homer oral or written tradidio
It is possible, on the other hand, that some lesser use of the new technique of writing was the determining factor in the ability to compose such long and complex poems out of pre-existing and much shorter oral songs. Many critics do not accept this however. The huge gap in quality as well as quantity being the main factor. In essence, the poems belong to an oral culture, whether or not their monumental form owes something to the main poet's ability to compose with the help of writing. These poems were to some extent transcribed orally too; these were works that continued to be knows, erratically and incompletely perhaps "by heart". Once they were produced, the poems had a stifling effect on their simpler, more typically oral predecessors. The memory of earlier songs and poems were all but obliterated. Among those that contributed to this were the Iliad and the Odyssey. If this was so, then their appearance before the translation from an age of literacy to one of partial literacy seems less strange.
Emphasis on the oral nature of the Iliad and the Odyssey must be present for the understanding of the poems as poetry, as works of literature in the broader sense, and as vast and erratic forces in the cultural history of the ancient world. This confirms that formality increases the powers of the oral singer. Precisely how far the formular system extended, and where it merges with the symbolic and repetitive aspect of all language remains a question; but the need for literate poetry of any length to be formular in essence is confirmed by the study both of Homer himself and of surviving oral traditions. Somewhere along the way, a person might have written the poem down to pass on to other generations. The diction of Homer was archaic and yet constantly renewed, and that accounts for the existence side by side of terms and linguistic forms from the Mycenaean dialect of the Acheron heroes, from the contemporary world of Homer himself and from many anonymous generations between. Some societies that are, or were illiterate at one point or another, had no books or writings, and thus used oral tradition to tell the stories. Any way you look at it, the Homeric poems have undertaken both types of tradition throughout the course of time. Any man never spoke the language of Homer. The Homeric poems were poetic songs that contained all these elements that have been discussed. The polis, or city-state, emerged as the main focus of loyalties that had earlier been directed toward persons and families, toward feudal archetypes that still reflected some of the glow of the heroic world of Homer (Kirk 3). Some parts of it are highly conventional and consist of fixed or formiluar phrases. The least complex of these traditions and the poorest in expression are also the least formular. In this respect, the oral poet behaves quite differently from the literate one, and makes his own individual contribution above and beyond the level of traditional ways. The singer acquires a wide range of standard incidents that can be varied in length and reference to suit the needs of a chosen situation.
Common topics in this essay:
Iliad Odyssey,
,
Homer Kirk,
homeric poems,
iliad odyssey,
oral tradition,
world homer,
ability compose,
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