Poetry and Homeric Study

Are you reading Homeric Greek? Whether you are a total beginner or an advanced Homerist, here you can meet kindred spirits. Besides Homer, use this board for all things early Greek poetry.
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jaihare
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Poetry and Homeric Study

Post by 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
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Re: Poetry and Homeric Study

Post by 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 :)

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jaihare
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Re: Poetry and Homeric Study

Post by jaihare »

cb wrote: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
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Re: Poetry and Homeric Study

Post by 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 :)

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IreneY
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Re: Poetry and Homeric Study

Post by 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.

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