oral poetics

οἴνοπα πόντον: Oinops and the Wide Open Sea

~ A guest blog by Sarah Scott & Janet Ozsolak and the Oinops Study Group ~ Zeus struck my ship with his thunderbolts, and broke it up in the middle of the wine-faced [oinops] sea [pontos] (Odyssey vii, 249–252) Although we had searched on the Greek word oinops, once we had the list of passages we had been reading them in translation. The word ‘sea’ had been prominent in the… Read more

Return to the Wine-Dark Sea

οἴνοπα  πόντον ~ A guest post by Jacqui Donlon ~ I am back because it still haunts me – the wine-dark sea. What is its meaning? We discussed this phrase a few months ago in this blog post but I find I cannot leave it there, I still need to find its true meaning. This beautiful epithet, which first surfaced in a post by Jenna Cole during HeroesX has continued… Read more

Open House | Epic Cycle, Oral Poetics, and Composition in Performance, with Gregory Nagy and Guests

We were pleased to welcome Gregory Nagy and guests, for an Open House session during which we discussed the epic cycle, oral poetics, and composition in performance, including: what the wheel of a chariot means how ring composition works how a performer relates to the audience what happens with predictions within the narrative the difference between improvisation and deep structure/surface structure multiformity vs interpolation You can watch the recording on… Read more

Under Discussion: The song of Daskalogiannis

A guest post by Euthymia Kalogera I had heard by chance the song of Daskalogiannis. My son Andreas is learning Cretan dances and I discovered that the dance Pentozali which has its roots in the Ancient Pyrrhic dance like the dance Serra of the Pontiac Greeks, was first danced by Daskalogiannis and his men before the revolt of 1770. Daskalogiannis invited a famous traditional violin player to teach his men… Read more

Archive: Posts by Leonard Muellner from HeroesXv2

We are happy to share the following archive of posts written by Leonard Muellner during the second session of HeroesX. Muellner is the Chair of the Board of Readers for HeroesX and Professor of Classical Studies at Brandeis University. He has been collaborating with Professor Gregory Nagy for over four decades. Post ID: Archive_HeroesXv2_LennyMuellner_1 Key Terms: song culture, kleos aphtiton, Milman Parry, Albert Lord Scroll 9 Iliad, modern oral traditions, Korea,… Read more