najdi lyric poems from Saudi Arabia—and studies successful performances by still other verbal artists, such as Egyptian singers of epic, Turkish minstrels, and Chinese storytellers. In applying these findings to the Homeric epics, the second part offers a new take on how the Homeric poets put together their similes and alters our understanding of how the poets displayed their competence as performers of verbal art. Engaging intensively with a diverse array of scholarship from outside the field of classics, from folkloristics to cognitive linguistics, this book changes how we view not only a central feature of Homeric poetry but also the very nature of Homeric performance.Less
The Homeric Simile in Comparative Perspectives: Oral Traditions from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia investigates both the construction of the Homeric simile and the performance of Homeric poetry from neglected comparative perspectives. The first part considers similes in five modern oral poetries—Rajasthani epic, South Sumatran epic, Kyrgyz epic, Bosniac epic, and Najdi lyric poems from Saudi Arabia—and studies successful performances by still other verbal artists, such as Egyptian singers of epic, Turkish minstrels, and Chinese storytellers. In applying these findings to the Homeric epics, the second part offers a new take on how the Homeric poets put together their similes and alters our understanding of how the poets displayed their competence as performers of verbal art. Engaging intensively with a diverse array of scholarship from outside the field of classics, from folkloristics to cognitive linguistics, this book changes how we view not only a central feature of Homeric poetry but also the very nature of Homeric performance.
Colin Burrow
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- December 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198804215
- eISBN:
- 9780191842412
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198804215.003.0016
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter illustrates connections between Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and the techniques of improvisation as heard in jazz performances. It starts by noting the inadequacy of the usual dictionary ...
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This chapter illustrates connections between Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and the techniques of improvisation as heard in jazz performances. It starts by noting the inadequacy of the usual dictionary definition of ‘improvise’, inasmuch as it omits any consideration either of creativity or of necessary practice and training. After looking at a passage from Homer’s Iliad, and observing such well-known features as the use of repeated words and phrases (‘formulas’), it segues to jazz, noticing that similar techniques are employed, particularly repeated melodic motifs. The author illustrates (through improvisations from the jazz standard ‘Night and Day’) that these motifs can be modified and developed in much the same way as Homeric formulas. In each genre, the use of formulaic material is by no means an indication of mechanical and artless composition; rather such techniques are the fundamental tools of a creative artist composing and performing simultaneously.Less
This chapter illustrates connections between Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and the techniques of improvisation as heard in jazz performances. It starts by noting the inadequacy of the usual dictionary definition of ‘improvise’, inasmuch as it omits any consideration either of creativity or of necessary practice and training. After looking at a passage from Homer’s Iliad, and observing such well-known features as the use of repeated words and phrases (‘formulas’), it segues to jazz, noticing that similar techniques are employed, particularly repeated melodic motifs. The author illustrates (through improvisations from the jazz standard ‘Night and Day’) that these motifs can be modified and developed in much the same way as Homeric formulas. In each genre, the use of formulaic material is by no means an indication of mechanical and artless composition; rather such techniques are the fundamental tools of a creative artist composing and performing simultaneously.
Seth L. Schein
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199589418
- eISBN:
- 9780191808456
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589418.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book consists of twelve chapters written over the past forty-five years. Nine are revised and in some cases expanded versions of previously published papers. Chapters 7, 9, and 11 are new. The ...
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This book consists of twelve chapters written over the past forty-five years. Nine are revised and in some cases expanded versions of previously published papers. Chapters 7, 9, and 11 are new. The twelve chapters reflect the author’s long-standing interest in, and approaches to, the literary interpretation of Homeric poetry. Some focus closely on the diction, metre, style, and thematic resonance of particular passages and episodes and move from close readings to broad ideas and interpretations; others explore the usefulness of mythological allusion, Homeric intertextuality, hexameter metrics, and the contrast between humanity and divinity as interpretive pathways into the poems; still others explore the contributions to the literary interpretation of Homeric poetry by Milman Parry and Ioannis Kakridis, who founded the two most fruitful twentieth-century scholarly approaches to Homeric epic: the study of the poems as traditional oral formulaic poetry and of ‘the epic technique of oral versemaking’ (Parry) and the Neoanalytical emphasis on the Homeric adaptation and transformation of traditional mythology, folktales, and poetic motifs (Kakridis). The final three chapters discuss some of the most compelling poetic and critical receptions of the Iliad since the late nineteenth century and the institutional reception of the Iliad and Odyssey in colleges and universities in the United States over the past two centuries. All twelve chapters gain strength by being brought together in a single volume that focuses on the iliad, the Odyssey, and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite as literary works.Less
This book consists of twelve chapters written over the past forty-five years. Nine are revised and in some cases expanded versions of previously published papers. Chapters 7, 9, and 11 are new. The twelve chapters reflect the author’s long-standing interest in, and approaches to, the literary interpretation of Homeric poetry. Some focus closely on the diction, metre, style, and thematic resonance of particular passages and episodes and move from close readings to broad ideas and interpretations; others explore the usefulness of mythological allusion, Homeric intertextuality, hexameter metrics, and the contrast between humanity and divinity as interpretive pathways into the poems; still others explore the contributions to the literary interpretation of Homeric poetry by Milman Parry and Ioannis Kakridis, who founded the two most fruitful twentieth-century scholarly approaches to Homeric epic: the study of the poems as traditional oral formulaic poetry and of ‘the epic technique of oral versemaking’ (Parry) and the Neoanalytical emphasis on the Homeric adaptation and transformation of traditional mythology, folktales, and poetic motifs (Kakridis). The final three chapters discuss some of the most compelling poetic and critical receptions of the Iliad since the late nineteenth century and the institutional reception of the Iliad and Odyssey in colleges and universities in the United States over the past two centuries. All twelve chapters gain strength by being brought together in a single volume that focuses on the iliad, the Odyssey, and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite as literary works.
Jipar Duishembieva
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781526129420
- eISBN:
- 9781526150400
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7765/9781526129437.00021
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter uses Russian archival sources and songs and poetry in Kyrgyz to examine the fate of the tens of thousands of Kyrgyz who fled to China to escape the repression of the 1916 revolt. An ...
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This chapter uses Russian archival sources and songs and poetry in Kyrgyz to examine the fate of the tens of thousands of Kyrgyz who fled to China to escape the repression of the 1916 revolt. An estimated 150,000 died of exposure and starvation, and their suffering and trauma was memorialised in poems by the survivors, which describe the difficulties and humiliations they experienced crossing the mountains and in Xinjiang. It argues that the common experience of the Ürkun (exodus) helped to consolidate a sense of Kyrgyz national identity in the 20th century.Less
This chapter uses Russian archival sources and songs and poetry in Kyrgyz to examine the fate of the tens of thousands of Kyrgyz who fled to China to escape the repression of the 1916 revolt. An estimated 150,000 died of exposure and starvation, and their suffering and trauma was memorialised in poems by the survivors, which describe the difficulties and humiliations they experienced crossing the mountains and in Xinjiang. It argues that the common experience of the Ürkun (exodus) helped to consolidate a sense of Kyrgyz national identity in the 20th century.
Joel P. Brereton and Stephanie W. Jamison
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- March 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190633363
- eISBN:
- 9780190633400
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190633363.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
This chapter introduces the text, situating it in the textual universe of the Veda, briefly describing its structure and contents, as well as the language in it which it was composed. It locates the ...
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This chapter introduces the text, situating it in the textual universe of the Veda, briefly describing its structure and contents, as well as the language in it which it was composed. It locates the text between the literary tradition from which it derives, that of Indo-European praise poetry, and the religious tradition into which it feeds, that of Classical Hinduism. It also contextualizes the text in world literature as a whole, arguing that, though the Rigveda is the first attested Sanskrit text, it displays a mature mastery of poetic technique, and also argues that the ritual system it evinces shows a similar degree of sophistication.Less
This chapter introduces the text, situating it in the textual universe of the Veda, briefly describing its structure and contents, as well as the language in it which it was composed. It locates the text between the literary tradition from which it derives, that of Indo-European praise poetry, and the religious tradition into which it feeds, that of Classical Hinduism. It also contextualizes the text in world literature as a whole, arguing that, though the Rigveda is the first attested Sanskrit text, it displays a mature mastery of poetic technique, and also argues that the ritual system it evinces shows a similar degree of sophistication.
Tobias Myers
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198842354
- eISBN:
- 9780191878350
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book lays out and explores a new ‘metaperformative’ approach to scenes of divine viewing, counsel, and intervention in the Iliad. Critics have often described the gods’ activities in terms of ...
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This book lays out and explores a new ‘metaperformative’ approach to scenes of divine viewing, counsel, and intervention in the Iliad. Critics have often described the gods’ activities in terms of attendance at a ‘show’ and have suggested analogies to theatre and sports, but have done little to investigate the particular strategies by which the poet conveys the impression of gods attending a live, staged event. This book’s analysis of those strategies points to a ‘metaperformative’ significance to the motif of divine viewing: the poet is using the gods, in part, to model and thereby manipulate the ongoing dynamics of performance and live reception. The gods, like the external audience, are capable of a variety of emotional responses to events at Troy; notably pleasure, pity—and also great aloofness. By performing the speeches of the provocative, infuriating, yet ultimately obliging Zeus, the poet at key moments both challenges his listeners to take a stake in the continuation of the performance, and presents a sophisticated critique of possible responses to his poem. The result is a conception of epic not only as song that will transcend time through re-performance—as famously evinced in the Iliad’s meditations on kleos—but also as raw spectacle, in which audience ‘participation’, and complicity, magnify and complicate the emotional impact of the devastation at Troy.Less
This book lays out and explores a new ‘metaperformative’ approach to scenes of divine viewing, counsel, and intervention in the Iliad. Critics have often described the gods’ activities in terms of attendance at a ‘show’ and have suggested analogies to theatre and sports, but have done little to investigate the particular strategies by which the poet conveys the impression of gods attending a live, staged event. This book’s analysis of those strategies points to a ‘metaperformative’ significance to the motif of divine viewing: the poet is using the gods, in part, to model and thereby manipulate the ongoing dynamics of performance and live reception. The gods, like the external audience, are capable of a variety of emotional responses to events at Troy; notably pleasure, pity—and also great aloofness. By performing the speeches of the provocative, infuriating, yet ultimately obliging Zeus, the poet at key moments both challenges his listeners to take a stake in the continuation of the performance, and presents a sophisticated critique of possible responses to his poem. The result is a conception of epic not only as song that will transcend time through re-performance—as famously evinced in the Iliad’s meditations on kleos—but also as raw spectacle, in which audience ‘participation’, and complicity, magnify and complicate the emotional impact of the devastation at Troy.
