Aoidos means "singer" in classical Greek. In modern Homeric scholarship aoidos is used by some as the technical term for a skilled oral epic poet in the tradition to which the Iliad and Odyssey are believed to belong.^[1] The History of Greece extends back to the arrival of the Greeks in Europe some time before 1500 BC, even though there has only been an independent state called Greece since Turkey, Italy and Libya. ... Homeric scholarship is the study of Homeric epic, especially the two large surviving epics the Iliad and Odyssey. ... Oral poetry is a form of poetry that is transmitted orally and memorized rather than written down. ...

Song and poetry in the Iliad and Odyssey

In classical Greek the word aoidos "singer" is an agent noun related to the verb aeido ("I sing") and the noun aoide "song". The nouns and verb occur several times in the Iliad and Odyssey in relation to poetry:^[2] The Iliad (Ancient Greek , Ilias) is, together with the Odyssey, one of the two principal ancient Greek epic poems. ... Odysseus and Nausicaä - by Charles Gleyre For other uses, see Odyssey (disambiguation). ...

• Iliad 18.490-496 (on the Shield of Achilles): a wedding song, hymenaios, with pipes, lyres, and dancing
• Odyssey 23.133-135: a wedding song with dancing, led by the singer Phemius: there is no wedding but Odysseus wants to create the impression of festivity while he is killing the suitors
• Iliad 18.567-572 (on the Shield of Achilles): a child sings and plays the lyre to accompany the vintage. The song is the linos
• Iliad 18.593-606 (on the Shield of Achilles): young men and women take part in a singing-dance, molpe
• Odyssey 8.250-385: young men and women take part in a molpe; Demodocus sings and plays the lyre; his song is about the love affair of Ares and Aphrodite
• Iliad 22.391-393: Achilles' young warriors sing a paieon, a song of praise or self-praise, as they drag Hector's body back to their ships
• Iliad 24.720-761: in Troy, singers lead the lament over Hector's body and women mourn after them; the three women who perform laments individually are Andromache, Hecuba and Helen
• Iliad 19.301-338: in the Greek camp, over the body of Patroclus, Achilles sings first, then Briseis followed by the women, then Achilles again followed by the old men
• Odyssey 24.58-62: in the Greek camp (as described by Agamemnon's ghost) the sea nymphs lament over Achilles's body and the Muses respond, followed by all the Greeks
• Iliad 9.186-191: Achilles "pleases his mind and sings of the fame of men", accompanying himself on the lyre; his only audience is Patroclus
• Odyssey 1.150-340: Phemius sings for the suitors, after dinner, a narrative song of the Return from Troy
• Odyssey 8.73-75: Demodocus sings for Alcinous and his guests, after dinner, a narrative song of the quarrel of Odysseus and Achilles
• Odyssey 8.536-538: Demodocus begins to sing for Alcinous and his guests, after dinner, a narrative song of the Wooden Horse.

The Shield Described in the Iliad The Shield of Achilles is described in the Iliad in great detail. ... In Greek mythology, Phemius, or Phêmios was an Ithacan singer who was forced to help the suitors against Penelope. ... Linus may refer to any of three sons of Apollo from Greek mythology: Son of Apollo and Urania, he was killed by Apollo during a contest. ... In Homers Odyssey, Demodocus or Demodokos is a storyteller at the court of Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians at Scheria. ... In Greek mythology, Ares (battle strife; in Greek, Άρης)[1] is the son of Zeus (king of the gods) and Hera. ... Detail of the The Birth of Venus (also known as Aphrodite) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1879. ... The Wrath of Achilles, by François-Léon Benouville (1821–1859) (Musée Fabre) In Greek mythology, Achilles, also Akhilleus or Achilleus (Ancient Greek ) was a hero of the Trojan War, the central character and greatest warrior of Homers Iliad, which takes for its theme, not the War... Hector brought back to Troy. ... Andromache grieves the loss of Hector In Greek mythology, Andromache was the wife of Hector and daughter of Eetion, sister to Podes. ... Hecuba (also Hekuba or Hekabe) was a Trojan queen in Greek mythology, daughter of Dymas. ... In Greek mythology Helen () was reputed to be the most beautiful woman in the world. ... A cup depicting Achilles bandaging Patroklos arm, by Sosias. ... In Greek mythology, BrisÄ“is (Greek Βρισηίς) was a Trojan widow (from Lyrnessus) who was abducted during the Trojan War by Achilles upon the death of her three brothers and husband, King Mynes of Lyrnessus, in the fight. ... -1... For other uses see Muse (disambiguation). ... The Nostoi (English: Returns; Greek: Νόστοι; also known as Nosti in Latin) is a lost epic of ancient Greek literature. ... In Greek mythology, Alcinous (sometimes with the diacritical mark Alcinoüs; also transliterated as Alkínoös) was a son of Nausithous and father of Nausicaa and Laodamas with Arete. ... Odysseus and the Sirens. ... In Greek mythology, Alcinous (sometimes with the diacritical mark Alcinoüs; also transliterated as Alkínoös) was a son of Nausithous and father of Nausicaa and Laodamas with Arete. ... This page is about the sexual prop. ...

The profession of singer

In the world described in these poems writing is practically unknown (though its use is implied in one minor episode, the story of Bellerophontes);^[3] all poetry is "song", and poets are "singers". Later, in the fifth and fourth centuries, the performance of epic poetry was called rhapsodia, and its performer rhapsodos, but the word does not occur in the early epics or in contemporary lyric poetry, so it is unknown whether Hesiod and the poet(s) of the Iliad and Odyssey would have considered themselves rhapsodes (it has been argued by Walter Burkert, and is accepted by some recent scholars, that rhapsodos was by definition a performer of a fixed, written text and not a creative oral poet).^[4] It is not even known to what extent the makers of oral epic poetry were specialists. The fictional Phemius and Demodocus, in the Odyssey, are depicted performing non-epic as well as epic songs. In classical antiquity, a rhapsode was a professional reciter of poetry, especially the epics of Homer, but also the wisdom-verse of Hesiod and the satires of Archilochus, among others. ... The Iliad (Ancient Greek , Ilias) is, together with the Odyssey, one of the two principal ancient Greek epic poems. ... Odysseus and Nausicaä - by Charles Gleyre For other uses, see Odyssey (disambiguation). ...

There was, however, certainly a profession of aoidos. Eumaeus, a character in the Odyssey, says that singers (aoidoi), healers, seers and craftsmen are likely to be welcomed as guests, while beggars are not;^[5] outside the fictional Homeric world, Hesiod gives a similar list in the form of a proverb on professional jealousy: In Greek mythology, Eumaeus, or Eumaios, was Odysseus swineherd before he left for the Trojan War. ... Hesiod (Hesiodos, ), the early Greek poet and rhapsode, presumably lived around 700 BCE. Historians have debated the priority of Hesiod or of Homer, and some authors have even brought them together in an imagined poetic contest. ...

Potter hates potter and craftsman hates craftsman; Beggar is jealous of beggar, singer of singer. Image File history File links Cquote1. ... Hesiod, Works and Days 25-26.

According to the Iliad and Odyssey singers gained their inspiration from the Muses. Hesiod describes how the Muses visited him while he tended his sheep on Mount Helicon and granted him this inspiration, permitting him to sing of the future as well as the past. An anecdote in the Iliad about Thamyris shows that the Muses could take away what they had given.^[6] As in certain other cultures, blind men sometimes became singers: the fictional Demodocus in the Odyssey is blind, and the legendary creator of the Iliad and Odyssey, Homer, was often said to have been blind. Hesiod (Hesiodos) was an early Greek poet and rhapsode, believed to have lived around the year 700 BCE. From the 5th century BCE, literary historians have debated the priority of Hesiod or of Homer. ... Image File history File links Cquote2. ... For other uses see Muse (disambiguation). ... The 11th-century monastery of Hosios Lukas on the west slope of the Helicon is one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. ... In Greek mythology, Thamyris, son of Philammon, was a Thracian bard who was so vain and proud, that he boasted he could outsing the Muses themselves, according to a passage in Homer (Iliad, book ii, 594-600) that is taken up in Euripides Rhesus. ...

The audience for performances by aoidoi varied depending on the genre and circumstances (see list above). Women participated in, and sometimes led, laments, according to the Iliad. Many of the poems of Sappho are addressed to women and seem to assume an audience of women. For narrative (epic) poetry it is sometimes said that the audience was exclusively male; this is an exaggeration (for example, Penelope listens to, and interrupts, one performance depicted in the Odyssey) but it is probably largely true owing to the seclusion of women in early Greece. Ancient Greek bust of Sappho the Eresian. ...

Aoidoi and the creation of the Iliad and Odyssey

It has been shown from comparative study of orality that the Iliad and Odyssey (as well as the works of Hesiod) come from a tradition of oral epics.^[7] In oral narrative traditions there is no exact transmission of texts; each performance is a new poem. This has implications for our understanding of the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey as we know them: the poet or aoidos who wrote or dictated them for writing has to be considered their creator.^[8] This poet was a bearer of the early Greek oral epic tradition, but nothing is known of him (or her, or them -- it is uncertain whether the same poet composed both epics). Whenever the writing took place (dates between 750 and 600 BC are most often proposed), any contemporary poets and writers who may have known of it did not notice the event or name the poet(s).^[9] They did not connect the event with Homer. According to classical Greek sources, Homer lived long before the two poems were written down.^[10] Hesiod (Hesiodos, ), the early Greek poet and rhapsode, presumably lived around 700 BCE. Historians have debated the priority of Hesiod or of Homer, and some authors have even brought them together in an imagined poetic contest. ... Homer (Greek Hómēros) was a legendary early Greek poet and rhapsode traditionally credited with the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey, commonly assumed to have lived in the 8th century BC. However, exact placement of these dates is unsure. ...

Notes

1. ^ Hence the English translators of (Latacz 2004) use aoidean poetry as a technical term for early Greek oral epic poetry.
2. ^ (Dalby 2006, pp. 4-19) for this list, with discussion of related passages from early Greek literature. Other mentions of singers (but no performance) are at Iliad 2.594-600 (the story of Thamyris) and Odyssey 9.2-11.
3. ^ Iliad 6.168-170.
4. ^ E.g. (Burkert 1987); (Graziosi 2002).
5. ^ Odyssey 17.382-387.
6. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 22-32; Iliad 2.594-600.
7. ^ (Parry & Parry 1971); see Homeric scholarship
8. ^ (Lord 1953); (Lord 1960).
9. ^ (Dalby 2006).
10. ^ One ancient text, a Life of Homer which claims to be by Herodotus, asserts that the poems were written from Homer's own dictation. This Life is an evident forgery and quite unconvincing (Lefkowitz 1981).

In Greek mythology, Thamyris, son of Philammon, was a Thracian bard who was so vain and proud, that he boasted he could outsing the Muses themselves, according to a passage in Homer (Iliad, book ii, 594-600) that is taken up in Euripides Rhesus. ... Wikisource has original text related to this article: Theogony Wikisource has original text related to this article: Theogony (in Greek) Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins of the gods of ancient Greek religion. ... Homeric scholarship is the study of Homeric epic, especially the two large surviving epics the Iliad and Odyssey. ... The Life of Homer known as Pseudo-Herodotus is one among several ancient biographies of the Greek epic poet, Homer. ... Bust of Herodotus at Naples Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Greek: , Herodotos) was a historian who lived in the 5th century BC (484 BC-ca. ...

References

• Burkert, Walter (1987), "The making of Homer in the 6th century BC: rhapsodes versus Stesichorus" in Papers on the Amasis painter and his world, Malibu: Getty Museum, p. 43-62
• Dalby, Andrew (2006), Rediscovering Homer, New York, London: Norton, ISBN 0393057887
• Graziosi, Barbara (2002), Inventing Homer: the early reception of epic, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• Latacz, Joachim (2004), Troy and Homer: towards a solution of an old mystery, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0199263086
• Lefkowitz, Mary R. (1981), The lives of the Greek poets, London: Duckworth, ISBN 0715615904
• Lord, Albert Bates (1953), "Homer's originality: oral dictated texts", Transactions and proceedings of the American Philological Association, vol. 84, p. 124-134
• Lord, Albert Bates (1960), The singer of tales, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press
• Parry, Milman & Parry, Adam (editor) (1971), The making of Homeric verse. The collected papers of Milman Parry, Oxford: Clarendon Press