Mr. Dalby In The WSJ

[Moonlapse]

I was scanning over the weekend journal section of today's Wall Street Journal and did a double take at the name Andrew Dalby highlighted within the book section. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed to see that it was only a brief blurb about Rediscovering Homer and its controversial feminine suggestion (objectively written, simply indicating that it's a topic now) but its nice to see that the book is getting some press. Congratulations

[Andrew Dalby]

I was scanning over the weekend journal section of today's Wall Street Journal and did a double take at the name Andrew Dalby highlighted within the book section. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed to see that it was only a brief blurb about Rediscovering Homer and its controversial feminine suggestion (objectively written, simply indicating that it's a topic now) but its nice to see that the book is getting some press. Congratulations

 

I'm lucky that the writer on the WSJ took me seriously at all. He had sent me an email, which Mrs D neatly consigned to the waste bin. Some strange sixth sense told me I needed to check through the waste bin that day ...

[Rameses the Great]

Are you kidding me, that's awesome Mr. Dalby. Hopefully this will spark some interesest in history... optimistic I know.

 

I'll try to get the article on the net and then post it here if I can.

 

Good Job.

 

Rediscovering Homer by: Andrew Dalby

 

I could have done more, but I don't know if he would like me to bring it up. By the way, I'll buy the book.

Edited July 22, 2006 by Viggen

[Viggen]

Interesting, i am a subscriber to the online editon of the WSJ, but i cant find the article anywhere...

 

In anycase, congrats Mr. Dalby

[Gaius Octavius]

Campus Mawrtius,

 

See A.D.'s reposte in the above.

 

 

I don't know how much light the following sheds on the matter, but it speaks to the oral tradition of the Homeric poems and the possibilities of authorship:

 

"The War at Troy (What Homer Didn't Tell)"; Quintus of Smyrna, Translated by Frederick M. Combellack

1968, Univ. of Oklahoma Press.

 

"Quintus' epic, written probably in the third century A.D., is the only extant literary work from antiquity that gives a connected account of the events of the Trojan War, which took place between the death of Hector and the departure of the Greeks. It tells what happened to Achilles and to Troy, and many other things besides - among them the fatal enterprises of the Queen of the Amazons and the King of Ethopia, the funeral games held in Achilles honor, the victory of Odysseus in his contest with Ajax for Achilles splendid armor, the death of Paris, the strategy of the wooden horse, and the capture and sack of Troy." (From the fly leaf of the book.)

 

I think that most believe that the above is in the Iliad and the Odyessy.

 

What I am trying to get at is that there was an oral tradition in antiquity, and simply because Homer is accredited with the poems, does not prove that 'he' wrote them.

[Lost_Warrior]

Congrats!! That's awesome!

[Tobias]

Well done mate. It's great to see our forum members becoming prominent in things such as the Wall Street Journal. Keep up the good work!

[Andrew Dalby]

Thanks everybody. Yes, Octavius, you have seen exactly what I'm getting at. This about the gender-of-the-poet is only one section of the book, incidentally, but it does seem to have caught some people's eyes!

 

Just to get it clear, if I'm allowed (because there have been some journalistic abridgements causing misunderstanding here), what I said about the ancient sources on Homer is that none of them -- until the fruadulent 'Life of Homer' which claims it is by Herodotus -- none of them says either (1) that Homer WROTE his poems or even (2) that someone else WROTE them down from Homer's performance. They all say that he SANG them, and when they go into details at all, they all say that the poems were passed on through Homer's followers and descendants and were written down long afterwards. (And you do have to know Greek and check the Greek texts on this, because sometimes translators gloss over the vital detail.)

 

Now, if you believe what Milman Parry, Albert Lord and others discovered about the transmission of oral epic, you have to accept that the real creator of the Iliad and Odyssey that we have on paper can't be a singer of the distant past who transmitted oral poems to his descendants. The poet we can recognise in these great works has to be the poet who wrote them or dictated them. And ancient sources DON'T claim that it's Homer. Nobody tells us who that poet is, or anything about him or her (of course not: since they hadn't read Parry or Lord, they didn't think it mattered: they thought the real creator was the one in the distant past called Homer).

 

I go on from that to see what can be guessed -- with support from the texts of the poems and from other oral literature -- about that totally anonymous poet. And that's when I begin to wonder (and I finally argue that it's more than 50% probable, with evidence which any reader of my book must judge) that that unknown poet was a woman, a member of a family otf oral poets, one of the last inheritors of the real oral tradition. Several such epic traditions, in more modern times, have been written down from the dictation of skilled women performers, whose skills were often unknown outside their immediate families (because, in societies like the ancient Greek, women wouldn't perform in public). But they just happened to be known to someone who had the resources to write or record the knowledge before it was lost.

Edited July 23, 2006 by Andrew Dalby

[Gaius Octavius]

In NYC, there is a National Public Radio station, WNYC. Leonard Lopate, a most informed person, has a two hour program in which he interviews authors about their books. The author gets at least 20 minutes. Leonard actually reads the books from cover to cover and is informed or informs himself on the subject. The author is questioned in a civil, knowledgeable fashion and through a dialogue, light rather than heat is shed on the book. He does not have any hang-ups as regards women or other sundry despised types. Send him a copy.

 

P.S.

I am sure that he would love to carry on with you about food and wine.

Then there is Pertinax with his herbs and brews and that English, which drives me Koo-Koo.

And not to forget Pantagathus with his brews and that Greek stuff.

Edited July 23, 2006 by Gaius Octavius

[Andrew Dalby]

In NYC, there is a National Public Radio station, WNYC. Leonard Lopate, a most informed person, has a two hour program in which he interviews authors about their books. The author gets at least 20 minutes. Leonard actually reads the books from cover to cover and is informed or informs himself on the subject. The author is questioned in a civil, knowledgeable fashion and through a dialogue, light rather than heat is shed on the book. He does not have any hang-ups as regards women or other sundry despised types. Send him a copy.

 

I'll do it.

Edited July 23, 2006 by Andrew Dalby