Author Description

The Homeric Hymns have long stood in the immense shadow of Homer and Hesiod. Yet, delightful in their own right, they are our source for several of the most interesting Greek myths including Demeter's search for Persephone, Hermes' invention of the lyre, and the birth of Apollo on Delos. The Hymns belong to the oral poetic tradition, exhibiting the characteristic formulae, type scenes, and the narrative themes that supply the plot structure. The themes, like the formulae, entirely pervade the poems; they are not limited to a few isolated instances, but are an entire system. The major themes treated here are, the Marriage of the Fertility Goddess, Seduction, Withdrawal, Rape, The Young God's Consolidation of His Power, Invention, The Journey, and Epiphany of a God. The themes consist of sets of elements that generally follow each other in the same order, though the words may differ from story to story. The themes are related to the great mythic archetypes identified by Jung, Rank, and others. Yet each theme appears fresh, new, and appropriate to any context in which it occurs. These fresh impressions arise from the blend of the elements of theme, the poet's vocabulary, word play and other repetitive patterns unique to the poem. The character of whom the story is told also affects the theme. In the tale of Demeter, an angry, vindictive goddess, the Marriage of the Fertility Goddess is cast in the form of a Withdrawal; but with Aphrodite as subject, the Marriage of the Fertility Goddess becomes a Seduction. The gods, too, are compounded of parts; characters are made up of characteristics, just as themes are made up of elements. The Homeric Hymns are a microcosm of the mythic world. Just as there is nothing in the expression of the poems that is not formulaic, so there seems to be nothing of their arrangement 'that is not thematic.