The Iliad and the Odyssey are emotional powerhouses largely because of their extensive use of direct speech. Yet this characteristic of the Homeric epics has led scholars to underplay the poems' use of non-direct speech, the importance of speech represented by characters, and the overall sophistication of Homeric narrative as measured by its approach to speech representation. In this pathfinding study by contrast, Deborah Beck undertakes the first systematic examination of all the speeches presented in the Homeric poems to show that Homeric speech presentation is a unified system that includes both direct quotation and non-direct modes of speech presentation.

Drawing on the fields of narratology and linguistics, Beck demonstrates that the Iliad and the Odyssey represent speech in a broader and more nuanced manner than has been perceived before, enabling us to reevaluate our understanding of supposedly "modern" techniques of speech representation and to refine our idea of where Homeric poetry belongs in the history of Western literature. She also broadens ideas of narratology by connecting them more strongly with relevant areas of linguistics, as she uses both to examine the full range of speech representational strategies in the Homeric poems. Through this in-depth analysis of how speech is represented in the Homeric poems, Beck seeks to make both the process of their composition and the resulting poems themselves seem more accessible, despite pervasive uncertainties about how and when the poems were put together.

"This book represents an original approach to Homeric speech, makes excellent new points ... and offers data no one has previously presented." -- Ruth Scodel, D. R. Shackleton Bailey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Latin, University of Michigan

About the Author

Deborah Beck is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin. She is also the author of Homeric Conversation and several scholarly articles on Homeric speech presentation.

Reviews
"The book offers an abundance of technical observations...and will interest students of Homeric narrative technique and of speech theory generally."--Choice "The book offers an abundance of technical observations...and will interest students of Homeric narrative technique and of speech theory generally."--P. Nieto, Brown University



Book Information
ISBN 9780292756793
Author Deborah Beck
Format Paperback
Page Count 268
Imprint University of Texas Press
Publisher University of Texas Press
Weight(grams) 313g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 18mm