The interpretation of order
Subtitle: a study in the poetics of Homeric repetition
By: Ahuvia Kahane.
Series: Oxford classical monographs
Publisher: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 190
Subjects: Homer -- Technique.; Repetition (Rhetoric); Greek language -- Metrics and rhythmics.; Poetics -- History -- To 1500.; Epic poetry -- Technique.; Rhetoric, Ancient.
Description: This is an exciting and original study of the poetic significance of formal repetition in Homer. The author argues that localization, metre, and verse-structure are regularly used as semantic markers, providing certain words with a 'meaning' that extends beyond their immediate context. This meaning often interacts with context-specific semantic features, creating a discourse that is replete with ambiguity, ambivalence, irony, and allusion.

The discussion draws on recent approaches in linguistics and literary criticism, including narratology, pragmatics, socio-linguistics, discourse analysis, and speech-act theory, but lay emphasis on the primary text as an object of study. The author shows how Homer's polysemic texture contributes to the presentation of key literary topics such as the image of the hero in the Iliad or disguise and repetition in the Odyssey
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [167]-176) and indexes.
Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Oxford.