Bill Beck
Indiana University, Classical Studies, Faculty Member
- Greek Epic, Homer, Iliad, Odyssey, Greek Lyric Poetry, Vergil, and 13 moreAncient Novel, Platonic myths, Metapoetry, Herodotus, Homeric poetry, Greek Literature, Homeric studies, Narratology, Narrative Theory, Ancient Literary Criticism, Ancient Homeric Scholarship, Homeric Scholia, and Homeric Receptionedit
- My research focuses on Homeric epic, Homeric scholia, and ancient literary criticism.edit
The volume publishes, as a special issue of the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, the papers presented at a conference under the same name held in Oxford in June 2018, hosted by Dr Bill Beck (Indiana), Dr Adrian Kelly... more
The volume publishes, as a special issue of the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, the papers presented at a conference under the same name held in Oxford in June 2018, hosted by Dr Bill Beck (Indiana), Dr Adrian Kelly (Balliol, Oxford), Dr Tom Phillips (Manchester), and Dr Oliver Thomas (Nottingham). This is also the project team for a multi-volume English translation of the scholia vetera to the Iliad, currently accepted for publication by Cambridge University Press.
The volume includes articles written by Bill Beck (Indiana), Oliver Thomas and Maroula Perisanidi (Nottingham), Richard Hunter (Cambridge), Johannes Haubold (Princeton), Filippomaria Pontani (Ca' Foscari), Fausto Montana (Genoa), Francesca Schironi (Michigan), and Constanze Güthenke (Oxford).
The volume includes articles written by Bill Beck (Indiana), Oliver Thomas and Maroula Perisanidi (Nottingham), Richard Hunter (Cambridge), Johannes Haubold (Princeton), Filippomaria Pontani (Ca' Foscari), Fausto Montana (Genoa), Francesca Schironi (Michigan), and Constanze Güthenke (Oxford).
Research Interests: Homer, Homeric poetry, Scholia, Latin Glossaries, Scholia, History of Scholarship, Greek Scholia and History of Scholarship, and 12 moreHomeric studies, Homeric Reception, Homeric Scholia, Homeric epic, Ancient Greek Scholarship, Homeric Scholarship, History of the Scholia, Homeric Greek, Medieval Greek Scholia, Ancient Homeric Scholarship, Greek scholars in Venice, and Reception of homeric scholarship in latin poetry
This article examines ancient depictions of the death of Troilus in art and literature and challenges the widespread belief that the Iliad implies an alternative version of the myth in which Troilus dies in battle. In particular, it... more
This article examines ancient depictions of the death of Troilus in art and literature and challenges the widespread belief that the Iliad implies an alternative version of the myth in which Troilus dies in battle. In particular, it argues that the death-in-battle interpretation is both insufficiently supported by the internal evidence and incompatible with the external evidence. Given the evident popularity of the story of Achilles’ ambush of Troilus in the Archaic period, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the poet of the Iliad knew the story of Troilus’ death by ambush. That the poem's only reference to Troilus does not contradict this story, and possibly even alludes to it, should persuade critics of the strong likelihood that the popular story of Troilus’ ambush at the fountain was also the one in the poet's mind.
The article has been published Open Access and can be found at the link below: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/classical-quarterly/article/how-did-homers-troilus-die/7CC9D022721A32A2E3A294A0BC3B5E38.
The article has been published Open Access and can be found at the link below: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/classical-quarterly/article/how-did-homers-troilus-die/7CC9D022721A32A2E3A294A0BC3B5E38.
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Some scholiasts had a distinctive and idiosyncratic conception of verbal mimesis in Homer, confidently finding instances that can be classified as mimetic tmesis, sonic mimesis, and rhythmic mimesis.
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The dominant interpretation of Zeus’ words at Iliad 20.21, which regards μέλουσί μοι ὀλλύμενοί περ as an expression of sympathy for dying warriors, poses a number of serious contextual and lexical problems. This article argues that Il.... more
The dominant interpretation of Zeus’ words at Iliad 20.21, which regards μέλουσί μοι ὀλλύμενοί περ as an expression of sympathy for dying warriors, poses a number of serious contextual and lexical problems. This article argues that Il. 20.21 is not an expression of compassion, but attention. Zeus is not concerned for dying warriors, but attentive to them, as indeed his deadly βουλή (Il. 20.20) requires him to be. The interpretation of Il. 20.21 has relevance to questions of great significance for the interpretation of the Iliad, including Zeus’ relationship to humans and the meaning of the Διὸς βουλή.
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This article argues that the difficulties that characters in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses experience at doorways symbolize, and often coincide with, the difficulties that readers experience in their attempts to negotiate the novel’s diegetic... more
This article argues that the difficulties that characters in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses experience at doorways symbolize, and often coincide with, the difficulties that readers experience in their attempts to negotiate the novel’s diegetic boundaries. Part 1 argues that the extensive overlap between the novel’s characters—in particular, Lucius, Aristomenes, Socrates, and Thelyphron, the sources of the novel’s first four extended narratives—complicates readers’ ability to negotiate narrative boundaries. Part 2 argues that readers find spatial analogues for their diegetic difficulties in scenes in which characters encounter difficulties at locked doors.
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Please follow the OUP link for free access to the full article: https://academic.oup.com/bics/article-abstract/64/1/48/6350157?redirectedFrom=fulltext Achilles is the most prominent warrior in Troy and he is central to the Iliad’s plot,... more
Please follow the OUP link for free access to the full article: https://academic.oup.com/bics/article-abstract/64/1/48/6350157?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Achilles is the most prominent warrior in Troy and he is central to the Iliad’s plot, but he is also absent for remarkably long stretches of its narrative. The relative peripherality of the poem’s most consequential character has been a persistent source of critical discomfort throughout the history of Homeric criticism. Driven by the assumption that Achilles’ prominence in the narrative should match his significance for the plot, the late antique redactor of the bT-scholia and his sources magnified Achilles’ role when he was present in the narrative and introjected him into it when he was absent, justifying an Achillocentric bias by projecting it onto others, both inside and outside the narrative.
Achilles is the most prominent warrior in Troy and he is central to the Iliad’s plot, but he is also absent for remarkably long stretches of its narrative. The relative peripherality of the poem’s most consequential character has been a persistent source of critical discomfort throughout the history of Homeric criticism. Driven by the assumption that Achilles’ prominence in the narrative should match his significance for the plot, the late antique redactor of the bT-scholia and his sources magnified Achilles’ role when he was present in the narrative and introjected him into it when he was absent, justifying an Achillocentric bias by projecting it onto others, both inside and outside the narrative.
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This article discusses a pair of textual variants, preserved by the scholia to the Odyssey and attributed to Zenodotus of Ephesus, that constitute the most significant pieces of evidence for the Cretan Odyssey theory. While the communis... more
This article discusses a pair of textual variants, preserved by the scholia to the Odyssey and attributed to Zenodotus of Ephesus, that constitute the most significant pieces of evidence for the Cretan Odyssey theory. While the communis opinio holds that these variants cannot be explained as conjectures, and must therefore have been based on manuscript evidence, this article proposes a new interpretation of the evidence, and argues that Aristonicus’s longdiscarded testimony (Σ HMa Od. 3.313a Ariston.) ought to be reconsidered, for it may reliably preserve the reason for these perplexing variants.
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The publication agreement with Brill prohibits distribution of the PDF in its entirety, but I provide the first page here.
http://www.brill.com/products/series/yearbook-ancient-greek-epic.
http://www.brill.com/products/series/yearbook-ancient-greek-epic.
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This article dissects the causae of the Aeneid’s plot as outlined at the beginning of the poem. After a brief examination of the way in which the narrators of the Iliad and the Odyssey lay out the motivating impetuses for their plots, I... more
This article dissects the causae of the Aeneid’s plot as outlined at the
beginning of the poem. After a brief examination of the way in which the
narrators of the Iliad and the Odyssey lay out the motivating impetuses for
their plots, I argue that Vergil deploys motivations for the Aeneid in such a
way as to imitate some of the problematic aspects of the motivations for the plots of the Homeric poems, taking into account ancient commentaries on those passages and expanding on the errors and ambiguities they point to. Ambiguous and overdetermined etiology is a problem for interpreters of the Iliad, a problem that is thematized in the Odyssey and becomes the subject of metapoetic reflection in the Aeneid. Striving to imitate and surpass his Homeric models, Vergil directs our attention to the complexity of causality in the poem and calls into question the very premise of its plot.
beginning of the poem. After a brief examination of the way in which the
narrators of the Iliad and the Odyssey lay out the motivating impetuses for
their plots, I argue that Vergil deploys motivations for the Aeneid in such a
way as to imitate some of the problematic aspects of the motivations for the plots of the Homeric poems, taking into account ancient commentaries on those passages and expanding on the errors and ambiguities they point to. Ambiguous and overdetermined etiology is a problem for interpreters of the Iliad, a problem that is thematized in the Odyssey and becomes the subject of metapoetic reflection in the Aeneid. Striving to imitate and surpass his Homeric models, Vergil directs our attention to the complexity of causality in the poem and calls into question the very premise of its plot.
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A review of Leonie von Alvensleben's Erzähler und Figur in Interaktion: Metalepsen in Homers Ilias.
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Thousands of English words derive from Greek, and while many of these derivatives are first recorded in the Homeric epics—think ‘music’ (moûsa, Od. 1.1), ‘pathetic’ (páthen, Od. 1.4), and ‘psychic’ (psukhén, Od. 1.5)—only a handful of... more
Thousands of English words derive from Greek, and while many of these derivatives are first recorded in the Homeric epics—think ‘music’ (moûsa, Od. 1.1), ‘pathetic’ (páthen, Od. 1.4), and ‘psychic’ (psukhén, Od. 1.5)—only a handful of English words actually derive from Homer. This article is about the journeys those words took on their paths from Homer, at the end of the eighth century BCE, into English today.
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The Pernicious Politics of an Ancient Pseudoscience: https://eidolon.pub/etymandrology-a417bb2ab295
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Homeric Multiformity in the Misinformation Age
https://eidolon.pub/the-homer-we-want-7e7299acdfe2
https://eidolon.pub/the-homer-we-want-7e7299acdfe2
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A Mythical Matchmaker for Modern Times:
https://eidolon.pub/okcup%C4%ABd%C5%8D-290b34933806
https://eidolon.pub/okcup%C4%ABd%C5%8D-290b34933806
Classic Hits of Classic Myths:
https://eidolon.pub/pandoras-radio-34d9b85e2f1d
https://eidolon.pub/pandoras-radio-34d9b85e2f1d
Dating Profiles of Antiquity's Most Eligible Authors:
https://eidolon.pub/pindr-d4f984f30a07
https://eidolon.pub/pindr-d4f984f30a07
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Man may be the measure of all things, but there is only one measure of a man. And when we hold up the ruler to the pelvis of antiquity, we have — time and again — been disappointed to find that the glory that was Greece isn’t just a bit... more
Man may be the measure of all things, but there is only one measure of a man. And when we hold up the ruler to the pelvis of antiquity, we have — time and again — been disappointed to find that the glory that was Greece isn’t just a bit more glorious where it counts.
https://eidolon.pub/the-measure-of-a-man-a3ae1af0dcb2
https://eidolon.pub/the-measure-of-a-man-a3ae1af0dcb2
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Donald Trump and Homer — yes, that Homer — have more in common than you might think. They’re both obviously fond of big things — big men, big weapons, big hands, and big wars — and they’ve both been criticized for disproportionate... more
Donald Trump and Homer — yes, that Homer — have more in common than you might think. They’re both obviously fond of big things — big men, big weapons, big hands, and big wars — and they’ve both been criticized for disproportionate attention shown to elite white males. Their levels of literacy remain sources of speculation and doubt. (It is possible that neither one has read an entire book in his life). Both may have employed amanuenses as a result of their failure to master writing technologies. And while they’re both proud authors, both have been accused of not actually composing the books that bear their names.
https://eidolon.pub/trumps-winged-words-9e4a9f5ce547
https://eidolon.pub/trumps-winged-words-9e4a9f5ce547