"Time to Rouse the Dead*"
Music, Improvisation, and Homeric Performance
This post is a continuation of my substack on the Iliad. Following the completion of book-by-book posts entries will fall into three basic categories: (1) new scholarship about the Iliad; (2) themes: (expressions/reflections/implications of trauma; agency and determinism; performance and reception; diverse audiences); and (3) other issues of texts/transmission/and commentary that occur to me. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.
My apologies for a delay in posting. The end of the semester was intense, and my institution is currently debating a no-confidence vote in our president.
When I was first learning about oral-formulaic theory and the Albert-Lord notion of composition-in-performance, I approached the idea as a musician. Thanks to some arm injuries (shoulder/hand) and not playing for years to focus on grad school (a mistake), I am not much of a musician any longer, but I pretty much spent a decade of my life playing music in all different kinds of contexts prior to the old ascetic life of a ‘scholar’. So, when I read about formulae and composition-in-performance, I immediately thought about the interplay between musical improvisation (jamming!), polishing and performing set pieces, the changes wrought by audience engagement, and the tension between a song as fixed ‘text’ and its fluidity over time in performance.
As a general rule, scholars of a certain vintage resist the comparison between Homeric composition and the work of jazz musicians, thinking too much, I suspect, about improvisation and not enough about the dynamic interplay between a shared ‘song’ and the variations it can take in any given performance on stage, depending on the musicians present, what they have been listening to, and the energy of a particular audience on stage. Ersilia Dolci has written about how rhapsodic performance and jazz music are united by a flexibility of formulaic "patterns" within traditional schemes. (I also think there may be a class/race based prejudice at play here.)
Authors have in recent years focused more on the public impact of epic: Graciela Cristina Zecchin de Fasano emphasizes the importance of pleasure (terpsis) in the dimension of performance, while Manon Brouillet has emphasized the significance of kharis (“grace/pleasure”) and thambos (“”wonder”) in the dynamic ritual performance of Homer–each, in a way, dovetail with what we know about epic performance from sources like Plato’s Ion and anticipate some of my speculations about Homer and tragedy.
Homeric epic has multiple models for episodic performance: we often trot out Demodocus, Phemios, or even Achilles as representations of ‘bards’ or singers within the poems. But there is no easy way to move from these inset, short performances, to the notion of the Iliad or the Odyssey in their entirety. I have discussed in earlier posts ideas about book divisions and the relationship between episodes and the whole epic. But my notion of episodes cleverly woven together–echoing the idea of “stitching” reconstructed in the word rhapsode or in “joining/fitting” in the etymologizing of Homeros as “one who fits the song together”--seems too much like a textual editorial process, and too little situated in notions of (live) performance.
In general, I think we have a few metaphors to use to help us think about epic composition at the level of monumental performance. I have been playing with the idea of a “live album” (which I will share in a few weeks); but we also have the example of advanced musicians coming together to play through a shared canon. Gregory Nagy and Jose Gonzalez have both written extensively on the “Panathenaic rule”. In this system, under the sponsorship of the state of Athens, performers were required to perform Homeric epic in relay, that is, taking up the story one from another in pursuit of the whole. Such a performance would necessarily encourage both collaboration and competition. Consider a group of talented musicians playing a standard tune, taking turns soloing as each instrument is featured in turn. Now imagine someone recording it. The resulting ‘text’ is a fixed version of standard, reshaped by the the performers, the space, and the recording itself.
When does improvisation/innovation become canon? It can at the moment of performance, when someone hits a riff or a note that wasn’t there before but works. Other performers pick up on it, adapt to it, make it their own; audiences respond and engage, and before long, a flourish replaces the standard. (this is in part why the language of ‘variation’ can be misleading because it implies a standard, but does not necessarily contain the idea that the standard itself can be replaced over time.) In his article, “Improvisation in Rhapsodic Performance,” Derek Collins looks at several different sources to explore the extent to which rhapsodic performers of Homer were not simply flesh-bound replay devices.
[Portrait of Charlie Parker, Tommy Potter, Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, and Max Roach, Three Deuces, New York, N.Y., ca. Aug. 1947]
On of the first things that Collins focuses on is the language of rhapsodia, emphasizing that while the metaphor of ‘sewing’ may seem textual to us (in part, perhaps, because of that echo of ‘textile’), the ancient citations imply a gathering and uniting of the parts of Homeric performance, a stitching together of song not text. Collins surveys early testimonia and then moves to some parallel traditions, looking in particular at poet-singers in Cyprus who sing traditional songs, some of their own traditions, and improvised rhymes. The competitions for these singers include both prepared texts and improvisations, with opportunities for extemporaneous expansion on conventional passages. Collins offers these examples and then moves to the fictional Certamen of Homer and Hesiod to explore that dynamic between standards, competition, and improvisation.
He summarizes as follows:
Let me briefly summarize the direction to which this evidence, in my opinion, points. We know that improvisation and innovation within the tradition are attested for rhapsodes as early as the mention of Kynaithos, some time in the late sixth century B.C.E., apart from the etymological evidence for the term rhapsoidos, which may imply an even earlier improvisational capacity. I have surveyed a variety of rhapsodic games, arguing that rhapsodes were competent at many levels of poetic performance: they could, for example, competitively recite memorized verses, improvise verses on the spot for elaboration, take up and leave off the narrative wherever they saw fit, as well as perform stichic improvisation in response to questions, riddles, etc. Alcidamas, in his fourth century B.C.E. Certamen, demonstrates several kinds of rhapsodic improvisation, no doubt garnered from his experience viewing rhapsodic contests. (59) We have seen how, in the epic part of the Certamen, Alcidamas in this particular dueling game highlights the importance of enjambment as a connective technique, and we have found, not surprisingly, comparable examples of enjambment in Homeric poetry itself. But this suggests that we will have to revise our notion that rhapsodes merely "recited" memorized lines of Homeric poetry. Clearly they also improvised lines and deployed them creatively, although, in my opinion, they did so against the background of a stable body of texts, perhaps fixed by the time of Hipparkhos. (60) In addition, we must dispense with the deprecatory impression of rhapsodes given by Plato and Xenophon, (61) an impression that has been followed by modern scholars who view rhapsodic improvisations as "inferior" to Homer. (62) Rhapsodes were not competing with Homer--or with Hesiod, Archilochus, or Empedocles for that matter--when they performed. Instead they were competing with one another in the context of a live performance with the aim of outperforming their opponents and delighting their audience for ultimate victory. The difference in viewpoint here is critical.
Verbal improvisation against tradition is thus integral to the nature of rhapsodic competition in performance, and we must see that such competition is essentially a poetic game. The master of that game, like Ion who at the beginning of Plato's dialogue has in fact just won a rhapsodic competition at Epidauros, will be the one who most deftly displays the range of rhapsodic abilities discussed here. We simply do not have enough evidence to determine which types of games were called for at given performance venues. It is more than probable that rhapsodes performing at an event like the Panathenaia, which appears to call for more extended narrative, could nevertheless incorporate the types of improvisation that I have presented. We may easily imagine one rhapsode leaving the bema at the end of his performance, and leaving off at a verse where there are several enjambment options for his competitor. The challenge for the next rhapsode, before he recited whatever passage he had chosen, would be to enter with a flourish by linking his verse spectacularly to what has preceded. Nevertheless, it is clear that until we remove the stigma attached to rhapsodes by the likes of Plato and Xenophon, we will not be able to appreciate fully the competitive virtuosity and the sheer entertainment through which generations of Greeks experienced their poetry in live performances.
Collins, whose book The Master of the Game should be read by anyone interested in early Greek poetry–presents a sensitive reading that uses ancient evidence, modern comparisons, and provides plausible approaches to that tension between ‘tradition’ and a single performance. Analogical argumentation can only take us so far, but this marshaling of evidence can help us imagine how conventional ‘songs’ of Homer could be brought together in a single ‘epic’ performance while also providing many different points for thinking through how the conditions of performance–audience response, pressures of performance, rules of the game–shape the resulting ‘text’ and its reception.
*the title for this entry is from the Billy Collins poem “The Invention of the Saxophone”
It was Adolphe Sax, remember,
not Saxo Grammaticus, who gets the ovation.
And by the time he had brought all the components
together–the serpentine shape, the single reed,
the fit of the fingers,
the upward tilt of the golden bell–
it was already 1842, and one gets the feeling
that it was also very late at night.
There is something nocturnal about the sound,
something literally horny,
as some may have noticed on that historic date
when the first odd notes wobbled out of his studio
into the small, darkened town,
summoning the insomniacs (who were up
waiting for the invention of jazz) to their windows,
but leaving the sleepers undisturbed,
evening deepening and warming the waters of their dreams.
For this is not the valved instrument of waking,
more the smoky voice of longing and loss,
the porpoise cry of the subconscious.
No one would ever think of blowing reveille
on a tenor without irony.
The men would only lie in their metal bunks,
fingers twined behind their heads,
afloat on pools of memory and desire.
And when the time has come to rouse the dead,
you will not see Gabriel clipping an alto
around his numinous neck.
An angel playing the world’s last song
on a glistening saxophone might be enough
to lift them back into the light of earth,
but really no further.
Once resurrected, they would only lie down
in the long cemetery grass
or lean alone against a lugubrious yew
and let the music do the ascending–
curling snakes charmed from their baskets–
while they wait for the shrill trumpet solo,
that will blow them all to kingdom come.
Short Bibliography
n.b. this is not exhaustive. please let me know if there are other articles to include.
Dolci, Ersilia. “Omero e Charlie Parker: le vie dei canti : per un’analisi dello stile formulare nella creazione estemporanea musicale.” Appunti Romani di Filologia, vol. 24, 2022, pp. 7-54. Doi: 10.19272/202202001001
Bakker, Egbert J.. “Homer, Odysseus, and the narratology of performance.” Narratology and interpretation: the content of narrative form in ancient literature. Eds. Grethlein, Jonas and Rengakos, Antonios. Trends in Classics. Supplementary Volumes; 4. Berlin ; New York: De Gruyter, 2009. 117-136.
Brouillet, Manon. “Faire événement : l’épopée homérique comme spectacle rituel.” Pallas, no. 107, 2018, pp. 155-173. Doi: 10.4000/pallas.9037
Brouillet, Manon. “« Thambos » et « kharis »: constructions sensorielles et expériences du divin dans les épopées homériques.” Mythos, N. S., vol. 11, 2017, pp. 83-93. Doi: 10.4000/mythos.606
Collins, Derek Burton. “Improvisation in rhapsodic performance.” Helios, vol. 28, no. 1, 2001, pp. 11-27.
González, José M.. The epic rhapsode and his craft : Homeric performance in a diachronic perspective. Hellenic Studies; 47. Washington (D. C.): Center for Hellenic Studies, 2013.
Heiden, Bruce. “The ordeals of Homeric song.” Arethusa, vol. 30, no. 2, 1997, pp. 221-240.
De Jong, Irene J. F.. “Homer : the first tragedian.” Greece and Rome, Ser. 2, vol. 63, no. 2, 2016, pp. 149-162. Doi: 10.1017/S0017383516000036
Dué, Casey. “Ἔπεα πτερόεντα: how we came to have our « Iliad ».” Recapturing a Homeric legacy. Ed. Dué, Casey. Hellenic Studies; 35. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Pr., 2009. 19-30.
Karanika, Andromache. Voices at work: women, performance, and labor in ancient Greece. Baltimore (Md.): Johns Hopkins University Pr., 2014.
Kozak, L. (2023) “Happy Hour Homer: On Translating and Performing the Iliad Live in a Bar,” in This is a Classic, edited by Regina Galasso, Bloomsbury Academic, Literatures, Cultures, Translation Series, pp. 51–8.
Kretler, Katherine L.. One man show: poiesis and genesis in the « Iliad » and « Odyssey ». [S. l.]: [s. n.], 2011.
Macintosh, F., & McConnell, J. (2020). Performing epic or telling tales. Oxford University Press.
Macintosh, F., McConnell, J., Harrison, S., & Kenward, C. (Eds.). (2018). Epic Performances from the Middle Ages into the Twenty-First Century. Oxford University Press, USA.
Murray, Oswyn. “The « Odyssey » as performance poetry.” Performance, iconography, reception: studies in honour of Oliver Taplin. Eds. Revermann, Martin and Wilson, Peter J.. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Pr., 2008. 161-176.
Nagy, Gregory. “Homer and Plato at the Panathenaia: synchronic and diachronic perspectives.” Contextualizing classics: ideology, performance, dialogue : essays in honor of John J. Peradotto. Eds. Falkner, Thomas M., Felson, Nancy and Konstan, David. Greek Studies. Lanham (Md.): Rowman and Littlefield, 1999. 123-150.
Ready, J., & Tsagalis, C. (Eds.). (2018). Homer in performance: rhapsodes, narrators, and characters. University of Texas Press.
Ready, J. L. (2023). Immersion, Identification, and the Iliad. Oxford University Press.
Reece, Steve Taylor. “Homer's « Iliad » and « Odyssey »: from oral performance to written text.” New directions in oral theory. Ed. Amodio, Mark C.. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies; 287. Tempe, Ariz.: Arizona center for Medieval and Renaissance studies, 2005. 43-89.
Scodel, R. (2009). Listening to Homer: tradition, narrative, and audience. University of Michigan Press.
Graciela Cristina Zecchin de Fasano, ‘Μῦθος, ἔπος y canto: la « teoría » homérica sobre el género épico’, Argos, 24. (2000) 191-203.
Why the assumption that it was always competitive?