Signs of orality : : the oral tradition and its influence in the Greek and Roman world / / edited by E. Anne Mackay.

• Superior document: Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava. Supplementum, 188
• Author: Anne MacKay
• TeilnehmendeR: Mackay, E. Anne.
• Place / Publishing House: Boston : : Brill,, 1999.
• Year of Publication: 1999
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Mnemosyne, Supplements 188.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (x, 261 pages) :; illustrations.
• Other title: Preliminary Material /; What's in a Sign? /; How Oral is Oral Composition? /; Describing and Narrating in Homer's Iliad /; Ring-Composition and Linearity in Homer /; Odysseus' Evasiveness and the Audience of the Odyssey /; Homer and Historical Memory /; The Bystander at the Ringside: Ring-Composition in Early Greek Poetry and Athenian Black-Figure Vase-Painting /; The Vase as Ventriloquist: Kalos-Inscriptions and the Culture of Fame /; The Orality of Greek Oratory /; Dialogue and Orality in a Post-Platonic Age /; Virgil’s Formularity and Pius Aeneas /; Two Levels of Orality in the Genesis of Pliny's Panegyricus /; Notes on Contributors /; Bibliography /; Index Locorum /; General Index /; Supplements to Mnemosyne.
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• ISBN: 9004351426
• ISSN: 0169-8958
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: edited by E. Anne Mackay.

The essays in this volume present new insights into the far-reaching influence of an early oral culture on subsequent development after the spread of literacy. At the outset, revisionist essays on the Homeric epics examine such questions as historical memory, Homer's audience(s), descriptive strategies, ring-composition, and the status of orality as a constitutive feature of the epics. These are followed by virtually unprecedented studies of the orality of later (written) literature, including Greek oratory, Virgilian epic, Pliny's Panegyricus and story-telling in late Greek writers. Included as well are two discussions of Athenian vase-painting: annular scene-composition in the black-figure tradition, and the implications of kalos -inscriptions. An introduction by leading oral theorist John Miles Foley situates all the essays at the leading edge of oral theoretical development.