Speech Presentation in Homeric Epic

Acknowledgments

ix It is a great pleasure to thank the people and institutions that have supported this book and its author. The National Endowment for the Humanities and Swarthmore College funded a sabbatical in 2004–2005, during which I did the initial work. The Harvard University Department of the Classics hosted me as a Visiting Scholar for the 2008–2009 academic year, providing a congenial and welcoming environment as well as matchless library resources. The University of Texas at Austin has given invaluable assistance in bringing the book to completion. This includes appointments as the 2009–2010 holder of the Rachael and Ben Vaughan Faculty Fellowship in Classics, as a Fellow of the Robert M. Armstrong Centennial Professorship , and to a Summer Research Assignment, as well as less tangible but by no means less helpful efforts like strategic course scheduling and moral support. Maria Sarinaki, my research assistant, allowed me to finish the project much earlier than I would otherwise have been able to with her superb efficiency and attention to detail. I owe particular thanks to Stephen White, the Chair of the Department of Classics, for his unflagging support and enthusiasm for my work. At the University of Texas Press, Jim Burr is every writer’s dream of an editor, insofar as he works promptly, offers lots of positive feedback, and gives constructive criticism in a clear and low-key way that maximizes the likelihood of headstrong academics actually doing what they are told. Lynne Chapman and Sherry Wert were extremely responsive and helpful with the editing and production process. The two readers, whose eyes were equally keen and constructive for big-picture issues and for missing, wrong, or unclear details, improved the finished book a great deal. I am entirely responsible for its remaining shortcomings. Phil Baldi entertained linguistic questions with unfailing goodwill. Eric Behrens taught me about FileMaker , without which this book would not have been possible. The help and expertise of Peter Keane and Suloni Robertson, in Liberal Arts InstrucACKNOWLEDGMENTS SPEECH PRESENTATION in HOMERIC EPIC x tional Technology Services at the University of Texas at Austin, were invaluable for putting the database on the Internet. Eleanor Dickey provided feedback on work in progress that had a transformative effect on the later directions of the project. Ruth Scodel provided sound and helpful criticism at several points along the way. Jennifer Trimble always had confidence in the project, even (or especially) when I did not. Versions of several ideas in this book first appeared in “Character-Quoted Direct Speech in the Iliad” (Phoenix 62 [2008]: 162–183) and “Narratology and Linguistics: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Homeric Speech Representation ” (Transactions of the American Philological Association 138 [2008]: 351–378, reprinted with permission by The Johns Hopkins University Press). Portions of Chapters 2, 4, and 5 have previously appeared as “The Presentation of Song in Homer’s Odyssey,” in Orality and Literacy IX, edited by E. Minchin (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 25–53. One point in Chapter 4 was published in “Speech Act Types, Conversational Exchange, and the Speech Representational Spectrum in Homer,” in Narratology and Interpretation, edited by J. Grethlein and A. Rengakos (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009), 137–151. I am indebted to these publications for permission to include this material. Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to my late mother, who had no background in classics but whose own professional life provided a model for combining a rigorous and systematic attention to detail with not losing sight of the big picture. Despite failing health, she remained interested in my work until the last week of her life. I offer this book as a small token of my love and gratitude for all she taught me. SPEECH PR ESENTATION IN HOMER IC EPIC THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK ...