Arete and the Odyssey's Poetics of Interrogation: The Queen and Her Question

Arete's interrogation of Odysseus in the Odyssey is a key part of an epic-scale poetics of interrogation that generates kleos and establishes a gendered, agonistic tension between her and her husband, Alkinoos. This book reinterprets the central episode and challenges assumptions about Nausikaa and Alkinoos' hospitality, demonstrating how the Apologue is organized as a response to competing inquiries into Odysseus' fundamental status. Arete's interventions signal the larger process by which the Odyssey immortalizes Odysseus in poetry as a nostos hero.

Format: Hardback
Length: 384 pages
Publication date: 20 September 2022
Publisher: Oxford University Press

Arete and the Odyssey's Poetics of Interrogation delves into the enigmatic Phaeacian queen, Arete, as the central figure in an epic-scale poetics of interrogation employed throughout the Odyssey to negotiate Odysseus' kleos, or epic renown. Arete's interrogation of Odysseus has posed significant challenges in scholarly discourse, yet a diachronic and synchronic analysis of similar interrogations across Indo-European, Orphic, and Greek epigrammatic corpora reveals that the stranger's interrogation is a formula that necessitates performance and negotiation of status. Within the Odyssey, this interrogation forms part of an intraformular network employed to generate kleos, with Arete's question initiating the longest and most intricate negotiation of Odysseus' status in epic and memory. Arete's role as an interrogator not only elucidates her peculiar authority and resonance with both Penelope and comparative afterlife figures but also establishes a gendered, antagonistic tension between her and her husband, Alkinoos, which influences the structure, genre, and narratology of performances across the Phaeacian episode. This book reinterprets the Odyssey's pivotal episode and challenges several assumptions about Nausikaa and Alkinoos' famed hospitality, even demonstrating how the Apologue is structured as a response to competing inquiries into Odysseus' fundamental status in tradition. Ultimately, the Odyssey navigates away from Odysseus' public reputation and establishes his status in private memories, with Arete's carefully orchestrated interventions signaling the broader process by which the Odyssey immortalizes Odysseus in poetry as a nostos hero. The queen and her question invite new applications of oral poetics that shed light on the Odyssey's structure, composition, and reperformance.

Weight: 590g
Dimension: 147 x 221 x 28 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780192847805