Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Simile and the Homeric Comparative Spectrum
- 2 Similes and Likenesses in the Character-Text
- 3 A Preparation for Reading Sequences of Similes
- 4 Sequences of Similes in the Character-Text
- 5 Narrator, Character, and Simile
- 6 Similes in the Narrator-Text
- Conclusion: The Odyssey Compared
- Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Index of Names, Subjects, and Greek Words
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Simile and the Homeric Comparative Spectrum
- 2 Similes and Likenesses in the Character-Text
- 3 A Preparation for Reading Sequences of Similes
- 4 Sequences of Similes in the Character-Text
- 5 Narrator, Character, and Simile
- 6 Similes in the Narrator-Text
- Conclusion: The Odyssey Compared
- Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Index of Names, Subjects, and Greek Words
Summary
everyone appreciates a good simile. they abound in American rap. Mr. Funke of Lords of the Underground declares, “I hurdle over rappers just like Jackie Joyner-Kersee” (“Funky Child,” 1993). Talib Kweli warns, “I'm like shot clocks, blood clots and interstate cops / My point is, your flow can stop!” (“Hater Players,” 1998). In oratory competitions on St. Vincent in the West Indies, a speaker can turn to simile as he closes his presentation in the hope of impressing the judges one last time:
No, I will not, for if I continue these beautiful young ladies will fall on me just like the Falls of Niagara.
No, I will not for there is someone else behind me whose head's hot, whose heart swelling, just as a rosebud swell and burst in the month of May listening for the voice of his sweetheart.
A singer of an episode from the Egyptian oral epic Sîrat Banî Hilâl declares:
A slave inhabits the diwans,
an angel of death, within the DWELLINGS
His audience's reactions show that they have taken note:
he compares him to the angel of death
a simile
[laughter]
Homer's similes, too, have always caught the eye of readers. We are taken with his detailed vignettes set far from the battlefield: Aias fells the Trojan Simoeisios as if he were a chariotmaker cutting down a tree; Achilleus enters the battle like a proud lion willing to confront a whole town; the Trojans and Achaians fight like men quarrelling over a boundary stone between their fields.
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- Character, Narrator, and Simile in the Iliad , pp. 1 - 10Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011