HOMER AND THE END OF THE MYCENAEAN AGE: OUTLINE 4

I. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

    A. END OF THE MYCENAEAN AGE

        1. Dorian invasion (?): c. 1200 B.C.

            a.  Destruction of Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos, and other Mycenaean sites on the mainland

            b.  Where did the Mycenaean Greeks go?

        2. Upheaval in easterm Mediterranean

            a. Hittite empire collapses; destruction of Troy

            b. Egyptian records describe how the "Peoples of the Sea" attack Egypt: Peleset Philistines?); Sherden (Sardinians?); Danuna (Homer's Danaoi 'Greeks'); Tjekker

            c. Israelites become dominant in Palestine; period of the Judges; struggles with the Philistines; establishment of the monarchy under Saul

    B. The IRON AGE (DARK AGE)

        1. Rise of the new polis 'city-state' in Greece.

            a.  Athens, Corinth, Thebes, Sparta

        2. Survival of Mycenaean mythology in Greek mythology: Theseus and the Minotaur; Trojan War; Labors of Heracles; Jason and the Argonauts; legends of Danaus and Cadmus

            a.   preservation of the myths in an oral culture

II. HOMER

    A. HIS LIFE AND WORKS

        1.  Little known about his life: Chios (?) his birthplace; blind (?)

        2. Iliad and Odyssey

            a.  Our texts go back to about 750 BC

            b.  Language: a kunstsprache i.e. a language which mixes grammatical and lexical items from different dialects and different time frames.

    B. HOMER AND ARCHAEOLOGY

        1. Henry Schliemann and the excavations at Troy.

            a. See outline 3.

    C. HOMER AS AN ORAL POET

        1. Milman Parry: studied at the Sorbonne; dissertation on Serbo-Croatian oral poetry; visits Yugoslavia (Bosnia); feast of Ramadan; oral poets; guslar, a musical instrument; the meter is trochaic pentameter.

        2.  Parry concluded that Homer was an oral poet who probably could neither read nor wrote.  He composed his epics orally as entertainment for the aristocracy.

            a.  When writing was introduced into Greece from Phoenicia, some one asked Homer to dictate more complete versions of the stories he liked the most. 

            b.  His meter was dactylic hexameter.

        3. Formulaic language vs. memorization

            a. why is Achilles swift-footed? why is the dawn rosy-fingered?  Agamemnon, king of men? etc.

        4. Direct poetic link with the Mycenaean Age: Homer is at the end of an oral tradition; introduction of writing and the end of the oral tradition