Essai

Re-considering Epic and TV

Lynn Kozak

This article builds on Kozak’s 2016 monograph, Experiencing Hektor, which argued for using television narrative strategies to re-conceptualise ancient Greek oral epic. Inverting this dynamic, this article looks at how certain features of ancient oral epic can be useful in considering television’s narrative strategies, especially when it comes to repetitive narrative elements, from diverse forms of type-scenes to repeated phrases, character epithets, and longer formulae. The article also foregrounds the roadblocks for such an approach, from confusion over what constitutes...