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Abstract
The two basic underpinnings of this study are that (1) some kind of artistry and appropriateness must be present in the Homeric poems and (2) the most likely place to find it, in light of Parry's work on the importance of metrics in shaping the language of oral poetry, is in sets of metrically equivalent formulas for the same thing. I propose that any single-verse speech introduction for a particular character with the basic meaning "X addressed/answered him" is a metrical equivalent for another single-verse speech introduction with the same idea.
Variations within a single verse are the subject of Chapter I, "Variation in single-verse speech introductions." Chapter II, "Variation in full-verse vocatives," applies the same idea to full-verse vocatives. Discussions of variation also appear in Chapter IV, "Form and variation in speech conclusions." The term "variation" is used throughout to refer to different patterns of language within a single verse. Any number of verses has the same metrical shape as a single verse as long as the verses as a group have sense- and verse-boundaries which coincide. A group of unenjambed verses which is structurally equivalent to a single verse is called "expansion." Expansion is discussed in both Chapter III, "Multi-verse speech introductions," and Chapter IV. Unlike expansion, where a group of verses is structurally equivalent to a single verse, an "insertion" can be removed entirely without affecting the structure of an episode. The most obvious example of such an insertion is similes, which are the focus of Chapter V: "Similes, speech frames, and storytelling."
Although a single verse is the most common way to introduce a speech, it is not the only way; speech introductions regularly depart from a common single-verse introduction in favor of a less common single verse or group of verses containing information that may contribute to telling the story effectively. This study will explore how these variations, expansions and insertions in Homeric speech frames help to make the Iliad and the Odyssey examples of powerful oral storytelling.
