> Someone back in the '50s (perhaps Douglas Bush) observed that in western
> literature there was a steady tendency for the "matter" and the "subjec"
> of poems to grow further and further apart, and this seems to have begun
> almost with the distance between Odyssey and Iliad. The "wrath of
> Achilles" is both the matter AND the real subject of the Iliad. But the
> "homecoming of Odysseus" seems somehow more of a vehicle for other
> concerns.
This calls for some thought. So, if not the homecoming, what is the real subject of the Odyssey? Adventures at sea? Monsters, nymphs -- ah, the nymphs -- or the many turns or tricks of the hero, mentioned in the first line?
The homecoming is dynamite when it happens, though. We do take a while to get there. But maybe people's conception of narrative economy and the narrative arc was different two and a half millennia ago.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether texts necessarily have subjects. Doesn't this read-in something a little didactic?
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Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com