The Stranger's Welcome

Book excerpt: For more than two millennia, Homer's poetry has stirred the imagination of its readers. Originally recited by traveling bards, these poems are exceptionally rich in conventional elements that helped the poets remember works thousands of lines long. As dynamic ingredients of oral poetry, these elements have accrued deep meaning, and for a well-informed audience they call significant associations to mind. In The Stranger's Welcome, Steve Reece treats eighteen "hospitality" scenes in the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Homeric Hymns and reveals key aspects and standard elements of such scenes. Further, he demonstrates how Homeric listeners might comprehend the new and innovative by relying on their knowledge of the conventional and familiar. This tension between conventional and innovative, between the traditional background and the individual performance, distinguishes the aesthetics of Homeric poetry. Of interest to students and scholars of oral poetry, folklore, Homeric literature, and Greek literature in general, The Stranger's Welcome offers a practical approach whereby a reading audience may understand a hearing one.