Cedric H. Whitman
Homer and the Heroic Tradition.
Harvard University Press, 1967. First edition. xii/365 pages.
Volume, measuring approximately 6.75" x 9.25", is bound in reddish brown clth, with gilt-lettered black compartment to spine and black pictorial design to front cover. Book is in excellent condition. Binding is firm. Interior is clean and bright. Well-preserved fold-out table outlining the "Geometric Struce of Scenes in the "Iliad" is attached at the rear of volume. Dust jacket, with price of $10.00 on front flap, displays wear at top edge, with minor creasing and small closed tear. Jacket is preserved in mylar cover.
"...discusses the issues of Homeric scholarship today, and then proceeds to outline a theory of the nature, growth, and transmission of the heroic tradition and the development of the Greek dialects that underlie the language of Homer. Using this historical background, the author makes a study of imagery, particularly of the relation between the formula (the funtional unit of oral verse) and the traditional images which became, in Homer's hands, the motiviating symbols of the "Iliad". It is shown that the oral poet's formula was not merely a convenient device for committing to memory without pen an ink, but a real artistic medium which, when developed to the point at whch it appears in Homer, creates a language necessarily poetic and imagistic, capable of great variety and elaboration, and often a tremendous creative force."