FROM ΚΕΙΝΟΣ TO ΟΔΕ: DEIXIS AND IDENTITY IN THEODYSSEY

Abstract

Scholarship on Homer'sOdysseyhas long recognised the importance of naming and reference in the poem, particularly in the way speakers refer to Odysseus. Here I consider one term regularly used for the protagonist, but largely overlooked in these studies: κεῖνος, ‘that man’. I argue that it acquires a specific and rich association with Odysseus in the epic, one that depends on the deictic properties of the pronoun as marking its object as distant in space and uncertainly located. This is contrasted with Odysseus’ use of the proximal deictic ὅδε, ‘this man’, to reveal his identity at the poem's climax.