Archive

An occlusion of Xerxes in medieval Persian epic

2023.09.29 | By Olga M. Davidson This pre-edited standalone essay is presented in honor of Pierre Judet de La Combe, whom I first met, together with Greg, in September 1975, almost half a century ago, at the apartment of Jean and Mayotte Bollack in Paris. Among the young classicists there… Read more

Variations on the idea of a gleam that blinded Homer

2023.09.29 | By Gregory Nagy This pre-edited standalone essay is dedicated to my dear colleague and friend  Pierre Judet de La Combe, on the occasion of a happy celebration, in Paris, of his radiant life and times. I start with a story told in a set of ancient myths about the life of Homer. In that story, Homer was blinded by a gleam of light that emanated from the shining bronze armor of… Read more

Signs of Hero Cult in Homeric Poetry

By Gregory Nagy | 2023.09.13 §0. This pre-edited standalone essay, Pamphlet 7 in a series of pamphlets published online and also in print (“on-demand”), is an updating of an earlier version (2020.11.03, listed under my name in the Bibliography), which was published online by the Center for Hellenic Studies, with… Read more

Yet another look at a possible Mycenaean reflex in Homer: phorēnai

This inquiry is about finding survivals of Mycenaean Greek in Homeric diction. I focus on the Homeric infinitive phorēnai (φορῆναι), which I argue belongs to a dialectal group commonly known as Arcado-Cypriote. The form itself is a linguistic innovation, but the innovation is old, very old. I can say this if I succeed in showing that this form φορῆναι is already very old in terms of Homeric diction. And my… Read more

The Aeolic Component of Homeric Diction

By Gregory Nagy | 2023.08.22 §0. This pre-edited standalone essay, Pamphlet 3 in a series of pamphlets published online and also in print (“on-demand”), is about Aeolic, dialect of the Aeolians, and how this dialect pervaded “Homeric diction”—to use wording applied by Milman Parry to the formulaic system generated… Read more

Greek: An Updating of a Survey of Recent Work, second edition

By Gregory Nagy | 2023.08.21 §0. This online book, published on the website of Classical Continuum and to be listed hereafter in bibliographies under the entry “Nagy 2023.08.21,” is a second edition that supersedes an earlier online version, Greek: An Updating of a Survey of Recent Work, cited as… Read more

Greek dialects in the late second millennium BCE

By Gregory Nagy | 2023.08.19 §0. This pre-edited standalone essay, Pamphlet 1 in a series of pamphlets published online and also in print (“on-demand”), is about reconstructing the dialects of the Greek language as they existed in the era of the Mycenaean Empire. The subject of the essay is… Read more