Homer the Liar, or How Prose Undermined the Authority of Epic Verse
- Martínez García, Javier (coord.)
Argitaletxea: Ediciones Clásicas
ISBN: 84-7882-738-2
Argitalpen urtea: 2012
Orrialdeak: 261-269
Mota: Liburuko kapitulua
Laburpena
In his well-known The Trojan Discourse, Dio of Prusa disproves the Homeric version of the Trojan War, not as a formal accusation against Homer, but rather to show the poet's audacity. In the Second Sophistic period, in which the Muse is not anymore the authority for the narrative voice and Homer has started being a target of criticism; in which literary fiction has been brought up to the table and the metaliterary discourse is common currency; Dio tries hard to defend the poet, whom he admires unconditionally, although he also discredits him as a historian. The reason is that retrieving the Trojan account for use by a new society requires undermining the authority of poetry and establishing prose as the new bearer of truth.