Abstract
Every communication has a relationship aspect in addition to a content aspect: this axiom of Watzlawick’s Pragmatics of Human Communication proves useful also when studying the dialogues contained in literary works. The ἀγαθός περ ἐών formula occurring five times in Homer’s Iliad has appeared difficult to interpret precisely because scholars have failed to take into account the relationship aspect of the verbal interactions described. Employed as a conventional politeness formula manifesting respect for the hearer, the ἀγαθός περ ἐών expression could also be used in contexts that clash with a ‘polite’ interpretation, thus generating mock-politeness and, ultimately, ‘impoliteness’.
Acknowledgement:
I would like to thank H. Tell for his helpful suggestions
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Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- (Im)politeness in the Iliad: The Pragmatics of the Homeric Expression ἀγαθός περ ἐών
- Who was Onymacles the Athenian? (Alcaeus 130b V. = 130.16–39 LP)
- Voices of the dead: Underworld narratives in Bacchylides’ Ode 5 and Odyssey 11
- Removing the Nationality Paradigm from Herodotus’ Histories
- Xenophanes in Plato’s Sophist and the first philosophical genealogy
- ‘Decoding’ a literary text. The commentary of Derveni
- Narrator and poetic divinities in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica
- List of Contributors
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- (Im)politeness in the Iliad: The Pragmatics of the Homeric Expression ἀγαθός περ ἐών
- Who was Onymacles the Athenian? (Alcaeus 130b V. = 130.16–39 LP)
- Voices of the dead: Underworld narratives in Bacchylides’ Ode 5 and Odyssey 11
- Removing the Nationality Paradigm from Herodotus’ Histories
- Xenophanes in Plato’s Sophist and the first philosophical genealogy
- ‘Decoding’ a literary text. The commentary of Derveni
- Narrator and poetic divinities in Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica
- List of Contributors