Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

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Qimmik
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Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

Post by Qimmik »

Van Thiel's edition has relatively large margins. It has also the advantage that the whole Iliad fits in one volume. Also, some "heretics" still think it's the most reliable scholarly edition at present. (But for a scholarly edition, I would personnally recommend West)
OK, Paul, I take that as a direct and personal slap in the face. Choose your weapon.

West's testimonia (quotations from ancient authors that what how the text read in antiquity) and apparatus (variant readings found in manuscripts, including papyri) are in my view the best in any available edition. (Like van Thiel, he has limited himself to just a few of the hundreds of medieval and later mss., but this is an advantages, not a drawback--for Homer, citing all the mss. would produce a very cluttered apparatus that would be difficult to use, and many of the variants are clearly mistaken and worthless anyway.) His apparatus pays attention to minute details such as accents and breathings.

However, West's text is very idiosyncratic. It reflects his controversial--not necessarily wrong, but not demonstrably right, either--view that the poem was written by a single individual in a Greek community in Asia Minor around 650 BCE. Consequently, his text normalizes spelling to conform to epigraphical evidence from that period and milieu (against the traditional spelling of the medieval mss.). However, West doesn't carry through this practice consistently: he doesn't, for example, render all rough breathings as smooth breathings despite the general belief (which he shares) that the eastern Ionic dialect was already psilotic by the period in which he places the composition of the Iliad. West also brackets some passages on very subjective grounds (including the entire 10th book, which many--probably most--but not all specialists think is somehow not integral to the rest of the Iliad). That is not to say that many of the lines bracketed by West don't deserve to be bracketed: many of them are attested only in a minority of the mss., and do have the odor of interpolations. In fact, some specialists would argue that West doesn't bracket enough of these weakly attested lines.

Van Thiel's edition, in contrast, follows more closely the spelling and other aspects of the text transmitted in the medieval manuscript tradition (and the papyri, as I understand it, though van Thiel's reporting of the papyri is very parsimonious). He doesn't bracket as many lines as West, even those that would be bracketed by most editors.

[Continued.]
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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

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That said, the differences between West's and van Thiel's texts are overwhelmingly trivial and superficial. Personally, I prefer van Thiel's basic approach, a text reflecting the medieval mss. tradition, because I'm not certain that West's idea of the origins of the Iliad are right. While I recognize that West is a scholar of towering stature--one of the greatest Hellenists since the Renaissance, on a level with Wilamowitz--I'm not comfortable with his claim to know more or less exactly what the Iliad looked like in 650 BCE.

This goes back to the question that Wolf raised in 1795: how can a modern scholar prepare an edition of the Iliad that accurately reflects the "original" text--and, more precisely, what exactly was the original text of the Iliad? With the oral theory that took shape about 80-90 years ago, primarily but not exclusively through the work of Milman Parry, we have a better idea today about the tradition out of which the Iliad and the Odyssey must have emerged, but we really aren't much closer to understanding the precise circumstances, or rather, the processes, that gave rise to the actual texts of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Moreover, the mss. traditions of the Iliad and the Odyssey are too vast to be able to construct any sort of history of the text, let alone a precise stemma or genealogy of the mss. tracing them back to a single source. From the scholia, we know that many of the variant readings go back to antiquity, and the fact that they are found in one ms. or another really doesn't add much to our conception of the text, since we really have no idea (despite unpersuasive arguments for one position or another) how or why the variants arose. The same is true of the testimonia, especially those from the Hellenistic period on. (We also can never be quite sure whether ancient authors, when they quoted the Homeric poems, actually went through the laborious process of pulling the relevant papyrus scroll out of the cabinet and scanning the text for the passage they were looking for in order to make certain they were quoting accurately, or just quoted from memory.) In sum, while the textual variants from the testimonia and mss. tell us something about the later history of the Iliad and the Odyssey, they really don't help us very much to get closer to an "original" text.

This is quite different from other texts such as those of Thucydides or Apollonius, where we can be quite certain that a single individual put pen to paper and all of the mss. at our disposal can be traced to that event, or at least, at some point, to a single ms. As a result, producing a modern text of Homer is inevitably a fundamentally different process from editing almost all other ancient author. In my view, a good reading text that reflects the mss. tradition, with critical notes that provide significant variants, is about as good as we can do.

Again recognizing West's stature (and my own insignificance), I think that West's claim to establish, or to come close to establishing, what he believes to be the "original" text of the Iliad is illusory if not misleading--unless you are completely comfortable that his ideas about the origins of the poem and the original language and orthography are incontrovertibly correct. I'm not completely comfortable--though I think they're plausible--and that's why I prefer van Thiel's text as a reading text (though I wish he cited the papyri more, and I keep both of them open when I read the Iliad).
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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

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Aargh! I wrote a long response here and this *!€!? of a computer destroyed it. I'll try again once I have collected myself.

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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

Post by Paul Derouda »

OK, I'll try again now. So, I was sort of expecting you to react, and look what happened... :) But don't take it as slap in the face -- I have actually practiced fencing for about seven years (not in this millennium, but still), so you wouldn't stand a chance!

Anyway, I actually agree with most of what you say. But it's important to note that unlike you or indeed many other critics say, I don't think West claims he has established the definitive truth about the Iliad with his text -- he's just making his best effort. Some of his measures are rather obvious, like the bracketing of weakly attested lines or of obvious concordance interpolations (which are not necessarily very weakly attested, but are still obvious), some are really speculative -- and for a casual reader, it's often difficult to say which is which. So here I actually agree with you -- the text is sometimes idiosyncratic. But the way I take it (to exaggerate a bit), West's scholarly achievement is really the apparatus and the Greek text is just a thought-provoking appendix to it. You are not supposed to read it without the apparatus or indeed without a commentary. Sure, West could have produced a conservative text like van Thiel's, but why? We have such texts in plenty already. You are right, it's probably best to have something like van Thiel open at the same time. With West's text as it is, we have at the same time a sort of synthesis of West's views, all of them, not just the ones that are most likely to be correct. Although some of these ideas will be ultimately wrong, being reminded of them will certainly be worthwhile in years to come, because we're not likely to have anyone who knows as much about Homer as West does in the near future. So, in summary, it's a text to be studied rather than just read, and I suppose that we both can agree on that.

Like you and I have both said, the differences between the two texts and indeed other modern editions are pretty minimal. I really have only one real quibble with van Thiel, and that's his failure to bracket obvious interpolations. I think this is serious, and actually much more important than minor differences in orthography or punctuation or selecting the "wrong" reading at a given place. These out-of-place verses slow down the story and make Homer dull and repetitive (Homer is repetitive, but without these interpolations, rarely to the point of pointlessness). I think this sort "passive" mistake, refusing to accept this progress in Homeric scholarship (there's a monograph by Apthorp on the subject) is at least as serious as emending or bracketing rashly. This has also a bearing on the study of oral poetics in Homer, because repetitive verses are fundamental in oral poetry.

Note also that West doesn't leave anything out because he doesn't "like" it -- he transfers only weakly attested lines to the apparatus and simply brackets spurious lines that are better attested.

For Iliad 10, I think West is right to bracket it -- but with the wolf simile we discussed some months ago, I agree with you that it's very speculative, probably too much so. But still, I'm glad to be informed that's there might be something going on there, though I agree with you that this sort of thing should be kept out of an edition intended for "innocent" readers -- which, and this is my main point, West's is not. There was also this case of κέκλυτέ μευ/μοι where, if I remember correctly, West had adopted a version that doesn't occur a single time in the Iliad. So I don't necessarily agree with him all the time, but I prefer it the way it is, provocative and all.

I had some other points, but maybe I'll return to them later...

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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

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hi, i agree there's no "best" edition of the iliad, at least for me personally i use different editions for different purposes. one edition i never hear cited but which is one of my preferred editions for pure reading is bolling's ilias atheniensium. it's a "quicker" read, bolling is much more aggressive on stripping out obelised lines, and he is also more aggressive on restoring spelling changes.

when i'm preparing any sort of notes/scansion of the iliad (e.g. here http://www.freewebs.com/mhninaeide/) i use west's edition.

btw for the curious, in relation to the spelling in martin west's edition, i once asked him by email back in 2005, "would you guess that Zenodotus' Iliad text, if it was an Ionic rhapsode's text marked up by him, had de/komai, kw=s, &c?" and he kindly emailed me back: "Wackernagel thought that the original text should have had de/komai, and it is certainly possible that Zenodotus' text might have had this at least sporadically, though the scholia never mention it. As for kw=s etc., I really think that would have left some trace in the tradition if it had ever been there. The k-forms are east Ionic only, appearing in Callinus, Semonides, Hipponax, but not Archilochus, Tyrtaeus, Solon, etc. There is no sign of them in Homer or later epic, a fact probably indicative of the area where the epic language took its final form. See what I have written in JHS 108 (1988), 166. MLW"

the edition i most often use for reading however is joshua barnes' edition with scholia picked out for easy reading (i.e. mostly scholia focusing on synonyms/definitions to understand the vocab, not so much on mythological background etc scholia) + latin translation (word-by-word in order with the grk) on same page, google book here: http://books.google.fr/books?id=bo9AAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1. this was the beautiful edition that he got his wife to finance by saying it was written by the biblical solomon! money well spent.

cheers, chad

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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

Post by Bart »

Hoping not to sidetrack the discussion, that I'm following with much interest, but two short questions for chad: the edition by Joshua Barnes with scholia + Latin text sounds great. But it looks a bit like a mess visually, on googlebooks at least. Is it readable? And do you own a reproduction or an original version?

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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

Post by Paul Derouda »

I have never read Bolling's edition, though I know about it's existence. I have the impression that it's pretty idiosyncratic in many ways, but I think Apthorp with his important monograph Manuscript evidence for interpolation in Homer is basically continuing from where Bolling left.

Re: Joshua Barnes. Did he really tell his wife the Iliad was the work of Solomon? Hah! Anyway, I think that sort of Greek print with a lot of ligatures that was in vogue in the 18th century and before looks very difficult to read at first, but you actually get used to it pretty quickly, though it's probably never as easy to read as modern font.

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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

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The k-forms are east Ionic only, appearing in Callinus, Semonides, Hipponax, but not Archilochus, Tyrtaeus, Solon, etc. There is no sign of them in Homer or later epic, a fact probably indicative of the area where the epic language took its final form.
There is a theory that the Homeric poems "originated" (whatever that means) in Euboea, i.e., western Ionic. I think pws, and not kws, is one of the bits of evidence adduced in support of this theory. But there are lots of theories about the origins of the poems, none of them wholly convincing.

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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

Post by cb »

hi bart, i personally own an original of the 1711 edition, which i bought from a rare books classics-only store that used to exist in paris' left bank until a few years ago - calepinus - now closed down and just selling online. i only found the iliad. i'd love to find the vol 2 with the odyssey.

however you can find a hi-res version online of both volumes of barnes which are clean and easy to read - i have it downloaded and it comes out at 368MB for the iliad and 245MB for the odyssey - go to bayerische staatsbibliothek's online catalogue and download (the online reading version looks blurry but the downloaded versions that i have are really clean and easy to read):

https://opacplus.bsb-muenchen.de/metaop ... rnes+ilias

i agree on the ligatures, they soon get as easy to read as any other normal font. i remember seeing a nice chart of these recently on one of the 2 blogs i read (nick swift, an ex-textkit guy who moved into classics): http://superfluidity.tumblr.com/image/75937622772

cheers, chad

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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

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cb wrote:i remember seeing a nice chart of these recently on one of the 2 blogs i read (nick swift, an ex-textkit guy who moved into classics): http://superfluidity.tumblr.com/image/75937622772

cheers, chad
It made me laugh to see the ligature for οὗτος. :lol:

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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

Post by Bart »

Thanks for the links, Chad. I like the the idea of explanations in Greek (the scholia), but just as much the parallel translation in Latin. Great for practising both languages simultaneously.

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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

Post by Scribo »

Honestly the Aeolic phrase is one of those areas where I massively disagree with West et al, not only do I feel it hard to swallow philologically (not ALL Aeolic features go back to a demonstrably earlier phrase) but it doesn't even make sense culturally. I think the diffusionist model has it right.

As per the title West is the best scholarly edition. Note that doesn't mean I agree with it always but simply that in and of itself it is a better example of scholarship. Given that you're meant to read it with constant reference to the apparatus it is also the best reading text since I can go as conservative or as innovative as I please.

Ligatures suck ass. I had to learn them by writing a few pages using different types. I can still produce them effortlessly but I'll be damned if I ever use them. Well ok there's a shorthand for a gen singular which I like. But that's it!
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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

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Aeolic phase vs. diffusion: I'm not convinced either way, but I really don't have the linguistic background to reach a judgment. The Aeolic phase theory is intended to explain the prevalence of Aeolic words and forms in the primarily Ionic language of the Homeric poems. It runs as follows: the oral epic tradition inherited from Mycenaean times was preserved and continued by an Aeolic-speaking population after the end of the Bronze Age, but was subsequently taken over by Ionians, who Ionicized (Ionized?) the previously Aeolic epic formular diction to the extent possible without doing violence to the meter.

This seems to be the dominant theory right now, but the evidence I've managed to look at seems to me too flimsy to reach a firm conclusion. The Aeolic phase theory seems to be based on a few linguistic features of epic diction which could have alternative explanations that lie beyond recovery. The alternative theory is "cultural diffusion" -- the epic diction evolved in an area where Ionian- and Aeolic-speakers were in contact, and Aeolic forms entered the mix where they were metrically useful.

The principal item of evidence for an Aeolic phase seems to be the persistence of masculine genitives in -αο (long α) in metrical slots where the meter can't accommodate the regular Ionic development to -ηο (long α>η) and then to -εω by quantitative metathesis, and pronounced as a single long syllable by synezesis. The genitive in -αο was inherited from Mycenaean, but could not persist if the epic tradition had been continuously Ionic because Ionic Greek went through a phase during which long α changed to η universally and was entirely lost. If the epic Ionic tradition were continuous from Mycenaean, masculine genitives in -αο would have been modernized to -ηο when synezesis was metrically impossible.

In Aeolic, genitives in -αο would be contracted to -α (long α) where meter allowed (which could be Ionicized to -εω), but would be preserved uncontracted where the meter didn't allow contraction. Genitives in -αο, according to the argument, must have been inherited from an Aeolic phase in the tradition and preserved in the Ionic or Ionicized texts we read today when the Ionians took over the tradition after an Aeolic phase, and after (1) the original loss of long α in Ionic and (2) the subsequent reacquisition of long α in Ionic due to compensatory lengthening of -α in accusative plurals (ανς>ας) and contraction of short α+short α and short α+ε and . Similarly, the persistence in epic diction of genitive plurals in -άων (again, long α), which are contracted to -ᾶν in Aeolic and -έων (with synezesis), is explained by the preservation in the pre-Ionic Aeolian tradition of uncontracted genitive plurals in -άων when they couldn't be contracted due to the meter.

Richard Janko and West support the phase theory, and I can't see how Greg Nagy doesn't, too, though he claims not to. He seems to have a theory that is purportedly more subtle than "Aeolic phase," based on the idea that "everything in Homer is formular," but that ultimately boils down to the same thing as an Aeolic phase. I think Geoffrey Horrocks is the principal advocate of the diffusion theory.

The Aeolic phase theory was first formulated in the late 19th century, before the oral-formulaic nature of the epic diction was understood. A German scholar, August Fick, thought that the Iliad and the Odyssey were originally written in Aeolic and then "translated" into Ionic, and he published curious editions of the poems in which he attempted to reverse-translate them back into Aeolic. His theory didn't gain acceptance at the time, but the Aeolic phase theory later reemerged in a different form: it wasn't the Iliad and the Odyssey themselves that were originally written in Aeolic (as Fick thought); rather, the epic language embodied in and preserved through oral formulas--and, presumably, the entire epic tradition--had gone through an Aeolic phase before the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed in an Ionic overlaid on a substratum of Aeolic.

None of this will help you read the Iliad or the Odyssey, but this is fodder for those of us who are fascinated and absorbed by every aspect of these mysterious miracles.
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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

Post by Scribo »

That is an astounding summary. I wish I would dare to offer something so well thought out on current linguistic research but, honestly, there are so many scholars I'm not sure where to start. Actually I think I can point out, briefly, why such a prospect is unlikely though.

1) Alongside old Aeolic forms one finds old Ionic forms also.
2) Aeolic forms are not a discrete block, limited to the earliest forms, but scattered throughout. If there was an Aeolic phase you'd expect these forms to be very archaic.
3) Aeolic and Ionic speakers occupy similar territory. Moreover poets are highly mobile.
4) No epic tradition works like this worldwide. This is key. Scholars have learnt the wrong lessons from Parry and Lord. Those studies weren't meant to serve as exalted comparanda but as examples of what empiricism and comparativism can do for us. We have interesting data on how an older tradition (Sanskrit) passes onto derived vernaculars (the Prakrits etc, cf to Proto-Greek > dialects one would think).

There were clearly traditions in mutual contact. That alone is enough to explain things. It is the most economic model and requires no special pleading. Honestly the fact that most scholars side with an Aeolic phase isn't surprising - most were originally anti-oralist too. I'd say "the next generation will settle it" but that assumes said gen will be able to do Greek philology. Not even Zeus can accomplish that plan.
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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

Post by Paul Derouda »

Thanks indeed both of you for your summaries on Aeolisms. I don't know enough to have an opinion. Instinctively, the diffusion hypothesis looks more attractive to me.

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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

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I won't weigh in on the main question of the thread, nor on aeolic phase vs. diffusionism (on which I've had to rethink my belief in the aeolic phase; excellent overview by Qimmik, btw) except to mention a piece by Alexander Nikolaev in the forthcoming Journal of Hellenic Studies which incidentally (since it's on aorist infins in -eein) makes a new argument in favor of diffusionism on the basis of absence of anapestic aor. infins in -emen in Homer (E.Ionic Kunstsprache using artificial -eein instead, alien to Hesiod).

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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

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It seems to me that the Ionic "gap" in the traditional language--the absence of genitives in -ηο and -ηων, where these could not be replaced by monosyllabic -εω and -εων, and the persistence instead of archaic, non-Ionic, genitives in -αο and -άων, is a very weak basis for a theory with major implications about the history of the epic tradition. Particularly given how little we know about the history of the tradition and the early textual history of the poems, there may be other explanations for these phenomena for which there is simply no evidence.

Is it possible that genitives in -αο and -άων could have been preserved in or restored to the epic language as conscious archaisms? Is it impossible that the Ionic aoidoi and their audiences could have been aware that the sound-shift from α to η (and the merger with inherited η) in these genitive forms was a relatively recent development and preserved the archaic pronunciation, just as 19th century English poets used Shakespearean language for poetic effect? Or that they could have assimilated this pronunciation when they were in contact with an Aeolian tradition (and maybe other Aeolisms, too) precisely because it felt archaic?

The Homeric Kunstsprache was not a natural language that necessarily evolved with strict Neogrammarian consistency, and It isn't necessary to assume that α would have been preserved in all cases where Ionic η was derived from long α--just some special cases.

There's no evidence for this, of course, but it seems to me that it's not inconceivable--and there may be other explanations that don't rely on an Aeolic "phase" for the unique phenomenon of the long alpha genitives but have left no evidence. That's why it seems to me better to remain skeptical in this case. Not that the theory of an Aeolic phase is an impossibility--just that the long alpha genitives don't provide a very solid basis for embracing the theory.

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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

Post by Scribo »

mwh wrote:I won't weigh in on the main question of the thread, nor on aeolic phase vs. diffusionism (on which I've had to rethink my belief in the aeolic phase; excellent overview by Qimmik, btw) except to mention a piece by Alexander Nikolaev in the forthcoming Journal of Hellenic Studies which incidentally (since it's on aorist infins in -eein) makes a new argument in favor of diffusionism on the basis of absence of anapestic aor. infins in -emen in Homer (E.Ionic Kunstsprache using artificial -eein instead, alien to Hesiod).
Right thanks for that, I just finished reading through that article (it's from the 2013 edition) and while I'm still digesting it (I need to thoroughly go through the footnotes, it needs another...2 reads) I found it interesting and somewhat convincing actually. Admittedly I'm already pro diffusion but still. There's some very interesting quotes in there though!

"One logical consequence of the solution proposed above is that the ending -έειν must have been
created rather late in the history of the epic diction, possibly at a time when different traditions
of hexameter poetry had already become firmly entrenched on either side of the Aegean."

"infinitives in -έειν are likely to be artificial forms, created by the singers in response to phonological
changes that had affected traditional formulae"

Interesting in dealing with relative chronology and how traditions interacted with one another imo.
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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

Post by Qimmik »

Is there a third possibility--that the epic Kunstsprache evolved concurrently in Ionic, with some Aeolic features, and in Aeolic, maybe with some Ionic features, among a group of diglossic aoidoi who could deliver their performances in either dialect before different audiences? In this model, the versions of the Homeric poems that have come down to us were targeted at Ionic audiences. This model may seem implausible, but it seems to me that it's difficult to explain exactly how the process of Ionic aoidoi somehow "taking over" an Aeolic tradition and Ioni(ci)zing it could have occurred.

It strikes me that there is a range of possibilities that isn't exhausted by a strictly Aeolic phase model and a strictly diffusionist model, and that the evidence is really too slender to go much beyond recognizing that there was some form of interaction between Ionic and Aeolic in the evolution of the Kunstsprache.

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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

Post by Scribo »

Qimmik wrote:Is there a third possibility--that the epic Kunstsprache evolved concurrently in Ionic, with some Aeolic features, and in Aeolic, maybe with some Ionic features, among a group of diglossic aoidoi who could deliver their performances in either dialect before different audiences?
This is interesting but first one would have to establish that the ancients had this sense of diglossia and the need to switch dialects. I mean there was obviously a literary need for, if not dialects, but dialectical flavour amongst certain genres but epic? the archaic world? I'm unsure. I mean work on Greek comedy (imo more fecund for this stuff than even epigraphic evidence) tells us a lot about dialect self perception and it seems to point towards derision for extradialectical speech. Nothing suggests people speaking several dialects early or feeling the need to switch between them but the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence so I don't know.

I prefer to think in terms of several traditions based on geography and dialect which were ultimately derived from the same source and to a large extent mutually intelligible but at some point there must have been a preponderance of of good/famous Aeolic singers which served to spread these forms. There must be some fieldwork on how epic singers integrate new material and forms.

Sigh, the only discrete epic tradition with dialectical variations I can think of is the medieval north Indian stuff but the "dialects" are differentiated to the point of full on languages so it's not the best data point but from what I understand you get things like the Pabuji epic, a Rajasthani tradition, use a lot of Punjabi and Mawri (Mawari? Mawrai?) forms while also drawing from the same stock of originally Sanskritic motifs as the other vernaculars. Bah.
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Re: Best "scholarly" edition of the Iliad

Post by Qimmik »

I'm not arguing in favor of the "diglossic aoidoi" theory--I'm just pointing out that the process by which Aeolic elements became rooted in what on their surface are primarily Ionic poems could have been much more complex than the two simple explanations that are on offer, but the evidence is so exiguous that it seems best to remain uncommitted.

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