Traditional Techniques

To what extent Homer may have known of the art of writing remains uncertain; but it is beyond doubt that he was familiar with - in fact expert in - compositional techniques which were developed by singers who were ignorant of it. These traditional techniques made possible composition (to some extent at least extemporaneous) in a fairly complex meter, adaptation of the length and complexity of a song to the demands of the immediate performance, memorization of the narrative content of a song, the development of varying levels of skill in a singer, and standardization of some aspects which assisted the audience’s comprehension. It is noteworthy that when rhetorical devices became a subject of study among ancient scholars they were able to draw their examples from the Homeric poems, richly endowed as they were with ornamental devices as well as basic structural forms.

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In the first place, the language of the poems is unlike spoken Greek of any period; it is an amalgam of forms from different dialects and different periods which (with minor modifications) is the same as that used by Hesiod and other early hexameter poets. This artificial, standardized diction was common to poets on the coast of Asia Minor, the Greek mainland, and the islands, no matter what the local dialect, and must have been understood by audiences all over the Greek world. It is thus dignified, distinct from normal speech, archaic, and very rich in vocabulary, producing something like the effect on us of the familiar archaism of the King James version of the Bible and the enormous vocabulary and metrical form of Shakespeare’s plays. (For more information see Janko 1992: 8-19.)

Meter

This traditional poetic language is intimately linked to the metrical form, the dactylic hexameter. This meter has always been looked upon as a sequence of six dactyls (a heavy syllable followed by two light ones) or spondees (two heavy syllables), the fifth unit being usually a dactyl and the last composed of two syllables only. In the course of the twentieth century it became common to place importance on word-end and phrase-end, thus analyzing a verse into a series of groups or blocks of syllables divided by word-end. These units (usually four in number, often three, occasionally perhaps only two), each composed of one or more words, differ from each other in metrical shape, providing much variety of effect. Though this variety makes it hard (and perhaps unhelpful) to generalize, a common shape of verse would be heavy-light-light-heavy (word-end), light-light-heavy-light (word-end), light-heavy-light-light (word-end), heavy-light-light-heavy-heavy (verse-end). But the length of words (or word-groups) in common occurrence varies between one heavy syllable (often a single-syllable verb beginning the verse, followed by a sense-boundary) to single words filling the five-syllable final unit. (For more information see Kirk 1985: 17-37.)

Formulae

Naturally, expressions which filled the different units that make up the line, such as epithets combining with a noun or proper name, were of great convenience in composition, and a complex formulaic system developed covering a great range of frequently-occurring sense units. These traditional formulae include not only proper names and nouns of various metrical shapes (and in the different grammatical cases), combined with suitable epithets to fit them within the verse-units, but many common verbal expressions too (such as ‘‘he answered’’); and in some cases the available items are very extensive. It has been shown, for instance, that there are expressions for ending a speech (‘‘[So] he (she) said’’) ranging from one to many syllables, and the often pleonastic phrase ‘‘in his heart’’ can be added to a verse in lengths ranging from one light syllable to an expression filling the second half of the verse. There is also a rigorous ‘‘economy’’ in the expressions: for a given sense (e. g. “Achilles’’ as subject) one expression, and one only, is normally used in each metrical unit.

Such metrical units and sense-units are about the same length as the units into which ordinary speech falls, and similarly Homeric sentence-structure follows the patterns of spoken language. The essential sense becomes clear early (‘‘Of the anger sing, goddess!’’), then qualifications follow (‘‘Achilles’’), and descriptions (‘‘destructive!’’) and elaboration and explanation (‘‘which laid many sufferings upon the Greeks’’: 1.1-2). Such techniques make both composition and comprehension easier, and are common in oral poetry. (For more information see Hainsworth 1993: 1-31.)

Similes

Homer very often uses short similes, ‘‘like a lion’’, ‘‘like man-slaying Ares’’, similar to those occurring in other epic traditions. They add color and emphasis, as do the traditional epithets. Characteristically Homeric, however, and rare in other traditions, are the longer similes, pictures painted by the poet to illustrate the narrative and bring it vividly before the eyes of his hearers. The subjects of these similes, which may run up to nine lines in length (as 12.278-86), are drawn from the contemporary life of the poet and his audience. Though very few similes are repeated verbatim, many topics often recur - predators attacking domestic animals, wildfire, storm, and flood, and similar depictions of humankind in a losing struggle with nature. Such frequent subjects may well be traditional.

Besides these, however, are others which occur once only, and are often the most evocative: Patroklos looks up imploringly at Achilles like a little girl tugging at her mother’s skirt and begging to be picked up (16.7-10), Apollo kicks over the Greek rampart like a boy kicking over a sandcastle (15.362-4), Athena turns aside an arrow from Menelaos as a mother brushes a fly away from her sleeping child (4.130-1). It is hard not to think that these are due to the sensitivity and inventiveness of the individual poet Homer. The pictures depicted by Hephaestos on Achilles’ great shield (18.483-607) are likewise drawn from the everyday life of poet and audience. (For more information see Edwards 1991: 24-41.)

Metaphors

Metaphors are common in Homer, ranging from the utterly traditional (‘‘shepherd of the people’’ for the army’s leaders) to vivid expressions occurring only once (Herakles ‘‘widowed’’ the streets of Troy, 5.642). In most of the latter cases we cannot tell if the metaphor is new. Iron, not yet in the vocabulary as the material ofweapons, is nevertheless commonly used metaphorically for the ‘‘hardness’’ of men’s hearts or the intensity of battle; the sky over the battlefield is more than once ‘‘brazen,’’ and ‘‘trumpets’’ around the gods as they march to war (21.388). (For more information see Edwards 1991: 48-53.)

Sound effects

Sound effects are also very common, both for euphony (for instance, the vowel sounds for Calypso ‘‘singing in her lovely voice’’, aoidiaous’ opi kalei, Od. 5.61), harshness (trichtha te kai tetrachtha ‘‘three times, four times’’ accompanies the tearing of Odysseus’ sail, Od. 9.71), and various effects of onomatopoeia (the sea splashes, kumata paphlazonta polu-phlois-boi-o thalasses, Il. 13.798; mules gallop in ah directions, polla d’ ananta katanta paranta te dochmia t’ elthon, Il. 23.116). There are also many kinds of word-play and repetition, lovingly documented by the ancient commentators. (For more information see Edwards 1991: 57-8.)

Type-scenes

Human life is full of repeated routines - not just religious and legal rituals, but ordinary happenings such as getting dressed and eating a meal. In the Homeric narrative, repeated actions and scenes take standardized forms in which the sequence of events is usually unchanged but the wording used differs and the amount of description given to each element varies widely. Some of these type-scenes (sometimes called ‘‘themes’’) are obvious: sacrifices, meals, a warrior donning his armor, a ship being beached or launched. Equally obvious is the variation in length: Paris arms himself in nine verses (3.330-8), Patroklos in 25 (including the harnessing of his horses: 16.130-54), and Agamemnon in 31 (with descriptions of his shield and corselet: 11.17-46). Then as the climax of the poem approaches, Achilles himself puts on his shining armor in 27 lines (19.365-91), but these are amplified by the conversation with his chariot-horse which follows and the making of his armor by Hephaestos in the preceding book.

This is the essential quality of type-scenes, the patterns upon which the entire action of the Homeric poems is structured. The framework of the scene remains the same, but the elaboration, the flesh upon the bones, can be expanded or limited, depending upon the emphasis to be given to the scene, the needs of a particular performance, and the skill of the performer. Much of the quality of a poem depends upon nature and extent of the amplification. As usual with Homer, however, besides showing superb skill in choosing the nature of such amplification in his scenes (besieged citizens looking over their city wall at their attackers becomes a characterization of Helen and Priam in Iliad 3; a supplication scene develops into the great confrontation and conversation of Priam and Achilles in Iliad 24), he feels free to alter the framework for some special purpose. Hektor, seeking his wife in their home like any other Homeric visitor, does not find her there; and instead we have the intensely dramatic scene between them on Troy’s wall (6.369ff.); a similar change appears when Thetis visits Hephaestos’ home on Olympus, and their meeting is deferred by his welcoming wife until the smith-god can emerge from his workshop (18.369ff.). (For more information see Edwards 1991: 11-23.)