Enchantment and Other Effects of Poetry in the Homeric Odyssey

Abstract

Although the effect of poetry most frequently mentioned in Homer is pleasure, it was not the only effect Homer intended for poetry to produce. Such a programmatic passage as the poet’s request for knowledge in the invocation of the Muses preceding the Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.484-93) cannot be accounted for in terms of pleasure. It should be kept in mind in this respect that the effects of poetry described in the epics are invariably the effects of performance, which involved not only recitation but also music and dancing. Yet the total of the oral poem did not reside in performance. Although the Homeric singer was professionally committed to satisfying the communi­ty’s need for entertainment, his song was also the song of the Muses, deriving from the goddesses’ knowledge of everything that happens on earth. That is to say, while the song of the Muses is employed as a means of entertainment, it is far from being its only function. The Muses’ song is also the vehicle through which  people  have  access  to  things  not  given  to  them  in  their  immediate experience.  As the Sirens’ episode shows, it is this aspect of the song that produces enchantment in the listeners.