Myths can be defined as traditional stories that societies pass on from generation to generation, constantly reinventing and reshaping them through oral, written or visual representations. Rituals and cults, on the other hand, are the festive celebrations that punctuate social life, providing the occasion for the community to perform and reflect on mythic stories or mimetic plays about or by gods and heroes. How do then the recent advances in narratology, sociolinguistics, and anthropology lead us to reconsider the complex relationships between myth and ritual in ancient traditional societies, both literate and non-literate? The papers in this groundbreaking volume explore and compare these dynamic interactions across diverse cultures, including archaic and classical Greece, the ancient Near East, and imperial Rome.
Preface
Contributors
Introduction
Anton Bierl, David Bouvier and Ombretta Cesca
Part 1 Orality, Narration, and Performance in Poetry and Images
Memories Become Story: On the Poetics of Persuasion in Homers Iliad
Elizabeth Minchin
Song 44 of Sappho as Shaped by Oral Traditions
Gregory Nagy
Modified Rapture! In and Out of Orality in Staging Comedy
Niall W. Slater
Between Symposium, Stage, and Papyrus: The Story of Kirke in Archaic Greek
Art
Jasper Gaunt
Part 2 Performance, Mythic-Ritual Poetics, and Writing
Writing the Unspeakable: How Did the Greeks Write about the Eleusinian
Mysteries?
Sandra Fleury
Between Athens and Delphi: The Performance and Poetics of the Delphic Hymns
Claas Lattmann
Epitaph and Ritual
Ruth Scodel
The Text, the Reader, and the Voice: Roman Mores in Verse Epitaphs
Dylan Bovet
Part 3 Performance and Mythic-Ritual Poetics in Christian Texts
Multimodality and Metonymy: Deuteronomy as a Test Case
Raymond F. Person Jr.
Jesus Baptism in the Scamander: Homeric Intertextuality and Christian Ritual
in Eudocias Homeric Centos
Anna Lefteratou
Index Locorum
Index of Subjects
Anton Bierl, Ph.D. (Munich, 1990), Habil. (Leipzig, 1999), is Professor of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Basel. He was Senior Fellow at Harvards CHS (2005-2011). He is director of Homers Iliad: The Basel Commentary and series-editor of MythosEikonPoiesis. His research interests include Homeric epic, drama, song and performance culture, the ancient novel, Greek myth and religion.
David Bouvier, Ph.D. (EHESS, 1984; University of Geneva, 1997), is Professor emeritus of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Lausanne. He has extensively published on Homeric poetry, Greek literature, and reception studies. He leads the digital project Iliadoscope.
Ombretta Cesca, Ph.D. (University of Lausanne, 2018) is Assistant Professor of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Lausanne. Her research interests include Homeric poetry, media and communication in Ancient Greece, and the representation of gods in epic poems and Attic theater. Her scientific approach combines oral theory, narratology and history of ancient religions.
Contributors are: Dylan Bovet, Sandra Fleury, Jasper Gaunt, Claas Lattmann, Anna Lefteratou, Elizabeth Minchin, Gregory Nagy, Raymond F. Person, Jr., Ruth Scodel, Niall W. Slater.
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