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.

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.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material / E. Anne Mackay -- What's in a Sign? / John Miles Foley -- How Oral is Oral Composition? / Egbert J. Bakker -- Describing and Narrating in Homer's Iliad / Elizabeth Minchin -- Ring-Composition and Linearity in Homer / Stephen A. Nimis -- Odysseus' Evasiveness and the Audience of the Odyssey / Ruth Scodel -- Homer and Historical Memory / Wolfgang Kullmann -- The Bystander at the Ringside: Ring-Composition in Early Greek Poetry and Athenian Black-Figure Vase-Painting / Anne Mackay , Deirdre Harrison and Samantha Masters -- The Vase as Ventriloquist: Kalos-Inscriptions and the Culture of Fame / Niall W. Slater -- The Orality of Greek Oratory / Michael Gagarin -- Dialogue and Orality in a Post-Platonic Age / Harold Tarrant -- Virgil’s Formularity and Pius Aeneas / Merritt Sale -- Two Levels of Orality in the Genesis of Pliny's Panegyricus / Elaine Fantham -- Notes on Contributors / E. Anne Mackay -- Bibliography / E. Anne Mackay -- Index Locorum / E. Anne Mackay -- General Index / E. Anne Mackay -- Supplements to Mnemosyne.