Homer at the boundary of epochs

Abstract

The article gives a survey of the history of Homeric studies from the end of the 18th century up to the present time. Special attention is paid to the opposition of the Neo-Analytical school and the so-called “oral theory”. The author claims that their main arguments are fairly close to each other, and their divergences concern specifc issues and details. In this respect, the “Homeric question” in its traditional articulation is pretty much solved, and nowadays we are dealing with its breaking up into a number of more specifcally focused, but no less interesting problems. A special emphasis is made on the modern treatment of the notion of formula, on the interaction between formula and theme (motif, type-scene), and on the different versions of the poems' dating and their relation to the epic cycle.