This long book on non-verbal behaviour in Homeric epic argues that various aspects of non-verbal interaction, as analysed by social anthropologists, pervade the poems and can be made fruitful to our understanding of them. Part 1 introduces the project as a whole and consists of three chapters: Chapter 1 offers an outline of the field with a discussion of 'nonverbal behavior in life and literature'; Chapter 2 introduces us to non-verbal behaviour in Homer; and Chapter 3 is a case study of Iliad 24. Parts 2 and 3 are devoted to the Odyssey. Here, too, L. moves from the general to the specific: first he looks at social etiquette in the 'heroic world' (part 2) and then focuses on specific characters (part 3), such as Telemachus (Chapter 8), Odysseus (Chapter 9), the suitors (Chapter 10), and Penelope (Chapter 11). The book ends with an appendix on the use of time. It is equipped with an index and a glossary which introduces the reader to some of the relevant terminology. L. does make some interesting points, for example on the significance of spatial arrangement in the Odyssey (Chapter 7) and-less related to the main argument-on the rôle of Penelope (Chapter 11). But, on the whole, Sardonic Smile is a disappointing work. L. offers no coherent argument. His style is repetitive and often obscure, and jargon is used not only too often, but also inappropriately. German Lebensraum does not mean 'elbowroom' (p. 50); and 'Imponierverhaltung' [sic] (p. 288) is a barbarism which should not have escaped the eye of an academic editor. L.'s handling of the Greek material is hardly less problematic. Telemachus in the Odyssey may be a youth, but he is certainly not a ' βθ' (p. 117; L. glosses 'doer'); and his name will be linked with the verb υµ ξαι only by someone who has an axe to grind and little time for Greek prosody (p. 142). The same carelessness is apparent in L.'s treatment of the word 'sardonic'. Having repeatedly used it in the sense of English 'sarcastic' (pp. 99, 146, 163), L. confesses to not knowing what τασδ0ξιοΚ means when he discusses the one passage where the word occurs in Homer (p. 194). No attempt is made to explain or modify what has been said earlier. The reader is referred to the next book on the subject, while L. himself reverts to his former practice (p. 195 'sardonic suitors'). Behind the shortcomings of L.'s writing there lurks a more fundamental flaw. L. makes it his task to sell two ready-made products. On the one hand there is Homer's account of a 'cruel man's world' (p. 215 n. 22). On the other hand there is 'theory' which L. dispenses like a medicine and which we, as readers of Homer, need to swallow without further ado (e.g. p. 271 n. 53: 'Goffman. .. provides the theory for the next two paragraphs'). L. sees little need to question the often problematic claims of his donor-discipline. He does not ask what it means to speak of 'ordinary life' (e.g. p. 3) nor does he take seriously enough the question how non-verbal behaviour creates meaning (and what kind of meaning). Instead, post-Freudian notio...

Apollo and Marsyas Plato knew, and that Heidegger mistranslated a passage of Aristotle. An excellent work for browsing.

The Oxford text of this passage reads as follows:This gives the received text and punctuation. No generally agreed meaning has been found in the opening sentence as it thus stands; nor have any of the numerous alternative versions which have been proposed gained widespread support. In this paper I suggest that good sense can, after all, be made of this passage in its received form.

No abstract

No abstract