4 ms·

Did scholars really believe that verbal transmission of poetry/religious was rare? It's a well documented trait of tons of Proto-Indo-European cultures such as

Did scholars really believe that verbal transmission of poetry/religious was rare? It's a well documented trait of tons of Proto-Indo-European cultures such as Celtic, Norse, Germanic, Greek, Iranian, and Indic.

whoopdedo 7y ago
Not to mention the fact that oral transmission never stopped[1][2]. But I think the point isn't that they didn't believe there were epic poems being recited from memory, only that this particular epic, the Iliad and Odyssey, was in doubt. Whether it was a single (or dual) oral epic, or it was a compilation of other poems that didn't come together until after it was written down. If there was indeed someone spreading a myth that ancient people weren't smart enough to recite a poem like the Iliad, I doubt it was said in an academic context and was instead ideology. An arrogance akin to the oft repeated claim that people once thought the world was flat. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2Inv_zv6xQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2Inv_zv6xQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCEglqZmQZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCEglqZmQZc
goto11 7y ago
No, traditions of oral transmission was well known at the time, especially for illiterate cultures. The question was if Homer was composed and transmitted orally. The question is valid for Homer because a lot of works from antiquity was composed in writing. E.g the Histories of Herodot was composed in writing by a single person, and transmitted by reading aloud from text. If the different narrators riffed and improvised based on the formula, then there might never have been a single "Homer" at all. These questions are far from settled.
xamuel 7y ago
There's even a Platonic dialogue, the "Ion", in which Socrates converses with a rhapsode whose entire life career is reciting Homer. Seems unlikely that Plato would just make up something like that from whole cloth.
- posterboy 7y ago
  missing the mark by half a millenium at least though

whoopdedo 7y ago

Not to mention the fact that oral transmission never stopped[1][2]. But I think the point isn't that they didn't believe there were epic poems being recited from memory, only that this particular epic, the Iliad and Odyssey, was in doubt. Whether it was a single (or dual) oral epic, or it was a compilation of other poems that didn't come together until after it was written down. If there was indeed someone spreading a myth that ancient people weren't smart enough to recite a poem like the Iliad, I doubt it was said in an academic context and was instead ideology. An arrogance akin to the oft repeated claim that people once thought the world was flat. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2Inv_zv6xQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2Inv_zv6xQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCEglqZmQZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCEglqZmQZc

goto11 7y ago

No, traditions of oral transmission was well known at the time, especially for illiterate cultures. The question was if Homer was composed and transmitted orally. The question is valid for Homer because a lot of works from antiquity was composed in writing. E.g the Histories of Herodot was composed in writing by a single person, and transmitted by reading aloud from text. If the different narrators riffed and improvised based on the formula, then there might never have been a single "Homer" at all. These questions are far from settled.

xamuel 7y ago

There's even a Platonic dialogue, the "Ion", in which Socrates converses with a rhapsode whose entire life career is reciting Homer. Seems unlikely that Plato would just make up something like that from whole cloth.

posterboy 7y ago
missing the mark by half a millenium at least though