Renæssanceforum 3 • 2007

Minna Skafte Jensen
Mundtlig tradition eller kreativ kopiering? Varianterne i Homeroverleveringen

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Oral Tradition or Creative Copying? The Variants in the Transmission of Homer: Homeric manuscripts are characterized by many small variants that cannot be errors of hearing or seeing, but rather of memory. In recent discussions, comparisons with similar phenomena in other transmissions have been introduced, most notably Gregory Nagy's reference to "mouvance" in medieval French poetry and Martin West's to variation in ancient cuneiform texts of Mesopotamian epic. On the basis of a critical discussion of these viewpoints a new explanation is suggested.