Posted on 07/02/2006 7:46:38 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Historian and linguist Andrew Dalby is challenging the accepted gender of one of the most influential writers of all time -- the poet who created the Greek epics The Iliad and The Odyssey in the seventh century BC. Dr Dalby said: "There is no direct evidence of the poet's identity and therefore no justification for the customary assumption that the two epics were composed by a man." Women have a long tradition worldwide as makers of oral literature, he said, citing Sappho, the best-known female poet of ancient Greece, and Enheduanna, the woman mentioned on a Sumerian tablet who thus became the first named poet in the world. Dr Dalby, whose study Rediscovering Homer will be published in September, said: "It is possible, even probable, that this poet was a woman. As a working hypothesis, this helps to explain certain features in which these epics are better -- more subtle, more complex, more universal -- than most others." ...Anthony Snodgrass, emeritus professor of classical archaeology at Cambridge University, said The Odyssey could have been written by a woman because it is about "a world at peace in general terms, with domesticity, fidelity ... endurance and determination rather than aggression". But he added: "The idea of a woman writing The Iliad and not being bored out of her mind by the endless fighting and killings is a bit more far-fetched." The issue, he said, lay in whether the same person wrote both poems. "Most of us now believe the same person did."
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
The Iliad
by Homer
translated by Samuel Butler
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~joelja/iliad.html
The Odyssey
by Homer
translated by Samuel Butler
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~joelja/odyssey.html
Uh-oh, one of *those* links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Iliad
LOL!
Here's another teachable moment, shamusotoole. Don't invent an argument in order to ridicule it. There's more to this than your neat summary. Read /Rediscovering Homer/. Then come back and knock the argument down, if you still want to!
'Men were "bards" ... women NEVER were.'
Are you sure? How do you know?
Dr. Dalby:
With all due respect, I believe your hypothesis is not very plausible, although it's possible. My impression is based on Homer's intimate knowledge of Sailing.
I admit I reread both works about 13 yrs. ago and am remembering somewhat fuzzily, but I recollect Homer had some grasp of sailing mechanics. I consider operating and navigating a ship to be the "moon shot" of its time.
Even today with much better and simpler equipment and navigation, from my observation, most sailors are men.
From common sense, or whatever convoluted reasoning passes for it in me, I conclude, without having read your book that I'm quite skeptical of your hypothesis.
I will read 'Rediscovering Homer' and give your reasoning a fair shake. I also apologize for being dismissive. My pedant is showing. Forgive me!
Sincerely,
shamusotool
Even that isn't known. They say he was blind, but that is a way of saying the poet had insight. Most likely whoever wrote the Iliad couldn't write at all.
Thanks, Shamusotoole, that's all I ask. No need for apology! Yes, I understand the point about the poet's skills: sailing and boat-building are fine examples (cheese-making, too). Yet it's a complicated argument when we're talking about a poem from oral tradition, because such details can be inherited from earlier poets. The fact is, we won't ever know as much as we would like about this poet ...
How do I know? Because I have spent many decades ( more than I'm going to tell you ) not only reading and studying such ancient works as THE ILLIAD, THE ODYSSESY, and THE AENEID, but also being fascinated by ancient history and archeology.
Sappho wrote poetry, but she was the anomaly and she, unlike the ancient male bards, did NOT travel around and perform, as Homer and others did. In ancient Greece, women were, for the most part, neither seen nor heard; they were there for BREEDING. Oh, there were the temple prostitutes, regular prostitutes, the houri ( who were something akin to Japanese Geishas ), slaves, and priestesses, but they were most assuredly NOT "bards"; which is what Homer was.
I'm glad, nopardons, that you feel sure of these things: that Homer travelled around, that Sappho was an anomaly, that women in ancient Greece were for BREEDING. It's good to have certainties. I admire your decades of reading ancient Greek and Latin (I claim 37 years of Greek, which isn't much) and yet I'm still uncertain of some of the things you're certain of!
Only a few fragments of Sappho's poetry are still extant and no other poetess is known. She is the only female author known. And while there has been the constant debate as to whether or not Homer was one man, a "head bard", who each generation took that name, and several other such theories, the names of many male writers, from ancient Greece, have come down to us through millennia.
Archaeologists, hmm. I think they'd agree with me that women were just as important in that society as men, whether the men were aware of it or not. In a patriarchal society (which this certainly was) we have to look behind the male-centred view ... if we can find any way of doing so.
Tell me, nopardons, did Helen count for anything? It seems to me that her decisions made quite a bit of difference to the course of events in the Trojan War story. Am I wrong there?
First of all, she is a pawn; an object, even. Her queenship has to do with her blood line and what she lands brought to Menelaus. She's seen by Paris, at court, but has NO function, whatsoever, there. She is a "prize"...metaphorically, mythologically, and in actuality. Steal her and you steal not only a symbol, but the embodiment of the king's possessions.
Now, back to the fiction and the mythological symbolism.....
From Graves to Kight to Briffault to Grueber, we see that "HELEN" is the incarnation of the moon goddess and also one of the aspects, a trinity of the all powerful female goddess ( virgin, fecund mother, and crone ), who was worshiped as an orgiastic deity at the Spartan Helenephoria. Helen marries Menelaus, a "moon-king", who was promised immortality because of this sacred marriage. When Paris steals Helen, he steals away Menelaus' immortality as well as the lands Helen has brought him through her "matrimony".
Helen makes NO decisions at all...she is wooed, seduced, and taken away. And it is the "will of the gods"; she is merely THE PRIZE, given to Paris, as judge of a silly beauty contest!
You may have been reading Greek lit, in Greek for 37 years; however, your remembrance of THE ILLIAD leaves much to be desired. Go and reread the poem! LOL
Archaeologists would NEVER agree with YOU, that women were an "important part of" ancient Greek society. Aside from the houris, a couple of famous ( because they were written about ) prostitutes, and Sappho, there were seldom seen and just about never heard from.
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Note: this topic is from . Sidebar to earlier discussion in the recent thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2604235/posts?page=7#7
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/odysseus/index
There aren't a run OF CAPITALIZED WORDS randomly placed throughout. And EACH LINE isn't ended with a multitude of exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL...it’s strange to see old posts of mine, which appear right above your new PING to me. ;^)
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