An Experiment in the Making of a Homer Commentary

Abstract

This posting, 2015.05.27, continues where I left off in a previous posting, 2015.04.10. There I translated and then analyzed the text of the first song of Demodokos, contained in verses 72–83 of Odyssey 8, which I described as a micro-epic that refers to the macro-epics of the Iliad and the Odyssey. In that previous posting, I offered a translation of these verses, followed by a brief analysis that kept citing lengthy arguments that I had developed in a variety of earlier publications. But I kept asking myself, even while writing up my analysis in that posting: could I find new ways of developing my argumentation without having to rely mostly on the details that I cited from my earlier publications? In the present posting for 2015.05.27, which should take less than ten minutes to read, I experiment with a form of commentary that focuses on a minimum number of details to be analyzed. Choosing only three details for analysis in verses 72–83 of Odyssey 8, I will comment on all three by focusing on the relationship between the micro-epic contained in these verses and the macro-epics of the Iliad and the Odyssey. This focused commentary is intended as a radical shortcut in envisioning the big picture, as it were, of Homeric poetry.