Type-scene and theme in Homer: welcoming the host in Odyssey XIV

Abstract

The study of type-scene in Homeric poetry began so to speak with a book by Walter Arend (Die typischen Scenen bei Homer, 1933), who showed that in the Iliad and the Odyssey there are recurrent actions described with many similar details and words. Although Arend's book was independent of the research developed by Milman Parry about orality in the homeric poems, the concept of type-scene (or ‘theme', as used by Albert Lord) is also present in the Parry-Lord theory as one of the keystones of oral composition. Since then its definition and function have been under discussion among Homeric scholars. The objective of this paper is to analyze Odysseus' welcome by the swineherd Eumeus in Odyssey XIV focusing on the hospitality-scene and specially on the figure of the host as an ‘audience' of his guest.