Naming the gods: traditional verse-making in Homer and Old Babylonian Akkadian poetry

Abstract

This is an investigation of character-naming expressions in early Greek (ca. eighth–sixth c. BC) and Old Babylonian Akkadian narrative poetry (ca. nineteenth–seventeenth c. BC). It compares the mentions of Zeus and Enlil (the Babylonian chief god) in Iliad Book 8 and OB Atra-hasis, and proposes a three-layered classification system based on degrees of traditionality. The system involves metre and repetition parameters, and accounts for the techniques through which poets in both traditions made the mention sound venerable and ancient. Control cases include other characters in the Iliad (Diomedes, Hector) and OB Akkadian poetry (Isthar, Ea). The resulting figures are commensurate for the two traditions, supporting the hypothesis of a similar degree of orality-literacy interaction. The article seeks to offer a model for fine-grained cross-cultural literary criticism and verse study.

Keywords

• homer
• babylonian epic
• oral-derived texts
• formulaic structures
• comparative poetics
• divine epithets