Elizabeth Minchin
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199280124
- eISBN:
- 9780191707070
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199280124.003.12
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter presents a number of conclusions about how a poet in an oral tradition may have formulated and generated the substantial stretches of speech that we encounter in the Iliad and the ...
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This chapter presents a number of conclusions about how a poet in an oral tradition may have formulated and generated the substantial stretches of speech that we encounter in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The first area of discussion is memory and discourse: the stylized speech-formats and question and answer patterns that we observe in Homer have their origins in the pre-patterned forms of everyday speech. The second area of discussion is discourse and gender. Here the evidence is not uniform. There are areas of consistency and inconsistency in Homer's representation of men's and women's talk in the worlds he describes.Less
This chapter presents a number of conclusions about how a poet in an oral tradition may have formulated and generated the substantial stretches of speech that we encounter in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The first area of discussion is memory and discourse: the stylized speech-formats and question and answer patterns that we observe in Homer have their origins in the pre-patterned forms of everyday speech. The second area of discussion is discourse and gender. Here the evidence is not uniform. There are areas of consistency and inconsistency in Homer's representation of men's and women's talk in the worlds he describes.
Elizabeth Minchin
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199280124
- eISBN:
- 9780191707070
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199280124.003.01
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
By relating Homer's speech-formats to cognitive psychology's account of the storage of implicit knowledge, conclusions can be drawn about the mind-based resources on which the poet drew as he ...
More
By relating Homer's speech-formats to cognitive psychology's account of the storage of implicit knowledge, conclusions can be drawn about the mind-based resources on which the poet drew as he sang—and on which we draw as we speak. It is argued that the Homeric rebuke was a stylized version of everyday discourse, cued by the rebuke format that the poet had acquired, almost unconsciously, early in life and stored in memory. What the apprentice poet learned from a master-singer was not the rebuke itself, but the special formulation of the rebuke for the purposes of oral song.Less
By relating Homer's speech-formats to cognitive psychology's account of the storage of implicit knowledge, conclusions can be drawn about the mind-based resources on which the poet drew as he sang—and on which we draw as we speak. It is argued that the Homeric rebuke was a stylized version of everyday discourse, cued by the rebuke format that the poet had acquired, almost unconsciously, early in life and stored in memory. What the apprentice poet learned from a master-singer was not the rebuke itself, but the special formulation of the rebuke for the purposes of oral song.
Elizabeth Minchin
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199280124
- eISBN:
- 9780191707070
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199280124.003.02
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The format that generates the refusal of an invitation is stored in memory as implicit knowledge. The format cues a set of three moves that, taken together, enables the speaker to decline an ...
More
The format that generates the refusal of an invitation is stored in memory as implicit knowledge. The format cues a set of three moves that, taken together, enables the speaker to decline an invitation in a courteous manner. Although we may not immediately recognize the standardized nature of the refusals we offer, because the language we use varies from context to context, the format to which Homer refers in the performance of his epics is the same as that to which we refer in casual talk today.Less
The format that generates the refusal of an invitation is stored in memory as implicit knowledge. The format cues a set of three moves that, taken together, enables the speaker to decline an invitation in a courteous manner. Although we may not immediately recognize the standardized nature of the refusals we offer, because the language we use varies from context to context, the format to which Homer refers in the performance of his epics is the same as that to which we refer in casual talk today.
