Homeric megathemes

by D. N. Marōnitēs

"In Homeric Megathemes D. N. Maronitis puts forward war, homilia, and homecoming as three themes central to Homer's two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The scope and depth of his study is unprecedented. Maronitis argues that branching out from each of these themes are certain semiotic and structural characteristics that determine - specific to each of the poems - myth and plot, narrative syntax, and, more generally, the poetic and humanistic character of each. This study aims to ascertain and document similarities and differences in the two Homeric epics through these themes and to identify examples of them in ancient lyric poetry and Attic tragedy. Maronitis's theoretical framework gives scholars interested in poetry, history, and tragedy a social and cultural research model for thinking about the development of great lyric works. His comparative approach, revealing the creative debt of the Odyssey to the Iliadic model, lays bare the progression of classical art through the dev