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Transportation and Homeric Epic

This thesis investigates the impact of transportation — the phenomenon of “being miles away” while receiving a narrative — on audience response. The poetics of narrative reception within the Homeric epics are described and the correspondences with the psychological concept of transportation are used to suggest the appropriateness and utility of this theory to understanding audience
responses in and to the Iliad and Odyssey. The ways in which transportation complements and extends some concepts of narrative reception familiar to Homeric studies (the Epic Illusion, Vividness, and Enchantment) are considered, as are the ways in which the psychological theories might be adjusted to accommodate Homeric epic. A major claim is drawn from these theories that
transportation fundamentally affects the audience’s interpretation of and responses to the narrative; this claim is tested both theoretically and empirically in terms of ambiguous characterization of Odysseus and the Kyklōps Polyphēmos in
the ninth book of the Odyssey. Last, some consideration is given to the ways in which the theory (and its underlying empirical research) might be extended.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/216845
Date January 2006
CreatorsPower, Michael O'Neill, mopower@ozemail.com.au
PublisherThe Australian National University. Faculty of Arts
Source SetsAustraliasian Digital Theses Program
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Rightshttp://www.anu.edu.au/legal/copyrit.html), Copyright Michael O'Neill Power

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