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Biblical Narrative and the Death of the Rhapsode
Informed by literary theory and Homeric scholarship as well as biblical studies, Biblical Narrative and the Death of the Rhapsode sheds new light on the Hebrew Bible and, more generally, on the possibilities of narrative form. Robert S. Kawashima compares the narratives of the Hebrew Bible with Homeric and Ugaritic epic in order to account for the "novelty" of biblical prose narrative. Long before Herodotus or Homer, Israelite writers practiced an innovative narrative art, which anticipated the modern novelist's craft. Though their work is undeniably linked to the linguistic tradition of the Ugaritic narrative poems, there are substantive differences between the bodies of work. Kawashima views biblical narrative as the result of a specifically written verbal art that we should counterpose to the oral-traditional art of epic. Beyond this strictly historical thesis, the study has theoretical implications for the study of narrative, literature, and oral tradition. Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature -- Herbert Marks, General Editor
The Poetics of Supplication
In this penetrating and compelling reinterpretation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, Kevin Crotty explores the connection between the "poetic" nature of supplication on the one hand, and, on the other, the importance of supplication in the structure and poetics of the two epics. The supplicant's attempt to rouse pity by calling to mind a vivid sense of grief, he says, is important for an understanding of the poems, which invite their audience to contemplate scenes of past grieving. A poetics of supplication, Crotty asserts, leads irresistibly to a poetics of the Homeric epic.
The Stranger's Welcome
For more than two millennia, Homer's poetry has stirred the imagination of its readers. Originally recited by traveling bards, these poems are exceptionally rich in conventional elements that helped the poets remember works thousands of lines long. As dynamic ingredients of oral poetry, these elements have accrued deep meaning, and for a well-informed audience they call significant associations to mind. In The Stranger's Welcome, Steve Reece treats eighteen "hospitality" scenes in the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Homeric Hymns and reveals key aspects and standard elements of such scenes. Further, he demonstrates how Homeric listeners might comprehend the new and innovative by relying on their knowledge of the conventional and familiar. This tension between conventional and innovative, between the traditional background and the individual performance, distinguishes the aesthetics of Homeric poetry. Of interest to students and scholars of oral poetry, folklore, Homeric literature, and Greek literature in general, The Stranger's Welcome offers a practical approach whereby a reading audience may understand a hearing one.
The Death of Jacob
In The Death of Jacob: Narrative Conventions in Genesis 47.28-50.26 Kerry Lee investigates the deathbed story of the patriarch Jacob and uncovers the presence of a variety of conventional structures underlying its composition, especially a conventional deathbed story or type scene also found in numerous other texts in the Hebrew Bible and non-canonical Jewish literature. Finding fault both with traditional diachronic approaches as well as more recent synchronic studies, Lee uses an eclectic but coherent blend of contemporary methods (drawn from narratology, linguistics, ritual theory, legal theory, assyriology, and other disciplines) to show that despite its probably composite pre-history the last three chapters of Genesis have been intentionally and artfully structured by the hand predominately responsible for their final form.
Odysseus, Hero of Practical Intelligence
In dramatic representations and narrative reports of inner deliberation the Odyssey displays the workings of the human mind and its hero's practical intelligence, epitomized by anticipating consequences and controlling his actions accordingly. Once his hope of returning home as husband, father and king is renewed on Calypso's isle, Odysseus shows a consistent will to focus on this purpose and subordinate other impulses to it. His fabled cleverness is now fully engaged in a gradually emerging plan, as he thinks back from that final goal through a network of means to achieve it. He relies on "signs"--inferences in the form "if this, then that" as defined by the Stoic Chrysippus--and the nature...
The Testimony of Two Nations
Understanding the Book of Mormon on its own terms and through its two-way connection with the Bible Like the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible, the Book of Mormon uses narratives to develop ideas and present instruction. Michael Austin reveals how the Book of Mormon connects itself to narratives in the Christian Bible with many of the same tools that the New Testament used to connect itself to the Hebrew Bible to create the Christian Bible. As Austin shows, the canonical context for interpreting the Book of Mormon includes the Christian Bible, the Book of Mormon itself, and other writings and revelations that hold scriptural status in most Restoration denominations. Austin pays particular attention to how the Book of Mormon connects itself to the Christian Bible both to form a new canon and to use the canonical relationship to reframe and reinterpret biblical narratives. This canonical context provides an important and fruitful method for interpreting the Book of Mormon.
Stylistic and Narrative Structures in the Middle English Romances
This volume provides a generic description, based on a formal analysis of narrative structures, of the Middle English noncyclic verse romances. As a group, these poems have long resisted generic definition and are traditionally considered to be a conglomerate of unrelated tales held together in a historical matrix of similar themes and characters. As single narratives, they are thought of as random collections of events loosely structured in chronological succession. Susan Wittig, however, offers evidence that the romances are carefully ordered (although not always consciously so) according to a series of formulaic patterns and that their structures serve as vehicles for certain essential cu...
Incubation as a Type-Scene in the Aqhatu, Kirta, and Hannah Stories
This book proposes to read the birth stories of Aqhatu, Kirta and Samuel from the perspective of incubation type-scene. Drawing on Nagler’s definition of a type-scene, it employs the idea of family resemblance as a principle of identification of type-scenes.
The Bell and the Drum
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.
People and Themes in Homer's Odyssey
Published in 1970, this important work interprets the poem with a focus on the idiosyncrasies of its originally oral composition. In part I, the main themes of the Odyssey such as ‘guest-friendship’ and ‘testing’ are investigated. The incorporation of these and other themes, such as ‘omens’ and the ‘homecomings of the Achaeans’, into the dramatic construction of the whole epic is also examined. In Part II, the main characters of the Odyssey are described: the Suitors, Telemachus, Odysseus and Penelope. So too are Theoclymenus and Laertes, whom traditional criticism has maligned or disregarded. The analysis of the characters tries to illumine features which are challenging for the contemporary reader. In the conclusion, the ‘plan’ of the Odyssey is reconstructed. The author argues that it would probably have been performed over the course of three days: two sessions each day, with each recitation maintaining its own artistic unity.
