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Reviewed by:
  • Homeric Voices: Discourse, Memory, Gender
  • Joel Christensen
Elizabeth Minchin. Homeric Voices: Discourse, Memory, Gender. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. xii, 310. $99.00. ISBN 978-0-19-928012-4.

In this book, Elizabeth Minchin continues to apply lessons from cognitive psychology and sociolinguistics to Homeric poetry; see, for example, Homer and the Resources of Memory: Some Applications of Cognitive Theory to the Iliad and the Odyssey (Oxford 2001). Her emphasis here, however, turns to character-speech, a category that has not received the attention it deserves. Minchin offers ten studies that pursue the dual goals of gauging to what extent Homeric speech reflects patterns developed by modern sociolinguists and of proposing that such patterns echo the everyday speech of Homeric poets and their audiences.

The book is divided into two parts. The first (“Discourse and Memory”) addresses Homeric speech acts including the rebuke, declining an invitation, and questions. The second, “Discourse and Gender,” investigates speech differentiation by gender.

In the introduction, Minchin concisely surveys her theoretical underpinnings (specifically speech-acts, discourse analysis, and cognitive psychology). Chapter 1, providing a nice typology of rebukes in Homer, closes with the argument that such speech-acts are tied to implicit memory and are thus unconsciously known formats’ for generic language. This claim, by grounding Homeric speech in the present of the performance, may help to elucidate the relationship between the poetic tradition and the moment of composition. Such arguments might be strengthened with a nod to performance theory or receptionalism.

In chapter 2, Minchin presents the declining of an invitation as a speech-act that indicates the effect of politeness on Homeric speech. Although a similar effort has recently been made, Minchin’s more global treatment is welcome; see H. Paul Brown TAPA 136 (2006) 1–46. The pattern she develops, for example, provides a more nuanced view of Achilles’ aggressive response to Priam’s dinner refusal in Iliad 24.

In chapter 3, Minchin examines questions-and-answers to point up differences between the stylization of Homeric speech and everyday language. Whereas everyday language rarely yields neat pairs of questions and answers, Homeric poetry does this as a matter of course—a rule Minchin identifies as a compositional strategy.

Chapter 4 investigates question strings and hysteron proteron in answers (where respondents reverse the order of their interlocutor’s questions) famously discussed by Samuel Bassett, HSCP 31 (1920) 39–62. Bassett argues that this device developed for the ease of the audience; Minchin proposes that it derives from everyday conversation: as speakers we exhibit a natural linguistic preference from contiguity of thought.

In the final chapter of part 1, Minchin emphasizes the competitive nature of Homeric speech by focusing on character choice of question types. Her application of sociolinguistic data underscores the rigidly hierarchical structure of the society presented by Homer. [End Page 196]

In part 2, Minchin addresses speech differentiation by gender. As Minchin admits, the results are mixed. This, however, is not a great surprise—the statistical sample of female character-speech, in the Iliad especially, is quite small. Further complications not specifically addressed by Minchin include the problem of goddesses and the gendered identity of the poet/narrator. Goddesses are certainly feminine, but is it entirely fair to put them in the same speaking category as an Andromache? Epic poetics, moreover, are male-dominated and thus may present obstacles for equating Homeric female language with a real-world equivalent.

Chapter 6 surveys patterns of rebukes and protests to illustrate that in the Iliad most of these speech-acts reflect the power and status relationship between the speaker and addressee, while their distribution in the Odyssey reveals a breakdown of social status norms.

Chapters 7–9 present three interconnected studies on competitive and cooperative speech strategies. In the first survey of information-questions (questions that can amount to a coercive display of status), Minchin argues that masculine/feminine use of speech adheres to expectations from modern sociolinguistics with the notable exception of figures and situations that fall outside of the competitive status system of speech—such as the elderly Priam with Helen.

There are some aspects of her approach that deserve further attention. While few would doubt the connection...

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