Ioannis Kakridis and Neoanalysis

Abstract

Abstract Ioannis Kakridis created the method of Homeric scholarship known as Neoanalysis. Starting from the Unitarian belief that the Iliad is the work of one great poet, he also drew on Analytical scholarship. Where, however, Analysts detected inartistic clumsiness and signs of multiple authorship, Kakridis saw poetic creativity and Homeric artistry in the appropriation and adaptation of motifs, speeches, and scenes present in pre-Homeric epic, folklore, and popular song, often by transferring material from one character or myth to another. Kakridis discovered in Homeric epic structural motifs and narrative techniques familiar from medieval and modern Greek folktales and popular songs. He suggested that there had been analogous, pre-Homeric folktales and songs on which the poet drew for his own artistic purposes. Kakridis shared with M. Parry an understanding of poetic tradition based not only on philological scholarship, but on a somewhat romanticizing approach to the heroic world of Homeric epic.