{"product_id":"arete-and-the-odysseys-poetics-of-interrogation-the-queen-and-her-question-9780192847805","title":"Arete and the Odyssey's Poetics of Interrogation: The Queen and Her Question","description":"\u003cem\u003eArete and the Odyssey's Poetics of Interrogation\u003c\/em\u003e explores how the enigmatic Phaeacian queen, Arete, is at the heart of an epic-scale \"poetics of interrogation\" used throughout the \u003cem\u003eOdyssey\u003c\/em\u003e to negotiate Odysseus' \u003cem\u003ekleos\u003c\/em\u003e, or epic renown. Arete's interrogation of Odysseus has been especially problematic in scholarship, but diachronic and synchronic analysis of similar interrogations across Indo-European, Orphic, and Greek epigrammatic corpora show that the \"stranger's interrogation\" is a formula that demands performance and negotiation of status. Within the \u003cem\u003eOdyssey\u003c\/em\u003e, this interrogation is part of an intraformular network used to generate \u003cem\u003ekleos\u003c\/em\u003e, and the queen's question initiates the longest and most complex negotiation of Odysseus' status in epic and memory. Arete's role as interrogator not only explains her strange authority and resonance with both Penelope and comparative afterlife figures, but it also establishes a gendered, agonistic tension between she and her husband, Alkinoos, that influences the structure, genre, and narratology of performances across the Phaeacian episode. This book reinterprets the \u003cem\u003eOdyssey\u003c\/em\u003e's central episode and challenges several assumptions about Nausikaa and Alkinoos' famed hospitality, even demonstrating how the \u003cem\u003eApologue\u003c\/em\u003e is organized as a response to competing inquiries into Odysseus' fundamental status in tradition. The \u003cem\u003eOdyssey\u003c\/em\u003e ultimately navigates away from Odysseus' public reputation and roots his status in private memories, and Arete's carefully arranged interventions signal the larger process by which the \u003cem\u003eOdyssey\u003c\/em\u003e immortalizes Odysseus in poetry as a \u003cem\u003enostos\u003c\/em\u003e hero. The queen and her question invite new applications of oral poetics that shed light on the structure, composition, and reperformance of the \u003cem\u003eOdyssey\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJustin Arft, \u003cem\u003eAssistant Professor, the Department of Classics, University of Tennessee\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJustin Arft\u003c\/strong\u003e is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Tennessee. His primary research interests include Homeric epic, oral poetics, and the Greek Epic Cycle. He has authored and co-authored articles on comparative epic cycles, Theban tradition in epic, the \u003cem\u003eTelegony\u003c\/em\u003e tradition, and the composition, structure, and themes of archaic Greek epic.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Oxford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50390534226194,"sku":"9780192847805","price":146.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_18428140-5560-46b6-b6c2-06a27a468550.jpg?v=1728950668","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/arete-and-the-odysseys-poetics-of-interrogation-the-queen-and-her-question-9780192847805","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}