S. Reece, Homer's Winged Words: The Evolution of Early Greek Epic Diction in the Light of Oral Theory

Steve Reece, Homer's Winged Words: The Evolution of Early Greek Epic Diction in the Light of Oral Theory,  Leiden/Boston:  Brill, coll. "Mnemosyne Supplements" 313,  2009.  Pp. xi, 413.    

• ISBN 9789004174412.  
• $241.00.  
  

Recension par D. M. Goldstein (University of California, Berkeley) dans Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2010.03.03.

Présentation de l'éditeur:

For over 2500 years many of the most learned scholars of the Greek language have concerned themselves with the topic of etymology. The most productive source of difficult, even inexplicable, words was Homer's 28,000 verses of epic poetry. Steve Reece proposes an approach to elucidating the meanings of some of these difficult words that finds its inspiration primarily in Milman Parry's oral-formulaic theory. He proposes that during the long period of oral transmission acoustic uncertainties, especially regarding word boundaries, were continually occurring: a bard uttered one collocation of words, but his audience thought it heard another. The consequent resegmentation of words and phrases is the probable cause of some of the etymologically inexplicable words in our Homeric texts.

Steve Reece, Ph.D. (1990) in Classics, University of California, Los Angeles, is Professor of Classics at Saint Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. He has published widely on Homeric studies, New Testament studies, comparative oral traditions, historical linguistics, and pedagogy.