In article , Larry
Caldwell wrote:
> sag_giganospam@yahoo.de (Saggiga) says...
> > could you open a new thread talking about Troy only ? > > thanks :-)
>
> You are the one who started the thread about Troy.
>
> and it now seems likely that something like
> Troy actually existed. There is no evidence outside the Iliad that the
> Trojan War actually happened.
you'll have to start some kind of debate in order to start a thread.
that statement however sounds too reasonable. troy probably existed,
and homer's narrative probably did not, in a literal sense.
>It has been proposed that the Trojan War
> was a stock setting for poets to make up adventures.
this could be said about many factual places.
> If the Trojan War actually happened, we have found no Linear B
> references to it.
is there some translation of linear b here that i am not aware of?
>...the Myceneans
> certainly could..
> Myceneans actually existed,...
how do we know that? we have ruins from the right time period and at
the right place. we have a set of received legends that identify it as
mycene. but as far as proof, we have the same amount of proof as exists
for troy.
until, at least, someone translates linear b. and i mean someone other
than the usual collection of kooks on this newsgroup.
> ...While Homer could not read or write,..
> The Iliad is an example of pre-literate story telling. We have a few
> examples of ancient sagas that were eventually written down, long after
> they were composed.
as long as we are demanding proof for everything, we might as well
question that assumption.
how is it known that homer lived in a world of oral tradition only?
this presumes a date of between 1200bc-700bc [after linear b, before
written greek]. many assumptions have to be made, such as:
when the story was composed. the first date that presents itself is
after 1200bc; that is, after the events of the story are supposed to
take place. but doesn't that assume that the story is true? why not a
scenario where the story is much older, and the 1200bc date is a later
fictional element?
the second date is before 7-800bc, when written greek appears. then we
start to get documentation of a homeric tradition that seems to be
older. but how do we know that it's older?
compare this to arthurian tradition. geoffery of monmouth states that
many romantic stories about arthur have became popular in his era. he
states his intention to write a definitive version in response to the
popular stories of his time.
another example would be biblical psuedepigrapha, where a later author
writes a new version of an older tradition.
where is the proof that homer's work is not a later classical work? it
may have originated as written greek. the author could have used
archaic greek and old stories to give it an old-timey feel. sort of
like robert e. howard's conan speaks in a kind of king-james-bible
english.
so anyway, back to the point i am trying to make. pretty much any
statement about early history involves an amount of conjecture. that is
just a fact of life about historical studies, but it doesn't mean that
all history is worthless. there has to be an understanding between the
writer and the reader. i should be able to write the following
statements:
-homer's work is the product of an oral tradition circa 1200bc-700bc.
-troy and mycene were cities that existed before 1200bc.
the reader should be able to understand the context, such as:
-how well-documented the era is.
-that each statement rests upon certain asumptions and guesses.
once these contexts are understood, meaningful communication is
possible.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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