Willamette University
“The Homeric narrator sees things that we, his audience, would have seen had we been on the scene, and things we would not have seen, e.g., the gods. Sometimes the narrative allows entities belonging to the unseen world to move into the seen world (or vice-versa): a god can make him-/herself visible to ordinary mortals, for example (epiphany). The quasi-theological rules that govern this arrangement are also rules for the visualization of the action, as proposed for tragic poets by Aristotle (Poetics ch. 17). In this talk I will explain and illustrate the Homeric rules as they normally operate, and then look at some places where they are put under strain. I will also consider some early evidence for audience awareness of the rules.”