This study of the
gooi
or personal laments in Homer´s
Iliad
once and for all articulates the poetic techniques regulating this type of speech. Going beyond the tendency to view lament as a repetitive and group-based activity, this work shows instead the primacy of the
goos
, a sub-genre which the
has "produced" by absorbing the funerary genre of lament. Oral theory, narratology, semiotics, rhetorical analysis are deftly applied to explore the ways personal laments develop principal epic themes and unravel narrative threads weaving the thematical texture of the entire
(and beyond): the wrath of Achilles, the deaths of Patroclus and Hector, the grief of Achilles and his future death, the foreshadowing of Troy´s destruction.
Winner of the Annual Award in Classics (2007) of the Academy of Athens.