The Power of Thetis

The author reveals the full importance of mythic allusion in Homeric composition and in the experience of Homer's audience. The oral poet did not need to spell out the myth in its entirety to his original auditors, but was able to locate his characters within the mythological corpus through allusion or oblique reference. In a complex dynamic of selection and combination, modification and revision, Homer interprets the mythological material as well. The figure of Thetis, the mother of Achilles, provides an especially revealing example of how the resonance of the myths Homer incorporates contributes a wider context and meaning to the epic's central themes. The author teaches the reader to listen for what is unspoken as well as spoken in the poetry of Homer, and thereby confronts the reader with the larger questions of the function of epic and its boundaries as genres.