Over at Kosmos Society the are having a conversation on Albert Bates Lord: https://kosmossociety.chs.harvard.edu/?p=35027
Greg writes that “Greek literature was already formed when it was first written down. ..It might be said that on the basis of the ...Homeric poems ... ancient Greek written literature was created. “ So, the suggestion here is that Ancient Greek Literature burst forth fully armed from the head of Homer? Writing down Homer’s epics would be a colossal project. In addition to the sheer volume of work, there would the creation of techniques of dictation, editing, proofing and re-writes, plus Attican scribes writing Ionian and Homeric words. How much “paper” would that take?
“There is a popular misconception that oral literature is crude, formless, unstructured, and that without writing one cannot create intricate structures of verbal expression. ..Those intimately acquainted with an oral-traditional literature, however, are cognizant of the fact that this is a false impression, arising from a lack of experience with that type of literature.” Amen! It is a cliche to say that something is lost in translation. But when the Homeric Vocabulary Group started translating the Iliad it was a collective gasp for beautiful every week. Some of us were great readers, others had great vocabulary and some J. M. Foley’s ‘Traditional Referentiality’. Combined we found the alliterations you can’t see in translation, the nuisances, the glory and the grandeur that is god-like Homer.
Carlos Parada and Maicar Förlag following Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound blame Prometheus for the invention of writing. Then mention that Herodotus, 5.58.1 credits Cadmus for introducing the alphabet to Greece when he came with his Phoenicians followers. (Hyginus lists (Fabulae 277) in some sort of numerological treatise who various gods and men created specific letters.).
P&G end their article on the Alphabet with;
“Concerning the date of the transfer of the Semitic (Phoenician) alphabet to Greece, it appears that most scholars agree in the earlier part of the 8th century. But this view is not held by near-eastern scholars, particularly Joseph Naveh who has argued (AJA lxxvii, 1973, and Early History of the Alphabet) for an earlier transfer—at c. 1050 BC—being supported by Frank M. Cross (Semitic epigrapher at Harvard), and others. These scholars do not accept the argument ex silentio (that no Greek alphabetic texts from before c. 740 have been found), and build their case on the "forms" and "names used for the letters" (so A. W. Johnston's "Supplement" (1990) in The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, by L. H. Jeffery, 1961/2001).
“If the Greek tradition (that Cadmus and his Phoenicians introduced the alphabet in Hellas) were accepted as a true account, then the date of the transmission of the alphabet would have to be placed between 1400 and 1500 BC (when Cadmus must have lived). That would imply acknowledging that the two forms of writing—Linear B and the Greek alphabet—coexisted during a certain time until Linear B disappeared along with the Mycenaeans.”
If the Phoenician alphabet came to Greece by 1000 BC, this means that the Homeric epics maybe were not so oral as we think.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do not believe it. It is not only that no written texts have survived; it is that writing is also absent from the psyche. Remember than in 5th century tragedy, Phaedra writes a suicide note and Prometheus tells Io to write on the tablets of her mind (which is even ironic, because of the present shape of her mind and her body). In contrast, Homer mentions writing only in one curious place, the episode with Bellerophon's tablet. So if writing was really present in Homer's time, it needs to be explained not only why archaelogists find no evidence of it but also why the Greeks themselves were unaware of it.
Maya,
ReplyDeleteI had forgotten about the episode with Bellerophon's tablet. That would be in Linear B, right? I wonder at what point in time writing was common enough among the Greeks that story wouldn’t raise an eyebrow
Bill
Bill,
ReplyDeleteThe tablet, although written in Tiryns, was sent to and read in Lycia. Was it common knowledge among the Greeks that people of Asia Minor and the Near East were writing? I can imagine use of writing as an outgroup trait, songs about copper-clad Achaeans making awar against horse-taming Trojans and writing Lycians.