Odyssey

"This remarkably rich and multifaceted study of early Greek exploration makes an original contribution to current discussions of the encounters between Greeks and non-Greeks. Focusing in particular on myths about Odysseus and other heroes who visited foreign lands on their mythical voyages homeward after the Trojan War, Irad Malkin shows how these stories functioned to mediate encounters and conceptualize ethnicity and identity during the Archaic and Classical periods. Synthesizing a wide range of archaeological, mythological, and literary sources, this exceptionally learned book strengthens our understanding of early Greek exploration and city-founding along the coasts of the Western Mediterranean, reconceptualizes the role of myth in ancient societies, and revitalizes our understanding of ethnicity in antiquity.

Malkin shows how the figure of Odysseus became a proto-colonial hero whose influence transcended the Greek-speaking world. The return-myths constituted a generative mythology, giving rise to oral poems, stories, iconographic imagery, rituals, historiographical interpretation, and the articulation of ethnic identities. Reassessing the role of Homer and alternative return-myths, the book argues for the active historical function of myth and collective representations and traces their changing roles through a spectrum of colonial perceptions—from the proto-colonial, through justifications of expansion and annexation, and up to decolonization.
From the Reviews:
The Times Literary Supplement (Robin Osborne, Kings College, Cambridge) compares the book to the seminal The World of Odysseus by Moses I. Finley, and claims that Malkin’s work “should redirect historical endeavors quite as effectively as [Moses] Finley did forty-five years ago.” The work, writes Peter Green in The New Republic, “is richly documented, stringently argued…the rewards are great. The western Greeks (and indeed Odysseus) will never look quite the same again.” The book received high praise as “stimulating and original… [that] uncovers a forgotten chapter… in this book Malkin reveals how myth can be used to make sense of history” (Oswyn Murray, Balliol College, Oxford). “Irad Malkin brings to life a fascinating panorama … as he makes recent archaeological results meet with Homer… Irad Malkin succeeds in making new and illuminating insights shine through the fogs of protohistory” (Walter Burkert, Zurich). “To voyage on this extraordinarily original book is like rounding a cape: whole new vistas open up, both intellectual and literal. … Irad Malkin weaves an interdisciplinary web of history, archaeology, religion, oral poetics, maritime geography, ethnography, colonial and post-colonial studies. Spell-binding!” (Oliver Taplin, Magdalene College, Oxford)."

This paper argues for the analytical usefulness of the notion of “internal narrative discrepancy” to discuss the performance of Homeric epic in Archaic Greece. It is defined as a kind of narrative, meaningful short-circuit provoked by a clear and sharp lack of agreement between the voices of Homer and a character: the second version of an event is narrated by a character that was present at the event as told before by Homer’s voice. If the extradiegetic recipient perceives the discrepancy then he mirrors the character of the poem as an acute listener which is usually also a good performer of speeches. The discussion will be exemplified by a close reading of the scene in Odyssey 17 in which Theoklymenus tells an omen to Penelope and Telemachus.

Four fragments assigned to rolls transmitting the Catalogue of Women actually transmit passages of the Odyssey, Demosthenes and Plutarch that are not otherwise attested in the papyri.  (One year embargo on electronic distribution expires 2 September 2014.)

"Envy and Fame in Lucan’s Bellum Civile

Abstract:
In contrast to Homer and Vergil, who limit the activity of envious characters in order to reinforce the priorities of praise-based heroic narrative, Lucan allows envy to operate without restriction, embedding it even in the very structure of fate. The spectacle of an envious fate (invida fatorum series) responsible for the destruction of the Republic elicits the aggressive resentment of the narrator, which precipitates the departure of the Bellum Civile from the praise-based norms of traditional epic."