Formulas and their relatives: a semiotic approach to verse making in Homer and modern greek folksongs
Identifieur interne : 000275 ( Main/Exploration ); précédent : 000274; suivant : 000276Formulas and their relatives: a semiotic approach to verse making in Homer and modern greek folksongs
Auteurs : G. M. SifakisSource :
- The Journal of Hellenic Studies [ 0075-4269 ] ; 1997-11.
Abstract
In a book I published a few years ago, entitled Towards a Poetics of Modern Greek Folksong, I examined certain aspects of the poetics of modern folksongs in the light of the ‘oral composition theory’ of Homeric poetry, originally expounded by Milman Parry in the late twenties and early thirties and subsequently elaborated by Albert B. Lord. In this paper I propose to follow the opposite course, and inquire whether some of my findings regarding the verse-making techniques of the modern folksongs could be applied to the Homeric epics, and whether they could be made to cast some additional light on the making of ancient epic poetry. More specifically, in my study of formular and otherwise similar verses in the folksongs, I was able to distinguish five degrees of kinship, as it were, or of decreasing similarity, from identical formulas to sense units of similar type. Can a comparable scale of similarities be found in Homer, and, if it can, could it be used in modern discussions of ancient epic versification and composition, without further encumbering a terminology that is not always clear or generally agreed upon? The purpose of this exercise is not merely taxonomic; by using some basic concepts of structural linguistics as tools, I think we may perhaps come a little closer to understanding the verse-making process, which is a prerequisite for understanding Homer's manner of composition and, in the last analysis, his ‘creativity’ or even ‘originality’ vis à vis the tradition to which he belonged.
Url:
DOI: 10.2307/632553
Affiliations:
Links toward previous steps (curation, corpus...)
- to stream Istex, to step Corpus: 000541
- to stream Istex, to step Curation: 000541
- to stream Istex, to step Checkpoint: 000212
- to stream Main, to step Merge: 000281
- to stream Main, to step Curation: 000275
Le document en format XML
<record><TEI wicri:istexFullTextTei="biblStruct"><teiHeader><fileDesc><titleStmt><title>Formulas and their relatives: a semiotic approach to verse making in Homer and modern greek folksongs</title><author><name sortKey="Sifakis, G M" sort="Sifakis, G M" uniqKey="Sifakis G" first="G. M." last="Sifakis">G. M. Sifakis</name></author></titleStmt><publicationStmt><idno type="wicri:source">ISTEX</idno><idno type="RBID">ISTEX:7B7765B5A203C42E1B2CA23A0F02F56B12354325</idno><date when="1997" year="1997">1997</date><idno type="doi">10.2307/632553</idno><idno type="url">https://api.istex.fr/document/7B7765B5A203C42E1B2CA23A0F02F56B12354325/fulltext/pdf</idno><idno type="wicri:Area/Istex/Corpus">000541</idno><idno type="wicri:explorRef" wicri:stream="Istex" wicri:step="Corpus" wicri:corpus="ISTEX">000541</idno><idno type="wicri:Area/Istex/Curation">000541</idno><idno type="wicri:Area/Istex/Checkpoint">000212</idno><idno type="wicri:explorRef" wicri:stream="Istex" wicri:step="Checkpoint">000212</idno><idno type="wicri:doubleKey">0075-4269:1997:Sifakis G:formulas:and:their</idno><idno type="wicri:Area/Main/Merge">000281</idno><idno type="wicri:Area/Main/Curation">000275</idno><idno type="wicri:Area/Main/Exploration">000275</idno></publicationStmt><sourceDesc><biblStruct><analytic><title level="a">Formulas and their relatives: a semiotic approach to verse making in Homer and modern greek folksongs</title><author><name sortKey="Sifakis, G M" sort="Sifakis, G M" uniqKey="Sifakis G" first="G. M." last="Sifakis">G. M. Sifakis</name><affiliation><wicri:noCountry code="subField">Crete</wicri:noCountry></affiliation></author></analytic><monogr></monogr><series><title level="j">The Journal of Hellenic Studies</title><title level="j" type="abbrev">J. Hell. Stud.</title><idno type="ISSN">0075-4269</idno><idno type="eISSN">2041-4099</idno><imprint><publisher>Cambridge University Press</publisher><pubPlace>Cambridge, UK</pubPlace><date type="published" when="1997-11">1997-11</date><biblScope unit="volume">117</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" from="136">136</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" to="153">153</biblScope></imprint><idno type="ISSN">0075-4269</idno></series></biblStruct></sourceDesc><seriesStmt><idno type="ISSN">0075-4269</idno></seriesStmt></fileDesc><profileDesc><textClass></textClass><langUsage><language ident="en">en</language></langUsage></profileDesc></teiHeader><front><div type="abstract">In a book I published a few years ago, entitled Towards a Poetics of Modern Greek Folksong, I examined certain aspects of the poetics of modern folksongs in the light of the ‘oral composition theory’ of Homeric poetry, originally expounded by Milman Parry in the late twenties and early thirties and subsequently elaborated by Albert B. Lord. In this paper I propose to follow the opposite course, and inquire whether some of my findings regarding the verse-making techniques of the modern folksongs could be applied to the Homeric epics, and whether they could be made to cast some additional light on the making of ancient epic poetry. More specifically, in my study of formular and otherwise similar verses in the folksongs, I was able to distinguish five degrees of kinship, as it were, or of decreasing similarity, from identical formulas to sense units of similar type. Can a comparable scale of similarities be found in Homer, and, if it can, could it be used in modern discussions of ancient epic versification and composition, without further encumbering a terminology that is not always clear or generally agreed upon? The purpose of this exercise is not merely taxonomic; by using some basic concepts of structural linguistics as tools, I think we may perhaps come a little closer to understanding the verse-making process, which is a prerequisite for understanding Homer's manner of composition and, in the last analysis, his ‘creativity’ or even ‘originality’ vis à vis the tradition to which he belonged.</div></front></TEI><affiliations><list></list><tree><noCountry><name sortKey="Sifakis, G M" sort="Sifakis, G M" uniqKey="Sifakis G" first="G. M." last="Sifakis">G. M. Sifakis</name></noCountry></tree></affiliations></record>Pour manipuler ce document sous Unix (Dilib)
EXPLOR_STEP=$WICRI_ROOT/Wicri/Terre/explor/NissirosV1/Data/Main/Exploration
HfdSelect -h $EXPLOR_STEP/biblio.hfd -nk 000275 | SxmlIndent | more
Ou
HfdSelect -h $EXPLOR_AREA/Data/Main/Exploration/biblio.hfd -nk 000275 | SxmlIndent | more
Pour mettre un lien sur cette page dans le réseau Wicri
{{Explor lien
|wiki= Wicri/Terre
|area= NissirosV1
|flux= Main
|étape= Exploration
|type= RBID
|clé= ISTEX:7B7765B5A203C42E1B2CA23A0F02F56B12354325
|texte= Formulas and their relatives: a semiotic approach to verse making in Homer and modern greek folksongs
}}
| This area was generated with Dilib version V0.6.33. |  |