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 ofthe most learned scholars of the Greek language have concernedthemselves with the topic of etymology. The most productive source ofdifficult, even inexplicable, words was Homer's 28,000 verses of epicpoetry. Steve Reece proposes an approach to elucidating the meanings ofsome of these difficult words that finds its inspiration primarily inMilman Parry's oral-formulaic theory. He proposes that during the longperiod of oral transmission acoustic uncertainties, especiallyregarding word boundaries, were continually occurring: a bard utteredone collocation of words, but his audience thought it heard another.The consequent resegmentation of words and phrases is the probablecause of some of the etymologically inexplicable words in our Homerictexts.

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