I thought Homer was just a composite of several sucessful ancient authors.
Homer is pretty nebulous, and his notion of being an author was different than ours. Basically, he’s the intersection between oral and written culture, consolidating traditional materials into a specific text. The Hebrew scriptures went through something similar, and the traditional authors of the biblical books perhaps inhabit the same plane of existence as Homer. The source of inspiration; the necessity of an author; the way our conception of these things has changed over time, these are interesting issues. I mentioned pseudoepigrapha recently, which are writings ascribed to some traditional author, but removed from the authentic cannon by modern scholarship. These texts are not “fakes”, but appeals to a patron source of inspiration, and may legitimately extend a particular cultural path.
On a tangent, Tom Moody’s Doris Piserchia page had me wondering about relationships between these matters and contemporary use of pseudonyms, both by writers, and in the construction of pop personae.
i was searching for some "poochie" joke here. after all, he is an outrageous paradigm and some of homers best work.
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- jim 2-25-2001 7:32 pm
Homer is pretty nebulous, and his notion of being an author was different than ours. Basically, he’s the intersection between oral and written culture, consolidating traditional materials into a specific text. The Hebrew scriptures went through something similar, and the traditional authors of the biblical books perhaps inhabit the same plane of existence as Homer. The source of inspiration; the necessity of an author; the way our conception of these things has changed over time, these are interesting issues. I mentioned pseudoepigrapha recently, which are writings ascribed to some traditional author, but removed from the authentic cannon by modern scholarship. These texts are not “fakes”, but appeals to a patron source of inspiration, and may legitimately extend a particular cultural path.
On a tangent, Tom Moody’s Doris Piserchia page had me wondering about relationships between these matters and contemporary use of pseudonyms, both by writers, and in the construction of pop personae.
- alex 2-25-2001 10:39 pm [2 comments]
i was searching for some "poochie" joke here. after all, he is an outrageous paradigm and some of homers best work.
- dave 2-25-2001 11:06 pm [2 comments]