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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO INSPIRATION AND NARRATIVE IN THE HOMERIC ODYSSEY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS BY NATALIE TREVINO CHICAGO, ILLINOIS MARCH 2019 Contents LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................ v ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. vii INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 I.1 Innovation, Aberration, and Metanarrative ............................................................................ 1 I.2 Scholarly Opinions, A History of Devaluation ...................................................................... 2 I.3 Decoding the Inscrutable: Genre, Inspiration, and The Poet ................................................. 6 I.4 Methodology: Studies in the Inspiration of Poets and Prophets, and Narratology .............. 14 I.5 Chapter Summaries .............................................................................................................. 18 I.6 Glossary ............................................................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER ONE: THE PROBLEM WITH PENELOPE’S DREAM .......................................... 29 1.1 The Dream of the Eagle and the Geese ............................................................................... 29 1.2 Keeping Penelope in the Dark ............................................................................................. 35 1.3 Athena’s Disappearing Act ................................................................................................. 46 1.4 A Spotlight in the Dark ....................................................................................................... 65 CHAPTER TWO: PENELOPE THE PROPHETESS? ................................................................ 70 2.1 Dreams, Intertextuality, and Intratextuality ........................................................................ 70 2.2 Divine Perspective-Bias Exemplified in Iliad 2 .................................................................. 76 2.3 Helen's Omen-based Prophecy and the Medium's Authorship ........................................... 92 ii 2.4 A Medium’s Toolkit: Cognizance and Command Over Inspiration ................................. 108 2.5 A Medium’s Toolkit: Performance Context and Technique ............................................. 114 2.6 The Poet Demands ............................................................................................................ 123 CHAPTER THREE: THEOKLUMENOS & HIS MANTIC SPEECH ..................................... 127 3.1 Theoklumenos’ Outburst: Clarifying Terminology .......................................................... 127 3.2 The Mantis’s Burden ......................................................................................................... 135 3.3 Self-fulfilling Prophecies .................................................................................................. 155 3.4 Through a Mirror, Darkly.................................................................................................. 160 3.5 Coordinated Complements ................................................................................................ 172 CHAPTER FOUR: INTERPRETATION, RECEPTION, AND EXEMPLA IN BOOK 20 ..... 190 4.1 The Moral of the Story: Comments from a Medium ........................................................ 190 4.2 Critical Correction: Theoklumenos’ Exegetical Warning ................................................. 194 4.3 Complementary Commentary: Auto-Mimetic Exegesis in the Narrator-Text .................. 216 4.4 Performing to Influence Reception ................................................................................... 232 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 241 C.1 Synopsis ............................................................................................................................ 241 C.2 Theoklumenos, a Retrospective ........................................................................................ 245 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 257 iii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Qualities of altered mental states. A table outlining the differences between an inspired and an affected state. ................................................................................................................... 129 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Countless hours have been poured into this thesis by individuals whose names are not listed above and to whom I owe more gratitude than I can fully express through writing. I would like to thank first and foremost Christopher Faraone, my chair and advisor, and the mentor who has supported me throughout this entire endeavor. His patience, understanding, and knowledge have been invaluable, and I would not have found this topic without him. Besides his classes providing the all-important academic backbone for my thesis, I discovered my confidence to pursue the investigation of Penelope’s dream because of his encouragement, a fact that I will never forget. His generosity made all the difference to this project. I would also like to thank Sarah Nooter for her guidance throughout, including but not limited to her wise words on both academic writing and instruction. Her careful eye ensured that my work was flawless, and did so without discouragement. I would like to thank also Emily Austin for all her hours talking Homer, literature, and Ancient Greek. Although she joined my committee with the thesis more than halfway completed, she devoted time above-and-beyond the expected to ensuring that my whole dissertation was as close to perfect as is possible. To all of my committee, finally, I would like to extend my thanks for their kindness—I accomplished a feat I previously thought insurmountable because of their wisdom and experience, naturally, but also because of their compassion. Next, I would like to acknowledge just how instrumental the rest of the department has been throughout my time at the University. In particular, I would like to highlight those who helped me to discover my passion and the thing that most helped to motivate me through the writing process—teaching. For this, I owe Helma Dik and Sofia Torallas Tovar very special thanks. So too I must thank Kathy Fox for her help navigating the program and for her friendship over the years. She provided answers to my many, many questions, and also laughter and support v all those early mornings. Lastly, I would like to thank the other graduate students who I have taught with, and laughed with, throughout the years. In particular, I have Julie Mebane to thank for her friendship through exams, tragedies, and celebrations even now, beyond her own defense and graduation. Finally, I would like to thank my family, my parents and sister, as well as my grandparents, whose support, determination, and love have helped me to arrive here. I count myself lucky to have had them at my back all the way and their joy at my success has made this experience even more worthwhile. vi ABSTRACT One can read the Odyssey as the product of a poetic tradition interested in innovating the very process of its own narrative performance. In my thesis I focus on examples of metanarrative that feature a particular type of internal narration: the communication of gods with men. In particular, the Odyssey features two apparent aberrations of the standard portrayals of 'Homeric' divination—one, a dream scene, Penelope's 'symbolic' dream in Book 19, another, a moment of prophecy, Theoklumenos’ 'ecstatic vision' in Book 20. I will argue, however, that Penelope’s and Theoklumenos’ scenes are not aberrant so much as purposefully exceptional. In other words, I will propose that both scenes can be understood more productively as depictions that have been conscientiously stylized by the poet(s) to encourage a reception by their audience that is similarly aware of the scenes’ metacommentative, and especially metapoetic, significance. Indeed, by manipulating the standard representations of gods and men as they communicate within epic narrative, the poet has crafted an innovative and self-referential exploration of the vehicle of that communication between gods and men, the medium. Along with the poet, both Penelope and Theoklumenos are mediums within the epic because they act as the intermediary between the gods and mankind in moments when information from the divine sphere is shared with the human sphere. I will argue that the poet takes advantage of the metanarrative nature of these scenes, in order to disclose to his audience the essence of his own poetic contributions which are otherwise obfuscated by traditional elements of the genre. In line with the other metanarrative innovations of the Odyssey, the poet uses the scenes of Penelope and Theoklumenos as internal descriptions of his own role in order to challenge traditional conceptions