- Bldg 110, Main Quad, Stanford CA 94305-2145
Richard P Martin
Stanford University, Classics, Faculty Member
- Irish (early and modern), Hesiodic Poetry, Greek religion (Classics), Anthropology, Celtic Philology, Classics, and 91 moreAnthropological Linguistics, Anthropology Of Art, Anthropology Of Literature, Anthropology of Performance, Diachronic Linguistics (Or Historical Linguistics), Ancient Grammar, Classical rhetoric, Greek Epigraphy, Greek Literature, History of Latin Language, Latin Literature, Augustan Poetry, Archaic Poetry, Greek Comedy, Greek Tragedy, Hellenistic Literature, Homer, Pindar and Bacchylides, Second Sophistic, Greek Language, Insular Latin language and literature, Folklore, Laments (Anthropology), Theological Hermeneutics, Irish linguistics, Irish Literature, Languages and Linguistics, Ancient Indo-European Languages, Discourse, Vedic Grammar and Literature, Performance Ethnography, Poetics, Poetry, Ritual, Textual Criticism, Classical Archaeology, Ethnography, Folk Music, Religion, Ritual Theory, Textual Scholarship, Theological Aesthetics, Sanskrit Poetics, Vedic Sanskrit, Carmina Epigraphica Graeca, Old Irish Language and Literature, Old Irish Law, Apollonius Rhodius, Aristophanic comedy, Ancient Greek Religion, Pylos, Late Antiquity, Byzantine Studies, Athens and Attica, Old Comedy, Ancient Greek and Latin Comedy, Aristophanes, Irish Folklore, Hipponax and Greek Iambos, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Greek Lyric Poetry, Ancient Greek Literature, Homeric epic, Early Greek poetry, Classical philology, Greek Epic, Greek Philology, Greek Theatre, Indo-European Linguistics, Mycenaean, Stesichorus, Philology, Homeric poetry, Greek and Roman religions; Ancient Polytheism, Vladimir Propp, Hermeneutics, James Joyce's Ulysses, Celtic Studies, Early Medieval Ireland, Celtic Linguistics, Old and Middle Irish Literature, Celtic Languages, Early and Medieval Irish, Irish History, Irish Literature, Medieval Literature, Medieval Studies, Celtic Studies, Irish Studies, Historical Linguistics, Indo-European Studies, Tartu-Moscow School, Russian Formalism, Boris Eikhenbaum, Marcel Détienne and Pierre Vernant, Modern Greek literature, and Irish Dramaedit
on cult related to Zeus and some passages in the Iliad
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... 16 In this interpretation, the divine performance recounted in Odyssey 24 would match lament performance ... life; and the attitudes towards kin, death, religion and work that these songs embody. ... Rather, my Helleno-Hibernian coda... more
... 16 In this interpretation, the divine performance recounted in Odyssey 24 would match lament performance ... life; and the attitudes towards kin, death, religion and work that these songs embody. ... Rather, my Helleno-Hibernian coda is an attempt to make connections at a broader ...
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Translations by Michael Wolfe of ancient Greek epitaphs
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The complex and varied pathways that brought Homeric epic from its beginnings on the coast of Asia Minor to worldwide appreciation involved changes of media (oral transmission to papyrus scrolls to handwritten manuscripts to printed texts... more
The complex and varied pathways that brought Homeric epic from its beginnings on the coast of Asia Minor to worldwide appreciation involved changes of media (oral transmission to papyrus scrolls to handwritten manuscripts to printed texts and ultimately paperbacks and digital editions), empires (Athenian, Roman, Byzantine), continents, and languages. This chapter traces key stages in the journey of Homer from the eighth century bce to the twenty-first century ce, and asks what features of the Iliad and Odyssey may have prepared the poems for globally broad reception.
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The Iliad and Odyssey from their earliest stages coexisted with smaller performative genres, many involving music (hymns to humans or gods; tunes to accompany work) or music and dance together, as well as paraliterary “genres of speaking”... more
The Iliad and Odyssey from their earliest stages coexisted with smaller performative genres, many involving music (hymns to humans or gods; tunes to accompany work) or music and dance together, as well as paraliterary “genres of speaking” that had neither musical accompaniment nor strict formal rules. A survey of Homeric allusions to, and embedding of, performance events finds them to be further marked by distantiation and imaginative stylization, thus complicating any mining of epic as an historical source for early song-making traditions.
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The Hesiodic view of the supernatural varies within individual compositions, in tune with oral-traditional poetic practice. The flexibility and dramatization inherent in the medium led ancient philosophers to treat Hesiod and Homer as... more
The Hesiodic view of the supernatural varies within individual compositions, in tune with oral-traditional poetic practice. The flexibility and dramatization inherent in the medium led ancient philosophers to treat Hesiod and Homer as deficient “theology.” Taken as religious fictions, with attention to their diction and devices, the Hesiodic poems are distinct from the Homeric in orientation toward and expressions about the divine world. The Theogony frames itself as a praise poem to Zeus but must downplay the self-interested character of such compositions. Zeus’s sovereignty is depicted in diachronic terms as wisely integrating earlier powers. The Works and Days deals synchronically with the upshot of the world-shaping Prometheus and Pandora complex, projecting onto the mythic level its tale of contemporary fraternal strife and advice for living under a regime of divine justice.
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An overview of scholarship and methods for analyzing thematics of Homeric epic over three decades since the initial French publication.
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A literary semantic study of Achilles' other name ("Aspetos") in relation to epic diction.
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This epilogue offers a meta-analysis across the book’s twenty chapters on Classics and Irish politics through three unifying and recurrent themes: contiguity, affinity, and chance. Contiguity is witnessed in physical spaces, objects, and... more
This epilogue offers a meta-analysis across the book’s twenty chapters on Classics and Irish politics through three unifying and recurrent themes: contiguity, affinity, and chance. Contiguity is witnessed in physical spaces, objects, and monuments, but it also functions beyond the material in finding homologous realms between ancient and modern while at the same time respecting differences and acknowledging the challenges inherent in appropriating or translating from one culture into another. Affinity reveals the personal choices and experiences underlying examples of classical reception in Irish culture. Chance inheres in the serendipitous encounters that often lie at the heart of cultural transmission.
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Onomakritos—“distinguished for his name”—has become, for us, mostly just a name. What fame he has, from the meagre remains that mention this figure from the late sixth century BC , arises from his reputation as a forger—the first to... more
Onomakritos—“distinguished for his name”—has become, for us, mostly just a name. What fame he has, from the meagre remains that mention this figure from the late sixth century BC , arises from his reputation as a forger—the first to appear in Greek history (if we consign to heroic legend the story of the letter forged at the command of Odysseus in order to frame his nemesis Palamedes). This chapter argues that Onomakritos acted like an archaic Greek rhapsode. It further seeks to explain his interaction with Lasus of Hermione in terms of generic competition within Athens.
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The naming of poetic predecessors within one’s own composition, often associated with a so-called Hellenistic aesthetic, has a less explored heritage going back to the sixth century BCE. This chapter traces the strategy in its earliest... more
The naming of poetic predecessors within one’s own composition, often associated with a so-called Hellenistic aesthetic, has a less explored heritage going back to the sixth century BCE. This chapter traces the strategy in its earliest phases, especially as we find it within lyric poetry, from the reported statement by Stesichorus [fr. 168 Finglass] that the Shield of Heracles was indeed composed by Hesiod, to the Simonidean allusion to Homer as his forerunner in praise-poetry (fr.11.15–18), and on to Pindar’s complex and varied namings of Archilochus, Terpander, and the masters of hexameter verse.
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The aulos functioned as an important signifier of class and musical subculture within Athenian society, attached as it was to significant institutions of the democratic polis, in tension with other performance instruments and venues.
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Chinese version of The Grain of Greek Voices
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Chapter in Richard Hunter, Ian Rutherford (ed.), Wandering Poets in Ancient Greek Culture: Travel, Locality and Pan-Hellenism. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. xiv, 313. ISBN 9780521898782. $99.00.
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Chapter in Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato’s Laws. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xi, 460. ISBN 9781107016873. $99.00.
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Version (in Russian) of Martin, R. "Against Ornament" (English version in Maslov, B. and Kliger, I. edit. Persistent Forms: Explorations in Historical Poetics [Fordham UP]... more
Version (in Russian) of Martin, R. "Against Ornament" (English version in Maslov, B. and Kliger, I. edit. Persistent Forms: Explorations in Historical Poetics [Fordham UP] https://books.google.com/books?id=3_AmDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA274&lpg=PA274&dq=against+ornament+martin+maslov&source=bl&ots=NyhxYLPgnN&sig=xIwiwEihZKhVeFTDdOeJlcjOZgA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwijqvr9u5beAhUmFzQIHYGwAnw4ChDoATAAegQIARAB#v=onepage&q=against%20ornament%20martin%20maslov&f=false
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Article in The Encyclopedia of Ancient History (Wiley)
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Chapter in Ethnographica Moralia, edit. N. Panourgia and. G. Marcus (Fordham, 2008)
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The Lille Stesichorus in relation to other Oedipus materials
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Ancient Greek skolia and modern Cretan mandinadhes, with re-interpretation of the ancient genre name. Homenaje a Ana María González de Tobia, Edit. C. Fernández, J. Nápoli, G. Zecchin de Fasano. La Plata, Argentina.
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Varieties of reception in 19th/20th-century Ireland
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From Solon of Athens (edit. Blok & Lardinois). Brill, 2006
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Brief survey of texts
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The Brothers Poem--Sappho's "newest"--resembles in tone and rhetorical strategy the poetics of iambos.
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As politician and poet, Solon embodies a combination of societal roles that was not without parallel in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE (and existed still in some traditional societies of the 20th century AD).¹ But the hybrid was rare by... more
As politician and poet, Solon embodies a combination of societal roles that was not without parallel in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE (and existed still in some traditional societies of the 20th century AD).¹ But the hybrid was rare by the time of our earliest surviving comic productions in the mid-5th century, when men of state (like Cleon) were more likely to serve as targets for verbal artists (such as Aristophanes) rather than gain fame as composers of verse. The tragedian Sopho-cles (who served as stratēgos and proboulos) and the elegiac poet and dramatist Critias (a member of the oligarchic council of 411 BCE and one of the Thirty Tyrants in 404 BCE) are the only prominent blended-career types that come to mind. Thus it is not surprising that Solon came to be refracted on the Athenian comic stage in such a way that one particular aspect stood out, his activity as legislator (nomothetēs), while his poetic activity was hardly noticed. On the other hand, as this brief survey of the scattered relevant remains will show, Solon's poetic affiliations emerged in some important moments, as playwrights recognized a creative fellow-spirit. We need to consider, first of all, comedies in which " Solon " was a character. The fragments offer only tantalizing hints of this structural role, but what can be gleaned will help one understand the construction of social and political memory at key points in Athenian history. Next, we shall examine several citations of Solon by name in extant plays and fragments from all periods of comic production. While such passages add little to the biographical dossier, they do demonstrate how rhetorical and poetic habits collaborated to preserve Solon as a figure good to think – and play – with. Finally, this survey will attempt to show that, even when he is not overtly named in a surviving comedy, Solon's figure must have influenced audience responses. Solon most memorably trod the Athenian comic stage in what was to become the most famous of lost comedies, the Demes (Dēmoi) of Eupolis, a well-known rival of Aristophanes, none of whose works survives intact. Produced sometime
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Martin, Richard P. "Similes and Performance." Written Voices, Spoken Signs edit. E. Bakker & A. Kahane (1997): 138-66.
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Overview of the intersecting notions of social and poetic performance in Homeric poetry
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Brief overview of the word in Homeric usage
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Chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Theatre, Edited by Marianne McDonald, Michael Walton
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in A companion to Ancient Aesthetics, ed P. Destrée. Wiley-Blackwell, 2015
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Early Greek mythography in its relationship to the semantics and pragmatics of muthos.
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Research Interests: Greek History, Homer, Oral Traditions, Athenian Democracy, Hesiodic Poetry, and 8 moreThucydides, Homeric Hymns, Greek Rhetoric, Homeric epic, Attic Oratory, Greek Drama (Tragedy and Comedy), Epistemic and Deliberative Virtue In Athenian Democracy and Greek Texts, and Idioms of Contest In Greek Literature
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An attempt to sketch the origins of aesthetic criteria in Greek ritual and performance contexts as presented in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo.
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The 2nd edition of Classical Mythology: The Basics will be published in late October 2022. This order form gets you a 20% discount from Routledge.
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Forthcoming, Cornell University Press, Spring 2018
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This book explores the representation of the gods in Greek hexameter poetry in its many forms, including epic, hymnic and didactic poetry, from the archaic period to late antiquity. Its twenty-five chapters, written by an international... more
This book explores the representation of the gods in Greek hexameter poetry in its many forms, including epic, hymnic and didactic poetry, from the archaic period to late antiquity. Its twenty-five chapters, written by an international team of experts, trace a broad historical arc, reflecting developments in religious thought and practice, and ongoing philosophical and literary-critical engagement with the nature and representation of the divine and the relationship between humans and gods.
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An introduction to the materials and to means of analysis.
Research Interests: Mythology And Folklore, Comparative Literature, Folklore, Mythology, Classics, and 10 moreGreek Literature, Greek Tragedy, The Classical Tradition, Classical philology, Ancient Greek Religion, Classical Reception Studies, Classical Mythology, Comparative mythology, Classical Tradition in Art and Literature, and Classical Literature
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A study in literary semantics and historical anthropology
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Exemplaria Classica 27, 2023, 251-425. https://www.uhu.es/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/exemplaria
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online Jan 23 2020
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Preview Every scrap and spill from the table of Aristophanes is welcome nourishment for starved readers lacking nearly three-quarters of the feast that began with his Banqueters of 427 BCE. In this second of three volumes covering the... more
Preview Every scrap and spill from the table of Aristophanes is welcome nourishment for starved readers lacking nearly three-quarters of the feast that began with his Banqueters of 427 BCE. In this second of three volumes covering the incertarum fabularum fragmenta, Bagordo serves up mostly lower-calorie crumbs — of the 146 fragments, 68 contain just one word, and 29 are phrases of two or three words; none exceeds three lines of verse. The presentation is lucid and accessible, the commentary meticulous, cautious, and erudite. It will remain, without doubt, the essential resource for years to come. The extended excursuses on a number of relevant philological and dramatic problems raised by the fragments make this, as well, an eminently useful book for anyone dealing with Greek and Latin poetry and poetics, comedic or other.
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American Journal of Philology, Volume 139, Number 2, Summer 2018,
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Journal of Folklore Research Aug. 2018
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Classical Philology, Vol. 88, No. 1 (Jan., 1993), pp. 77-84
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Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2017.07.46
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BMCR 2016.10.3
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Appeared in The Journal of Hellenic Studies (127) 2007: 175 - 175