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Caroline Green

Dr. Rabinowitz

UGS 302

12/14/17

Rhapsodic Apprenticeship

When discussing the epic poetry of ancient Greece, it is widely accepted that the Iliad, along with the other works of Homer and his contemporaries, was sung. The singers—rhapsodes or, alternatively, Homeridae—can be found in ancient texts from Plato to Herodotus, singing these epics by memory. The question of how they learned their craft, however, is not one that can be answered through analysis of ancient texts simply because it is never addressed there.

Evidence of the existence and role of the Homeridae and rhapsodes is scarce, and that of apprenticeship within these groups is virtually nonexistent. However, a comparison between the ancient bards and those of more modern cultures provides at least a basis for what rhapsodic apprenticeship may have been like.

The rhapsodes were, simply put, the singers of Ancient Greece. The first known use of the term occurs in Herodotus’s The Histories, when Clisthenes “stopped the rhapsodists’ competitions in reciting from Homer’s poems in Sicyon” (5.67), implying that the term had been accepted into the Greek lexicon before the 5th Century B.C. Most knowledge on who and what the rhapsodes were comes from Plato’s Ion, in which Socrates’s character remarks:

I often envy the profession of a rhapsode, Ion; for you have always to wear fine clothes,

and to look as beautiful as you can is a part of your art. Then, again, you are obliged to

be continually in the company of many good poets; and especially of Homer, who is the

best and most divine of them; and to understand him, and not merely learn his words by Green 2

rote, is a thing greatly to be envied. And no man can be a rhapsode who does not

understand the meaning of the poet. For the rhapsode ought to interpret the mind of the

poet to his hearers, but how can he interpret him well unless he knows what he means?

All this is greatly to be envied. (Plato)

The rhapsodes recited the works of the great poets, such as Homer and, as mentioned later in the scene, Hesiod and Archilochus, and they competed with one another in this profession at

Panhellenic contests, such as the Olympic or Pythian games.

The rhapsodes were preceded by a different form of singer—the aoidos. It is widely believed that this pre-literate poet “does not recite well-known songs because songs do not exist at all during the period of the authentic epic. . . . He never sings other people’s poetry; he always composes himself” (Radloff 86). In the Odyssey, however, the blind poet Demodocus performs well-known stories, such as the quarrel between Odysseus and Achilles. It cannot be assumed, therefore, that every aoidos composed each piece himself; perhaps, instead, they performed well- known stories with their own improvisations.

Many scholars, such as Radloff, argue that with the development of writing, the aoidoi gave way to rhapsodes, who simply recited previously composed work rather than improvising their own, though, at least for the archaic period, there is no ancient text to support that assumption.

Etymologically, the term “rhapsode” is understood as “a concrete metaphor for the process of composition, describing the operation by which the strands or web of discourse are woven together” (Gentili 7), implying that improvised composition and creation, “putting together the material of the story and the subsequent weaving of the plot” (Gentili 7), may well Green 3 have been continued by rhapsodes. Thus, it follows that the term may not have referred strictly to the performance of previously composed works: “the rhapsode Cynathos of Chios, who between 504 and 501 had recited Homer ‘for the first time’ in Syracuse, was not only the performer but also the author of many epic verses that he is said to have interpolated into the corpus of the Homeric poems” (Gentili 7). It may therefore be inferred that rhapsodes were not necessarily limited to mere repetition, but may have sometimes practiced composition as well.

There was, however, a subset of the rhapsodes generally known to have “no longer composed in the same manner as did the early singers since there was an Homeric ‘text’ to be preserved”—the Homeridae (Lee, 36). Very little ancient evidence can be found to support anything besides the existence of this elusive group, but their existence is undeniable; the earliest known appearance of the word is in Pindar’s Nemean Ode II. For Timodemos of Athens, Winner in the Pankration. “As the sons of Homer, singers of stitched lays, begin for the most part from a preface to Zeus, so my client has won his first victory in the grove of Nemean Zeus” (Pindar

Nem. II). The Homeridae (the “sons of Homer”) are equated to rhapsodes (“singers of stitched lays”), so the conclusion can be drawn that the Homeridae were some form of rhapsode.

The term appears next in Plato’s Republic, this time as “the Homerids” (10.598), and again in Phaedrus, as “Homeric experts [who] cite two verses from the less well-known poems”

(252 B). Insight gained from these references beyond what was already interpreted from Pindar is minimal, but another reference—in Plato’s Ion—provides a little more detail. Ion, the rhapsode the aforementioned character of Socrates was speaking about, remarks that “the

Homeridae should give [him] a golden crown” for how well he recites Homer (Plato).

Presumably, therefore, not all rhapsodes were Homeridae; rather, a very specific group made up these Sons of Homer, who dedicated themselves to the work of that great poet. Green 4

To this quite limited extent, the existence and role of rhapsodes and Homeridae are known to us today. What is not found in the ancient record, however, is evidence on the training or apprenticeship of these bards. The mysteries of how they trained, when they began, for how long they studied, and what that process entailed—whether they studied the written word of

Homer or, more likely, they learned to improvise within a common framework—will likely never be answered with certainty, but the clues found by comparing rhapsodes to the oral poets of more modern cultures can help to unravel this mystery at least to a limited extent and permit extrapolation of a likely theory.

The Tamil culture, to begin with, places great importance on the recitation of epic poetry, though there is no term for the epic genre because “most Tamil folk stories or legends are musical compositions longer than the average English ballad” (Beck 3). In other words, nearly every folk story is an epic poem, so it is not separated from the general headings of story songs and song stories. The specific ballad studied by Beck in Tamilnadu is the Brothers story, an

Indian epic following “a set of heroic male twins . . . usually recited in temples or at festival gatherings” (Beck 19). The Brothers story continues to be told by professional ballad singers throughout the countryside while simultaneously existing in various printed forms. This is strikingly similar to the wandering rhapsodes of ancient Greece, performing works such as the

Iliad while the written form is taking hold.

Beck also notes that “the bards who perform for entertainment in the area of South India where the Brothers story is most popular do not produce perfectly metered prose . . . instead, a rhythm was provided when the bard ‘stretched’ or ‘compacted’ those words to fit particular drum beats” (Beck 69). The bard that Beck studied, E. C. Ramacami, told the Brothers story both in a traditional performance viewed by Beck and by dictating it to her, and, though he “claimed that Green 5 he told the exact same story twice,” there were many changes noted by Beck in her comparison of the two, namely, fewer words, shortened phrases, more variation in the meters, and humor, short passages, and much of the descriptive detail was eliminated (Beck 59-60). He used essentially the same song lines, but the phrases were constantly being shifted around to fit the rhythm, just as Lord and Parry hypothesized that Homeric bards would reuse and organize common phrases into their poems to fit the dactylic hexameter, such as the use of ‘rosy-fingered dawn” in the Iliad (Beck 69).

These small-scale changes imply that these long epic poems are not necessarily memorized verbatim, because improvisation is so natural in the process. Beck explains the four stages most Tamil bards pass through, as E. C. Ramacami did, as: childhood exposure through a relative, formal apprenticeship, lead singing, and singing in retirement (Beck 83-84). The second stage—formal apprenticeship—is key, as “during this period the student singer takes the role of an assistant, repeating phrases after a lead bard in actual performances . . . [and] he must also practice on the side” (Beck 84). These apprentice bards do not learn the Brothers story, or any other oral epic, by reading and memorizing each phrase as it appears in the written record; instead, singing with a lead bard teaches the apprentice key phrases and the art of weaving them together to tell the story.

Informal and formal apprenticeship are critical parts of the learning process for Kabyle poets of north and northeast Algeria as well. The poets of Kabyle society, the ameddah, “may well know thousands of lines and recite them . . . he was a professional and that was the only thing he did” (Mammeri), just as rhapsodes were professional performers (Gentili 6). In a dialogue held between Pierre Bourdieu and Mouloud Mammeri, “the son of the next-to-last Green 6 amusnaw (sage, bard) of his tribe”, Mammeri explains how the poets in his tribe first undergo an informal form of apprenticeship:

The village assembly . . . met at regular intervals . . . to resolve all the past and

forthcoming business of the village. These assemblies were veritable schools . . . since

those who took part in them were naturally the most eloquent people, the masters of

language. (Mammeri)

It is after this process of attending and observing village assemblies and laying the groundwork for his understanding and education, that the poet participates in a more formal method of apprenticeship, under a master that selects him and agrees to teach him.

This formal apprenticeship for Kabyle poets is more institutionalized, as Mammeri explains:

You follow a poet for a long time and he teaches you the different procedures. There

even used to be a kind of examination, in which the teacher gave the authorization

(issaden), the licence. It consisted in creating a poem oneself, with a set number of lines,

a hundred lines. A hundred lines is a lot for an oral production. People would say, ‘He

composed up to (issefra-t . . .) . . .’, and give the number, generally one hundred.

(Mammeri)

Like the Tamil bards, ameddah must study under a professional poet, learning the trade, before they can go out to perform on their own. The education of the ameddah is more structured than the Tamils, as is evident from the “examination” and consequent license, but the process of following a professional and established poet is a common feature in both cultures.

A similar learning process is also found in Milman Parry and Albert Lord’s studies of

Serbo-Croation bards. In his book, Singer of Tales, Lord explains the “three distinct stages in [a Green 7 future oral poet’s] progress” (Lord 21): listening, apprenticeship, and performance and repertory growth. In the first stage, the poets the young listener encounters can vary from relatives to singers passing through the village or town. One of the bards Lord spoke to “has no single model, but picks up what he can from all whom he hears”, while another “learned all his songs from a certain Arif Karaljesak”, a professional singer who stayed at the boy’s house for a year

(Lord 23).

The second stage of this process—apprenticeship—is less clear, as it is “a process of imitation . . . in regard to . . . learning the formulas and themes of the tradition” (Lord 23). Lord relates the explanations given by several various bards:

He will say that he was interested in the old songs, had a passion (merak) for them,

listened to singers, and then, “work, work, work” (goni, goni, goni), and little by little he

learned to sing. He had no definite program of study, of course, no sense of learning this

or that formula or set of formulas. It is a process of imitation and of assimilation through

listening and much practice on one’s own. Makic was a bit more explicit than some. He

said that his teacher would sing a song for him two or three times until he learned it . . .

Fjuljanin said that he sometimes asked a singer to sing a song for him . . . (Lord 24)

Although the process is not as clearly delineated as it is for other cultures, a similar theme of repetition and imitation of certain formulas can be seen here, just as in Tamil and Kabyle apprenticeships.

Besides their mode of performance, Serbo-Croation bards share another similarity with rhapsodes: the existence of “published versions of songs in the background” (Lord 23). Just as rhapsodes performed Homer, the bards Lord and Parry studied often performed established work, but their illiteracy prevented them from learning and singing the songs verbatim. One singer Green 8 explained “he learned his songs from the song books . . . although he could not read, somebody had read them to him. But he had also heard the older singers in his district” (Lord 23). It can be hypothesized, then, that the rhapsodes performing Homer’s work may have been using simply the framework of the Iliad, just as E. C. Ramacami performed the Brothers story twice but failed to reproduce it identically.

Another tradition of passing along the tradition of singing oral epics is found in griots, the musicians and story-tellers of West Africa. As explained by one griot, Djeli Mamoudou

Kouyate, they are “vessels of speech . . . the memory of mankind; by the spoken word [they] bring to life the deeds and exploits of kings for younger generations” (Niane 1). As rhapsodes performed Homer’s epic poems, oral histories, so the griots sing of their own villages’ histories, preserving the past where there is no written word to do so.

One feature specific to griots that is not as prominent in other oral cultures is the inheritance of the profession. In the cultures previously studied, bardic ancestry is frequently observed, but it is not a requirement for selection to and development of the craft. A griot, however, is born into his profession and taught by his father; the two griots Diop studied, Seq

Nan and Ancumbu Caam, “are griots by birth” (Diop 21). What this means in terms of apprenticeship is that griots do not, like Tamil or Kabyle poets, study under other professional bards—they learn from their fathers. A griot “relays many times what his father told him . . . and also says that the tale was handed down to him by his ancestors . . . the musical message is transmitted from one generation to the other” (Diop 234). The “second stage” of apprenticeship, then, is nonexistent in West African oral culture, or at least is merely inherent in the father-son relationship and not a formal, defined phase in the process. Green 9

There are, again, similarities between the songs of griots and other oral cultures. For example, as in Tamilnadu, the performances of these African bards are usually arranged for specific festivities or ceremonies, but can also occur more spontaneously. The substance of the performance varies little in either case; rather, the audience makes all the difference:

When the singer performs the same song or poem at different times, the story line and

plot remain basically the same, but he may embellish the poem in one instance but not in

the other. Thus no two performances are exactly the same in form and content. Each

performance must be studied and appreciated separately. (Diop 230)

Here, again, one can observe a mode of performance that is impossible to recreate. This quality is observed in every oral culture analyzed thus far, and is a direct result of the conditions under which the epics are being learned: not through memorization, but through the formation of patterns which fit into a general idea.

Tamil, Kabyle, Serbo-Croation, and Wolof bards are not identical—ameddah have a more institutionalized process of apprenticeship, while griots inherit their position, for instance—but they each carry on a similar goal in society: to maintain a history and a common culture through oral epics and song. This goal, and the methods of practice through which it is achieved, is comparable as well to that of the rhapsodes of ancient Greece as they travelled town to town, performing works of Homer, that of other established poets, or epics composed in the moment.

The unifying factor across each oral culture is the mode of composition. Whether the epic performed existed in a written form, such as the Brothers story of Tamilnadu, or if every song was purely improvised, as for the illiterate griots, no bard learned and performed a story verbatim. Instead, the stories were passed down as a framework, and poets learned phrases or Green 10 common themes that they then fit into the outline of the story, adjusting to accommodate the audience or the setting. This method mirrors the process by which Lord and Parry theorized the

Iliad came into existence, adapted, modified or embellished by different rhapsodes in performance.

This improvisational practice lends itself to a common form of pedagogy across various oral cultures as well: one that focuses on learning patterns rather than specific lyrics. Each culture began laying the groundwork at a young age; a poet would grow up listening to a relative or neighbor singing, and the learning process would begin. Once of a certain age, the young poet would move on to study under either the aforementioned relative or, in some cases, a professional, and carry out a more formal apprenticeship, learning the patterns, stories and histories as he repeated after the professional and started practicing his own performance. Only after years of this apprenticeship would a bard finally be ready to perform on his own.

It is on the basis of this framework or pattern, followed for centuries and repeated in all its essentials in different cultures separated by thousands of miles and speaking widely divergent languages, that we can, with a reasonably high degree of confidence despite a dearth of direct evidence, extrapolate that the rhapsodes, in all their varieties and variants, would have followed a similar process.

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