Poetry and Homeric Study

[jaihare]

How important is poetry, meter and scanning to the study of Homer? Can we study it solely for the linguistic benefit without delving into the intricate poetic nature expressed in the books?

I'm not good at analyzing poetic style even in English. Doing it in Greek seems a little overboard.

[cb]

hi, i list some reasons (other than that it sounds nice) why i think knowing how to scan homer is useful on pgs 9 and 10 of this doc (remove spaces):

www . freewebs . com / mhninaeide / IliadBScannedWestText2006 . pdf

cheers

[jaihare]

hi, i list some reasons (other than that it sounds nice) why i think knowing how to scan homer is useful on pgs 9 and 10 of this doc (remove spaces):

www . freewebs . com / mhninaeide / IliadBScannedWestText2006 . pdf

cheers

Thanks for that, CB. I'm currently at work, but I'll give it a read when I get home. Is the poetic structure essential for the grammar and for comprehension?, I guess is what I'm asking.

Thanks,
Jason

[cb]

hi, you don't need to learn to scan homer if you just want to understand the meaning of words. if you want to understand homeric grammar well though i think you need to be able to scan, because the grammar and the verse are not independent: see e.g. s6.1 of my old pharr notes, which show how homer uses different 2nd declension gen. sg. endings at different metrical points in the verse (remove spaces):

www . freewebs . com / mhninaeide / pharrnotes . pdf

cheers, chad

[IreneY]

I don't think it's necessary for grammar either myself. If you keep in mind that he chose type A over type B for metric reasons, you answer the occasional (or more than occasional) "now why did he go for this when some verses vefore he went for that?"
It makes his peoms a bit less fun obviously but it's not necessary really.