Calvert watkins how to kill a dragon
Calvert watkins how to kill a dragon
How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics
In How to Kill a Dragon Calvert Watkins follows the continuum of poetic formulae in Indo-European languages, from Old Hittite to medieval Irish. He uses the comparative method to reconstruct traditional poetic formulae of considerable complexity that stretch as far back as the original common language. Thus, Watkins reveals the antiquity and tenacity of the Indo-European p In How to Kill a Dragon Calvert Watkins follows the continuum of poetic formulae in Indo-European languages, from Old Hittite to medieval Irish. He uses the comparative method to reconstruct traditional poetic formulae of considerable complexity that stretch as far back as the original common language. Thus, Watkins reveals the antiquity and tenacity of the Indo-European poetic tradition.
Watkins begins this study with an introduction to the field of comparative Indo-European poetics; he explores the Saussurian notions of synchrony and diachrony, and locates the various Indo-European traditions and ideologies of the spoken word. Further, his overview presents case studies on the forms of verbal art, with selected texts drawn from Indic, Iranian, Greek, Latin, Hittite, Armenian, Celtic, and Germanic languages.
In the remainder of the book, Watkins examines in detail the structure of the dragon/serpent-slaying myths, which recur in various guises throughout the Indo-European poetic tradition. He finds the signature formula for the myth—the divine hero who slays the serpent or overcomes adversaries—occurs in the same linguistic form in a wide range of sources and over millennia, including Old and Middle Iranian holy books, Greek epic, Celtic and Germanic sagas, down to Armenian oral folk epic of the last century. Watkins argues that this formula is the vehicle for the central theme of a proto-text, and a central part of the symbolic culture of speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language: the relation of humans to their universe, the values and expectations of their society. Therefore, he further argues, poetry was a social necessity for Indo- European society, where the poet could confer on patrons what they and their culture valued above all else: imperishable fame.
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How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics
In How to Kill a Dragon Calvert Watkins follows the continuum of poetic formulae in Indo-European languages, from Old Hittite to medieval Irish. He uses the comparative method to reconstruct traditional poetic formulae of considerable complexity that stretch as far back as the original common language. Thus, Watkins reveals the antiquity and tenacity of the Indo-European poetic tradition.
Watkins begins this study with an introduction to the field of comparative Indo-European poetics; he explores the Saussurian notions of synchrony and diachrony, and locates the various Indo-European traditions and ideologies of the spoken word. Further, his overview presents case studies on the forms of verbal art, with selected texts drawn from Indic, Iranian, Greek, Latin, Hittite, Armenian, Celtic, and Germanic languages.
In the remainder of the book, Watkins examines in detail the structure of the dragon/serpent-slaying myths, which recur in various guises throughout the Indo-European poetic tradition. He finds the signature formula for the myth—the divine hero who slays the serpent or overcomes adversaries—occurs in the same linguistic form in a wide range of sources and over millennia, including Old and Middle Iranian holy books, Greek epic, Celtic and Germanic sagas, down to Armenian oral folk epic of the last century. Watkins argues that this formula is the vehicle for the central theme of a proto-text, and a central part of the symbolic culture of speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language: the relation of humans to their universe, the values and expectations of their society. Therefore, he further argues, poetry was a social necessity for Indo- European society, where the poet could confer on patrons what they and their culture valued above all else: imperishable fame.
How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics
In How to Kill a Dragon Calvert Watkins follows the continuum of poetic formulae in Indo-European languages, from Old Hittite to medieval Irish. He uses the comparative method to reconstruct traditional poetic formulae of considerable complexity that stretch as far back as the original common language. Thus, Watkins reveals the antiquity and tenacity of the Indo-European p In How to Kill a Dragon Calvert Watkins follows the continuum of poetic formulae in Indo-European languages, from Old Hittite to medieval Irish. He uses the comparative method to reconstruct traditional poetic formulae of considerable complexity that stretch as far back as the original common language. Thus, Watkins reveals the antiquity and tenacity of the Indo-European poetic tradition.
Watkins begins this study with an introduction to the field of comparative Indo-European poetics; he explores the Saussurian notions of synchrony and diachrony, and locates the various Indo-European traditions and ideologies of the spoken word. Further, his overview presents case studies on the forms of verbal art, with selected texts drawn from Indic, Iranian, Greek, Latin, Hittite, Armenian, Celtic, and Germanic languages.
In the remainder of the book, Watkins examines in detail the structure of the dragon/serpent-slaying myths, which recur in various guises throughout the Indo-European poetic tradition. He finds the signature formula for the myth—the divine hero who slays the serpent or overcomes adversaries—occurs in the same linguistic form in a wide range of sources and over millennia, including Old and Middle Iranian holy books, Greek epic, Celtic and Germanic sagas, down to Armenian oral folk epic of the last century. Watkins argues that this formula is the vehicle for the central theme of a proto-text, and a central part of the symbolic culture of speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language: the relation of humans to their universe, the values and expectations of their society. Therefore, he further argues, poetry was a social necessity for Indo- European society, where the poet could confer on patrons what they and their culture valued above all else: imperishable fame.
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While 999 out of a thousand readers would find this book too difficult and obscure for words, I must say that it has been one of the most challenging and interesting non-fiction works I’ve ever had the privilege to study. I bought it and started reading it soon after it first came out, but around page 70 I felt I needed to stop and study some Hittite before continuing. Not to mention that I’d written down so many research questions at that point that it would take months to «catch up» with my ou While 999 out of a thousand readers would find this book too difficult and obscure for words, I must say that it has been one of the most challenging and interesting non-fiction works I’ve ever had the privilege to study. I bought it and started reading it soon after it first came out, but around page 70 I felt I needed to stop and study some Hittite before continuing. Not to mention that I’d written down so many research questions at that point that it would take months to «catch up» with my outstanding questions.
I got so much from those first 70 pages that I’d have given the book five stars based on that experience alone.
Well, I explored Hittite (I could maybe order coffee in Hittite, except they didn’t have coffee back then), I followed the research notes, and I learned many details of ring structure. And this year (yeah, I know, after two decades) I decided it was time to push on through the rest of the book. Did I comprehend it all? No, especially as my understanding of Classical Greek, Avestan, and Sanskrit is poor. But I could grasp the general outlines of the thing, which is sufficiently mindblowing.
So, what the book does, is explore the existence and use of a formulaic construction in the early poetics of a number of Indo-European Language Group languages, to see if they are consistent enough to suggest that the formula dates back to Proto-Indo-European, and what it would have been in that language. The formula is, simply, HERO SLAY SERPENT, with the possibility of WITH A WEAPON or WITH A FRIEND but not both.
What the book uncovers is that this formula persists across thousands of years, retaining not just the phrase but the same words (though shifting as the languages shift and break apart), and being used poetically in a surprising consistent series of poetic forms, usually framed with a ring structure to show its central importance, and with a number of poetic games played simultaneously at the same time. The formula appears not just in epic poetry, but also in prayers, charms, legal codes, and medical formulas. It is as though it’s in our DNA.
Along the way you discover just how clever folks like Pindar and Homer and the Vedic poets were, not to mention the Icelandic skalds and Old Irish bards. And you see, in the tradition and the practice, endless evidence of an Indo-European philosophical belief: that words have power, that words persist beyond death, that the right words can cure what ails us.
The process of exploring this three-word phrase and its travels through history is unbelievably enlightening. The book is dense, and overwhelming, and difficult to describe. It’s very, very technical, and the author expects you to go look up what you don’t understand; but I never felt that he was using the technical language to impress. He just uses it to be clear and precise.
If you have an interest in where our poetics came from, or an interest in the Indo-European language, you’ll probably want to look into this volume at some point. If not, though, leave it alone.
Often engaging, never convincing.
Watkins’ premise is that it’s possible to use the comparative method to reconstruct specific formulaic constructions, metrical styles, and other figures of poetic speech of Proto-Indo-European, and it’s important not to let the book’s mountain of (variably relevant, variably credible) philological trivia and more than occasional deliberate obscurantism hypnotise you into not noticing that this premise is false. The thing about the comparative method in linguistic Often engaging, never convincing.
Watkins’ premise is that it’s possible to use the comparative method to reconstruct specific formulaic constructions, metrical styles, and other figures of poetic speech of Proto-Indo-European, and it’s important not to let the book’s mountain of (variably relevant, variably credible) philological trivia and more than occasional deliberate obscurantism hypnotise you into not noticing that this premise is false. The thing about the comparative method in linguistics isn’t just that it lets us take two words in two related languages and let us reconstruct a common proto-form that we can automatically date to the time they were one language; it’s that in reconstructing the proto-language it lets us construct a set of rules by which we can confidently distinguish true cognates from borrowings (and have a rough impression for when they were borrowed)—something that isn’t possible even in principle when it comes to any aspect of poetics.
Obviously when dealing with significant parallels in substantial bodies of work across relatively shallow time depths, it’s usually possible to say something sensible about them, but Watkins spends more time spuriously projecting trivial two-word fragments (like the overexposed κλέος ἄφθιτον) across thousands of years, and when he does try to apply his method to something more significant—»the» titular dragon-slaying myth—the best he can do is to come up with hypergeneric formulas («HERO SLAY ADVERSARY») which, for all their insipid vacuity, don’t even fit the evidence properly and require endless variation.
“And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew.”
Watkins seems to know all the literature of the Indo-European languages like the back of his hand: Avestan, Sanskrit, Old Irish, Norse, Germanic, and of course Latin and Greek. The erudition is astonishing; the close readings are revelations. For the non-linguist, however (I knew only two of his languages), there can be tedium as he unfolds his demonstration. Fortunately, all passages are translated. Eve “And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew.”
Watkins seems to know all the literature of the Indo-European languages like the back of his hand: Avestan, Sanskrit, Old Irish, Norse, Germanic, and of course Latin and Greek. The erudition is astonishing; the close readings are revelations. For the non-linguist, however (I knew only two of his languages), there can be tedium as he unfolds his demonstration. Fortunately, all passages are translated. Even without knowledge of the languages, you can feast on a banquet of comparative mythology.
A specialist textbook overusing academic language? Well I never! See:
He compared the identical Greek cadence known as the paroemiac or ‘proverb’ verse, from its frequency as proverbial utterance occupying the second half line or hemistich of a dactylic hexameter, and proposed as Indo-European metrical prototype a ‘gnomic-epic decasyllable’.
But it’s interspersed with fascinating little tidbits such as:
The Hittite Law Code prescribes capital punishment for bestiality with pig, dog, or cattle, but
A specialist textbook overusing academic language? Well I never! See:
He compared the identical Greek cadence known as the paroemiac or ‘proverb’ verse, from its frequency as proverbial utterance occupying the second half line or hemistich of a dactylic hexameter, and proposed as Indo-European metrical prototype a ‘gnomic-epic decasyllable’.
But it’s interspersed with fascinating little tidbits such as:
The Hittite Law Code prescribes capital punishment for bestiality with pig, dog, or cattle, but states that for a man with horse or mule it is not an offense, but ‘he cannot become a priest’.
How To Kill A Dragon * Calvert Watkins (1995)
This is something different! I have used the category “comparitive mythology”, but in fact this is “comparitive poetry”. The author uses the same texts as, let me say, Georges Dumézil, but where Dumézil compares what the texts say or imply, Watkins compares the texts themselves; the words, word-order, conjugations, etc. Watkins’ focus is the Indo-European realm and his aim is to show that Indo-European languages are comparable (and hence have a common source). Where investigators of myth and faerytale find “themes”, Watkins finds “formulas”; basic sentences that he finds in many different texts from many different parts of the world. One such formula is “HERO SLAY SERPENT”. Therefor Watkins compares dragon-slaying myths in many parts of his book.
The book is very technical and probably meant for fellow linguistics, so there are large parts that I just skipped through since I could not grasp what the author was talking about. More interesting to me are the many, many quotes from all kinds of Indo-European texts, expecially when the authors sets them side by side. Also interesting are the parts in which Watkins takes one ‘family’, such as German or Irish, and teaches his readers about that language by comparing it to others (especially the discussion of the Germanic word “bani” around page 420 and the “bone to bone, blood to blood, etc.” parts of the Mersebürger Zaubersprüche on page 523/4).
Quoting Eliot T. Bundy on page 116, Watkins summarizes his field of investigation:
‘What is required … is a thorough study of conventional themes, motives, and sequences … in short, a grammar of choral style … [reflecting] systems of shared symbols … ‘. these poems are ‘the products of poetic and rhetorical conventions whose meaning … is recoverable from comparitive study’. And in conclusion, ‘in this genre the choice involved in composition is mainly a choice of formulae, motives, themes, topics, and set sequences of these that have, by convention, meaning not always easily perceived from the surface denotations of the words themselves … we must … seek through carefull analysis of individual odes to the thematic and motivational grammar of choral compositions’.
Watkins is (fortunately for me) mostly interested in myth and ritual and quoting so many of them, he cannot always just focus on the words themselves, so here and there the book is more comparitive myth, like in the nice paragraph about apples that heal snakebites on page 427.
Something different indeed, but a field of investigation that might interest people who enjoy comparitive myth and similar fields. Watkins’ book makes a nice introduction.
1995 Oxford University Press, isbn 9780195144130
Уоткинс, Калверт
| Калверт Уоткинс | |
| англ. Calwert Watkins | |
| Дата рождения: | |
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