The Poetics of Supplication

Download or read book The Poetics of Supplication written by Kevin Crotty and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this penetrating and compelling reinterpretation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, Kevin Crotty explores the connection between the "poetic" nature of supplication on the one hand, and, on the other, the importance of supplication in the structure and poetics of the two epics. The supplicant's attempt to rouse pity by calling to mind a vivid sense of grief, he says, is important for an understanding of the poems, which invite their audience to contemplate scenes of past grieving. A poetics of supplication, Crotty asserts, leads irresistibly to a poetics of the Homeric epic.