Homer and Writing

Abstract

Central to the genesis of the Homeric poems is the question of writing. The poems exist in writing, but they emerge from an illiterate age and were generated through a technique of composition which does not require writing, which is even hostile to it. This chapter brings prejudgments to the study of writing and badly need a theory of the history of writing to sort out the complex data. The disadvantage of semasiography is that many forms of thought, and the best part of poetic expression, are closely wedded to speech. 'Semasiography' and 'lexigraphy' are the two categories of writing, and logography is one type of lexigraphy; Chinese writing is mostly logographic. The first wholly phonographic writings appeared at the fringes of the great Bronze Age centers of power in the first half of the second millennium.Keywords: Chinese writing; great Bronze Age; Homer; lexigraphy; logography; phonographic writings; semasiography