[lit-ideas] Re: Sung Heros -- And What's Left of Them (Is: Epos)
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 23:40:52 +0900
Thanks to JL for all these sources. It seems almost churlish to note that
Parmenides, Hesiod, et. all., were literate people, and etymological
reconstructions by Latin and Greek philologists not exactly satisfactory as
examples of preliterate myth, representing as they do the imaginings of
other thoroughly literate people.
What I am looking for is a reasonably reliable ethnographic report along the
lines of "According to Bongo-Bongo myth, the spirit spoke and the world was
created." I am looking for a counterexample to the proposition that belief
that the world was spoken into existence occurs only among peoples with
writing. Haven't found one yet.
John
On 10/17/07, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> McCreery is looking for foundational myths based on the power of the
> Word. I mentioned Gk. 'mythos' and 'logos' as worth researching, and threw
> Latin 'verbum' for good measure. Now I add Gk.
>
> "epos"
>
> which originally meant 'word' too.
>
> What can prove more the power of 'epos' than to have, today, the very
> _words_ that Peleus, Achilles's father, said to Achilles before Achilles's
> coming of age.
>
> "Try always to be the best"
>
> This ideal of 'arete', could ONLY have been transmitted through 'epos'
> (Homer's word in this case). I cannot find the exact quote by Peleus -- in
> Greek -- but surely all Western civilisation is based on that precept --
> however demanding someone or other may find it today (I for one agree with
> Bowra that it would have made of Achilles one of the most pretentious men on
> earth).
>
> I recently acquired a rather expensive book by G. Dawson, called "Soldier
> Heroes", about adventure, empire and masculinity. It basically concentrates
> on the deeds of the 60-year old officer sung hero of the Indian Mutiny.
> Dawson's point is that through myths and epos like that a hero is created by
> being sung. Only with the Great World, he claims, this trend was found
> obsolete, when the intelligentsia started to 'sing' of the 'unsung heros'.
> But cfr. a Rupert Brooke (sung hero) with a less sung hero like Wilfred Owen
> who basically had to sing himself his own deeds.
>
> In these 'epos', it's the content -- the moral code of the warrior -- that
> gets transmitted. It would ONLY be through an illiterate medium -- deeds
> being sung around the camp fire.
>
> It was only later the MONKS, who had nothing better to do, who transcribed
> those sung heroes and their epos onto old parchments.
>
> Cheers,
>
> JL
>
>
>
>
>
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--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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