Title: The poetics of supplication
Description: In this penetrating and compelling reinterpretation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, Kevin Crotty explores the connection between the "poetic" nature of supplication on the one hand, and, on the other, the importance of supplication in the structure and poetics of the two epics. The suppliant's attempt to rouse pity by calling to mind a vivid sense of grief, he says, is important for an understanding of the poems, which invite their audience to contemplate scenes of past grieving.

A poetics of supplication, Crotty asserts, leads irresistibly to a poetics of the Homeric epic.
Subjects: Criticism and interpretation, Greek Epic poetry, Grief in literature, History and criticism, Oral tradition, Rites and ceremonies, Rites and ceremonies in literature, Sympathy in literature, War in literature
Places: Greece
People: Homer