On-line publication of Homer Multitext related scholarship

The Center for Hellenic Studies has published on-line versions of Gregory Nagy's Homer the Classic (Harvard University Press, 2009) and Homer the Preclassic (University of California Press, 2010). Both works illuminate the methodological foundation on which the Homer Mutltext is built. In the words of Richard Martin (whose book The Language of Heroes has also been published on-line by the CHS):

Homer the Preclassic offers an overwhelming challenge to those who picture the Iliad and Odyssey as pneumatic posts, whooshing unchanged from a single authorial source onto the shelf of canonical Western texts. In a tour de force of precise scholarship and imaginative reconstruction, Nagy reexamines in full all the evidence relating to the historical reality of Homeric poetry in the period before the fifth century BCE. He demonstrates for the first time how deeply the constantly contested figure of Homer and the shifting body of poetry attributed to him are enmeshed in the ideologies of competitive festivals and performers, of religious cult and musical tradition, and of political fedearation, individual ambition, and ultimately, empire. (from the back cover of Homer the Preclassic).

The many different forces that Martin identifies have shaped the texts of the Iliad and Odyssey that have come down to us. The Homer Multitext seeks to preserve and publish the historical documents that have come down to us, precisely so that we can appreciate how the texts of these poems have been shaped through time. The Medieval manuscripts, ancient papyri, and the scholia in their margins provide fascinating glimpses into these dynamic historical realities.

Other Homer Multitext related scholarship published by the CHS includes the original French text of Milman Parry's thesis known in English as "The Traditional Epithet in Homer," Douglas Frame's Hippota Nestor, and numerous other works by Gregory Nagy, all of which can be found on the CHS on-line publications page.