Signs of Orality: the Oral Tradition and Its Influence in the Greek and Roman World

Boston: Brill, 1999. x, 261 pages: illustrations; 24 cm. ISBN: 9789004112735, 9004112731

"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."--BOOK JACKET. "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."--JacketContents: Introduction: What's in a Sign? / John Miles Foley. I. How Oral is Oral Composition? / Egbert J. Bakker. II. Describing and Narrating in Homer's Iliad / Elizabeth Minchin. III. Ring-composition and Linearity in Homer / Stephen A. Nimis. IV. Odysseus' Evasiveness and the Audience of the Odyssey / Ruth Scodel. V. Homer and Historical Memory / Wolfgang Kullmann. VI. The Bystander at the Ringside. Ring-composition in Early Greek Poetry and Vase-Painting / Anne Mackay, Deirdre Harrison and Samantha Masters. VII. The Vase as Ventriloquist. Kalos-inscriptions and the Culture of Fame / Niall W. Slater. VIII. The Orality of Greek Oratory / Michael Gagarin. IX. Dialogue and Orality in a Post-Platonic Age / Harold Tarrant. X. Virgil's Formularity and Pius Aeneas / Merritt Sale. XI. Two Levels of Orality in the Genesis of Pliny's Panegyricus / Elaine Fantham.