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• Introduction Part I: Epic Genre and Technique
• 1. Epic as Genre
• 2. Similes and Performance
• 3. Formulas and Speeches: The Usefulness of Parry's Method
• 4. Wrapping Homer Up: Cohesion, Discourse, and Deviation in the Iliad Part II: Mythic Hymnists, Historical Performers
• 5. Apollo's Kithara and Poseidon's Crash-Test: Ritual and Contest in the Evolution of Greek Aesthetics
• 6. The Senses of an Ending: Myth, Ritual, and Poetic Exodia in Performance
• 7. Synchronic Aspects of Homeric Performance: The Evidence of the Hymn to Apollo
• 8. Rhapsodizing Orpheus
• 9. Golden Verses: Voice and Authority in the Tablets Part III: Hesiodic Constructions
• 10. Hesiod and the Didactic Double
• 11. Hesiod's Metanastic Poetics
• 12. Hesiod, Odysseus, and the Instruction of Princes
• 13. Pulp Epic: The Catalogue and the Shield Part IV: The Backward Look
• 14. Keens from the Absent Chorus: Troy to Ulster
• 15. Telemachus and the Last Hero Song
• 16. Until It Ends: Varieties of Iliadic Anticipation
• 17. Distant Landmarks: Homer and Hesiod.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Building on numerous original close readings of works by Homer, Hesiod, and other ancient Greek poets, Richard P. Martin articulates a broad and precise poetics of archaic Greek verse. The ancient Greek hexameter poetry of such works as the Iliad and the Odyssey differ from most modern verbal art because it was composed for live, face-to-face performance, often in a competitive setting, before an audience well versed in mythological and ritual lore. The essays collected here span Martin's acclaimed career and explore ways of reading this poetic heritage using principles and evidence from the comparative study of oral traditions, literary and speech-act theories, and the ethnographic record. Among topics analyzed in depth are the narrative structures of Homer's epics, the Hesiodic Works and Days, and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo; the characterization of poetic and musical performers within the poems; the social context for verses ascribed to the legendary singer Orpheus; the significance of various rituals as stylized by poetic performances; and the interrelations, at the level of diction and theme, among the major genres of epic and hymn, as well as "genres of speaking" such as lament, praise, advice, and proverbial wisdom.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Hermes' ears : places and symbols of communication in ancient culture
• Brutus the fool
• Mos, mores, and mos maiorum : the invention of morality in Roman culture
• Face to face in ancient Rome : the vocabulary of physical appearance in Latin
• Sosia and his substitute : thinking the double at Rome
• Ghosts of exile : doubles and nostalgia in Vergil's Parva troia
• Death and its double : imagines, ridiculum, and honos in the Roman aristocratic funeral
• Argumentum.

• Acknowledgments ix A Note on Sources xi Introduction 3
• Chapter One: Religious Silence without an Ineffable God 9 Sonorous Prayers and Degrees of Silence 9 The Injunction of Ritual Silence 13 Silence and Impurity 17 Closing One's Lips, Closing One's Eyes: Silence in the Initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries 23 "Great Reverence for the Goddesses Holds Back the Voice" 32 To Be Silent around the Erinyes 38
• Chapter Two: A Silent Body in a Sonorous World: Silence and Heroic Values in the Iliad 46 Drawing the Silent Body 46 Silence and Verbal Fighting 54 Silence in the Flow of Verbal Exchange 60 Silence and Authoritative Speech 64 Traveling Voices 68 The Resonant Voice of the Homeric Speaker 74 Overcoming Silence 77
• Chapter Three: The Poet's Voice against Silence 82 Silence, Oblivion, and Blame 82 The Vocality of Poetry 91 The Boundless Spreading of Song 97 The Specter of Silent Impotence 101 Silence to Modulate Song 106
• Chapter Four: "I Will Be Silent": Figures of Silence and Representations of Speaking in Athenian Oratory 116 Silence for Useful Speech? 116 The Silent Praise of Oneself 123 Insulting without Insulting 127 Aposiopesis, Euphei? mia, and the Forbidden 132 Perceptions of the Orator's Silence: A Rhetorical Choice or a Sign of Impotence? 137 The Voice of the Orator against the Uproar 144 For an Assembly without Silence 151
• Chapter Five: Words Staging Silence 158 Uttering Silence instead of Emptying the Stage 158 Calls for Silence and Representation of the Audience 167 Long Silences 173 Silence and the Veil 176 Speaking Defines Seeing 181 Words That See Silence 188
• Chapter Six: Silence and Tragic Destiny 193 Tragic Reticences 193 Apollo's Silences and Orders of Silence 199 The Failure of Auspicious Silence 204
• Chapter Seven: Silence, a Herald of Death 213 Cassandra's Demystifying Silence 213 Comic Explosions of Silence 216 "I Fear Lest This Silence May Explode into Misfortunes" 220 Between Silence and Cries: Illnesses of Tragic Heroes 224 Losing One's Voice, Losing One's Life: Silence in the Hippocratic Writings 228 Phaedra's Silence: A Way of Saving Her Honor or of Letting Herself Die? 233 Silence and Suicide 238 Killing in Silence 245
• Chapter Eight: Silence, Ruse, and Endurance: Odysseus and Beyond 252 Women's Silent Conniving in Greek Tragedy 252 Much-Enduring Odysseus, the Master of Cunning Silence 256 Odysseus' Silence as a Model of Behavior in the Odyssey 267 Tragic Odysseus, a Silent Deceiver 276 Ideological Uneasiness about Silence and Secrecy in Classical Athens 281 What Happens to Odysseus' Silent Endurance? 286
• Conclusion 289 Select Bibliography 293 Index 309.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In ancient Greece, the spoken word connoted power, whether in the free speech accorded to citizens or in the voice of the poet, whose song was thought to know no earthly bounds. But how did silence fit into the mental framework of a society that valued speech so highly? Here, Silvia Montiglio provides the first comprehensive investigation into silence as a distinctive and meaningful phenomenon in archaic and classical Greece. Arguing that the notion of silence is not a universal given but is rather situated in a complex network of associations and values, Montiglio seeks to establish general principles for understanding silence through analyses of cultural practices, including religion, literature, and law. Unlike the silence of a Christian before an ineffable God, which signifies the uselessness of words, silence in Greek religion paradoxically expresses the power of logos - for example, during prayer and sacrifice, it serves as a shield against words that could offend the gods. Montiglio goes on to explore silence in the world of the epic hero, where words are equated with action and their absence signals paralysis or tension in power relationships. Her other examples include oratory, a practice in which citizens must balance their words with silence in very complex ways in order to show that they do not abuse their right to speak. Inquiries into lyric poetry, drama, medical writings, and historiography round out this unprecedented study, revealing silence as a force in its own right.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

This book offers a challenging multi-disciplinary interpretation of Aristophanes' Frogs. Drawing on a wide range of literary and anthropological approaches, it deploys an impressive series of religious and cultural considerations which have never previously been used to illuminate this text. Rather than seeking to recover the 'authorial' meaning of the Frogs, Dr Lada-Richards attempts to reconstruct the wider spectrum of potential meanings that various segments of the play could have had in their own socio-cultural milieu. The key question the book explores is how membership in Greek fifth-century society would have shaped understanding of the play, with particular emphasis on the persona of Dionysus who, as Dr Lada-Richards argues, should not be viewed merely as a stock comic character but as inseparable from the complex, paradoxical figure of his mythical and ritual counterpart. Combining sophistication and complexity with clarity and elegance of style, the book is addresses to the scholar as well as the student of Greek drama and culture, and its insights should appeal to anybody interested in the manifold ways theatre (of any period and culture) remoulds the ritual sequences of the social frame to which it belongs.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Polis, household and reciprocity in Homer
• reciprocity, marriage and sacrifice in Homer
• death ritual and reciprocal violence in the polis
• collective death ritual
• death ritual in the "Iliad"
• the transformation of reciprocity
• Dionysos and the polis
• transformation of the Dionysiac sacrifice
• the Dionysiac in Homer and in tragedy
• reciprocity and ritual in tragedy.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This is an exciting and entirely new synthesis, combining anthropology, political and social history, and the close reading of central Greek texts, to account for two the most significant hallmarks in Homeric epic and Athenian tragedy: the representation of ritual and codes of reciprocity. Both genres are pervaded by these features, yet each treats them in entirely different ways. In this book, Dr Seaford shows that these differences cannot be accounted for in merely literary terms, but require a historical explanation. Homer in its final form is a product of the city state at an earlier historical stage than is tragedy. It is the growth of the city-state and its concomitant developments - in particular of law and of money, as well as in the practice of ritual - that provide a key to the crystallization of the Homeric narrative tradition, to the specificity of tragedy, and to certain features of the thought of the period. In the case of reciprocity, again - whether the positive reciprocity associated with gift-giving or the hostile reciprocity of revenge - the systematic distinctions between Homer and tragedy can be explained only from a historical perspective. In its characteristic movement tradegy reflects and confirms the transition from one kind of society towards another: from a network of reciprocial relations, characteristic of societies where the state is weak or absent, to the organization of citizens around a single centre or series of centres, the institutions and cults of the city-state. Challenging, thoroughly lucid, and at times controversial, this lively and original work is the first to attempt to understand the development of early Greek literature from the perspective of state-formation. It should interest all serious students and scholars of both the literature and the history of classical Greece.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Acknowledgments ix A Note on Sources xi Introduction 3
• Chapter One: Religious Silence without an Ineffable God 9 Sonorous Prayers and Degrees of Silence 9 The Injunction of Ritual Silence 13 Silence and Impurity 17 Closing One's Lips, Closing One's Eyes: Silence in the Initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries 23 "Great Reverence for the Goddesses Holds Back the Voice" 32 To Be Silent around the Erinyes 38
• Chapter Two: A Silent Body in a Sonorous World: Silence and Heroic Values in the Iliad 46 Drawing the Silent Body 46 Silence and Verbal Fighting 54 Silence in the Flow of Verbal Exchange 60 Silence and Authoritative Speech 64 Traveling Voices 68 The Resonant Voice of the Homeric Speaker 74 Overcoming Silence 77
• Chapter Three: The Poet's Voice against Silence 82 Silence, Oblivion, and Blame 82 The Vocality of Poetry 91 The Boundless Spreading of Song 97 The Specter of Silent Impotence 101 Silence to Modulate Song 106
• Chapter Four: "I Will Be Silent": Figures of Silence and Representations of Speaking in Athenian Oratory 116 Silence for Useful Speech? 116 The Silent Praise of Oneself 123 Insulting without Insulting 127 Aposiopesis, Euphei? mia, and the Forbidden 132 Perceptions of the Orator's Silence: A Rhetorical Choice or a Sign of Impotence? 137 The Voice of the Orator against the Uproar 144 For an Assembly without Silence 151
• Chapter Five: Words Staging Silence 158 Uttering Silence instead of Emptying the Stage 158 Calls for Silence and Representation of the Audience 167 Long Silences 173 Silence and the Veil 176 Speaking Defines Seeing 181 Words That See Silence 188
• Chapter Six: Silence and Tragic Destiny 193 Tragic Reticences 193 Apollo's Silences and Orders of Silence 199 The Failure of Auspicious Silence 204
• Chapter Seven: Silence, a Herald of Death 213 Cassandra's Demystifying Silence 213 Comic Explosions of Silence 216 "I Fear Lest This Silence May Explode into Misfortunes" 220 Between Silence and Cries: Illnesses of Tragic Heroes 224 Losing One's Voice, Losing One's Life: Silence in the Hippocratic Writings 228 Phaedra's Silence: A Way of Saving Her Honor or of Letting Herself Die? 233 Silence and Suicide 238 Killing in Silence 245
• Chapter Eight: Silence, Ruse, and Endurance: Odysseus and Beyond 252 Women's Silent Conniving in Greek Tragedy 252 Much-Enduring Odysseus, the Master of Cunning Silence 256 Odysseus' Silence as a Model of Behavior in the Odyssey 267 Tragic Odysseus, a Silent Deceiver 276 Ideological Uneasiness about Silence and Secrecy in Classical Athens 281 What Happens to Odysseus' Silent Endurance? 286
• Conclusion 289 Select Bibliography 293 Index 309.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In ancient Greece, the spoken word connoted power, whether in the free speech accorded to citizens or in the voice of the poet, whose song was thought to know no earthly bounds. But how did silence fit into the mental framework of a society that valued speech so highly? Here, Silvia Montiglio provides the first comprehensive investigation into silence as a distinctive and meaningful phenomenon in archaic and classical Greece. Arguing that the notion of silence is not a universal given but is rather situated in a complex network of associations and values, Montiglio seeks to establish general principles for understanding silence through analyses of cultural practices, including religion, literature, and law. Unlike the silence of a Christian before an ineffable God, which signifies the uselessness of words, silence in Greek religion paradoxically expresses the power of logos - for example, during prayer and sacrifice, it serves as a shield against words that could offend the gods. Montiglio goes on to explore silence in the world of the epic hero, where words are equated with action and their absence signals paralysis or tension in power relationships. Her other examples include oratory, a practice in which citizens must balance their words with silence in very complex ways in order to show that they do not abuse their right to speak. Inquiries into lyric poetry, drama, medical writings, and historiography round out this unprecedented study, revealing silence as a force in its own right.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)