From Homer to Hatzi-Yavrouda

Aspects of Oral Narration in the Greek Tradition

Marianthi Kaplanoglou, George Katsadoros, Birgit Olsen, Christos Zafiropoulos

• Publisher: Aarhus University Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9788775972937
• eBook ISBN: 9788775976133
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: Literature

"From Homer to Hatzi-Yavrouda – Aspects of Oral Narration in the Greek Tradition" provides a multidisciplinary discussion of the concept of orality in the framework of Greek narrative tradition, from Antiquity to the 21st century. Orality is a prominent concept in contemporary folkloristics, philology, and other related fields and a basic concept for the study of culture in a historical and critical perspective. Its definition has long been debated, as has its communicative value and use. This volume presents different perspectives and academic fields (classics, byzantine studies, folklore studies, comparative literature) and discusses topics such as interrelationship with written literature, cross-cultural and trans-historical influences, different genres, as well as specific narrators and their role in their communities. Orality is viewed as a tool for research, a body of texts, an entity of vernacular practices, or as a series of communication strategies. The Greek tradition is taken as a point of departure for a diachronic analysis of orality, from Homer to the female storyteller, Hatzi-Yavrouda from Kos. It is the hope that the analysis of the Greek case will contribute to discussions about the concept on a larger scale. This volume also shows that orality, both in its old and new forms, is continuously present in modern and post-modern discourse and still dominates everyday communication, despite our growing dependence on digital and iconic universes.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• The contributions to this volume
• From Homer to Hatzi-Yavrouda – and to Vontorini
• Homer the Storyteller
• Homeric Epic and Ionian Novella
• “ἐκ ταυτησὶ δὴ τῆς ἐξετάσεως πολλαὶ ἀπέχθειαί μοι γεγόνασι” (Pl. Ap.22e6-23a1): Plato’s Socrates and Performing Philosophy in the Oral Culture of Athens
• Oral Narrations and Roman Imperial History
• Looking for Traces of Orality in Some Byzantine Illustrated Manuscripts
• Post-classical ‘Oraliture’: Thoughts on the dramatic scholia as regiebuch
• Hatzi-Yavrouda of Kos and the Craft of Storytelling
• To Give or not to Give? Addressing Community and Poverty through Oral Narration in a Greek Island Village
• Legend as fact in Greek and Eastern European traditions: Reality factors and the example of visions
• Orality in Contemporary Society: Analyzing the Structure of Social Comments (Gossip) in a Modern Greek Community
• The Mantinades (Couplets) of Karpathos Island on the Internet: Local Students’ Views
• Your Tale, My Life: Trading Selves in Story
• Contributors
• Backcover