Olson, 'Stranger's Welcome: Oral Theory and the Aesthetics of the Homeric Hospitality Scene', Bryn Mawr Classical Review v4n03
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-v4n03-olson-strangers

Author: Reece, Steve
Title: The Stranger's Welcome: Oral Theory and the Aesthetics of
the Homeric Hospitality Scene. 
Michigan Monographs in Classical Antiquity. Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan, 1993.  $39.50. ISBN 0-472-10386-5. 
    Review by S. Douglas Olson   
    (BMCR 4.3.10)

    The subject of this book, a revised UCLA doctoral
dissertation, is hospitality in the Odyssey, and the author's
goal is to recover the standard typology of such scenes in order
that we might appreciate their nuances much as an original
audience presumably did. Studies of this sort always represent a
certain service to the field and occasionally offer important
major insights into the structure and meaning of the Homeric
poems. All the same, The Stranger's Welcome is seriously flawed
and should not have been published in its current form.  
    Reece begins (ch. 1) by listing and discussing what he
argues are 35 typical elements of a Homeric hospitality-scene,
beginning with "Maiden at the Well/Youth on the road" and ending
with "Escort to Visitor's Next Destination." No extant scene
contains all 35 elements, and Reece therefore works his way
through seven large-scale examples of the pattern in the Odyssey,
commenting on the variations and omissions in each and their
possible significance. The scenes chosen for discussion are:
Athena on Ithaca (ch. 2); Telemachos in Pylos (ch. 3) and Sparta
(ch. 4); Odysseus with the Phaeacians (ch. 5), Polyphemos (ch. 6)
and Eumaios (ch. 7); and the return to the palace in Books
xvii-xxiii (ch. 8). In chapter 9, Reece argues that
hospitality-scenes play an important role in structuring the poem
as a whole. An appendix offers a schematic analysis of all such
scenes in the Odyssey, the Iliad and the Homeric Hymns.  
    On occasion, Reece's work leads to interesting and
potentially significant results. He does a fine job of bringing
out the essential simplicity of Nestor's household in Pylos, for
example, and nicely contrasts the atmosphere there with the
extraordinary but somewhat less personal luxury of Sparta. The
most important discussion is certainly that in chapter 4, where
Reece argues that Menelaos is characterized from the first as a
overbearing, almost desperate host, who keeps Telemachos with him
for almost a month rather than send him back to Ithaca
immediately. This interpretation forces Reece to explain away the
Spartan king's express insistence that he loathes men who retain
their visitors in this fashion (xv.69-74) and to represent his
offer of a tour of the Argolid (xv.80-5) as a further
uncomprehending effort to block the way home. In fact, Menelaos'
suggestion is little different from Telemachos' equally innocent
(and equally ineffective) effort with "Mentes" at i.309-14 and is
more economically understood as simply part of the normal
etiquette of Homeric **jen[h: guests occasionally say they are
ready to leave when in fact they are not (esp. xv.303-42; cf.
xi.328-61), and it is accordingly the duty of a good host to make
his visitors feel they can stay on with him if they wish while
nonetheless allowing them to leave the moment they insist (e.g.,
iv.587-611). Nor is the conventional (Delebecquian) chronology of
the poem, on which Reece bases his discussion, actually
consistent with the text, although this has never been
effectively argued in print. Despite all that, this is an
important and provocative reading and will doubtless be cited
repeatedly in the future. More often, the discussion in The
Stranger's Welcome is somewhat less enlightening. Thus Reece
spends almost twenty pages detailing the obvious failings in the
entertainment Polyphemos provides Odysseus and his men before
noting at the very conclusion of the chapter that these guests
are at least as well understood as burglars, which throws the
entire affair into a rather different light. More disturbing are
the frequent serious breakdowns in logic and overall coherence of
argument. On p. 154, for example, Reece defines parody as "a
self-conscious and intentional imitation for comic effect" and
insists this is not an appropriate term to describe the way Homer
adapts preexisting formulae to the decidedly sub-heroic action in
Eumaios' hut in Book xiv. This is certainly correct;
unfortunately it also contradicts the way in which Reece himself
uses the term throughout the entire preceding chapter (e.g., p.
126). Chapter 8 in particular is full of such troubles. To cite
but one example, in order to gauge "statistically" the degree of
poetic innovation in the 117 lines which, Reece judges, touch
most directly on Eumaios' hospitality (xiv.5-82, 418-56), he
arbitrarily selects for comparison another 118 Homeric verses
(only 47 of them from the Odyssey!) having to do with similar
subjects. This is no basis for serious philological or
statistical analysis of any sort, and matters become even worse
when Reece goes on to argue that the difference between values
such as 2.54% and 3.42% are to be taken as historically and
linguistically significant. This is naive pseudo-science at best,
and should not have survived the refereeing process. Nor am I
trying to split hairs here; difficulties of this and similar
sorts are in evidence throughout the book. At the same time,
Reece displays a consistent lack of familiarity with relevant
secondary literature. In a field as vast as Homeric studies has
become, no-one can possibly control all the bibliography. All the
same, the degree of omission here is truly staggering. In his
discussion of Eumaios' hospitality, for example, Reece fails to
cite either of the two most important recent studies of the
question, Rose in Phoenix 1980 and Roisman in ICS 1990. In
connection with Polyphemos, he does know Newton in CW 1983,
Austin in Approaches to Homer (1983), Friedrich in GRBS 1987 and
JHS 1991, or Peradotto, Man in the Middle Voice (1991), to cite
only references which come immediately to mind. Nor, despite its
obvious relevance to his thesis, does he ever mention Pedrick,
"The Hospitality of Noble Women in the Odyssey," Helios 15 (1988)
85-101. Examples could be multiplied, but I trust my basic point
is clear. These are all important, recent books and articles,
which touch directly on problems with which Reece is concerned;
all are in English and all are readily available in this country;
none is cited. In addition, the bibliography as a whole contains
only four items dating after 1989, about the time the original
dissertation was completed, although the inclusion of one book
from 1992 suggests this is not because the manuscript languished
endlessly in press. This too is hard to understand or justify.  
    Some of what The Stranger's Welcome accomplishes is good,
and it does make its own modest contribution to our understanding
of the Odyssey. All the same, the bottom line is that the book
should not have been published without substantial (mandatory)
further revision. It is the rare doctoral dissertation which
deserves to live on in any form other than a University Microfilm
and a few extracted articles. All the same, many younger scholars
today feel increasing pressure to produce a book as quickly as
possible, and it is not surprising that some choose to reissue a
revised thesis as a monograph. What is to be regretted is that
no-one who handled The Stranger's Welcome after it was submitted
for publication seems to have noticed its flaws and insisted that
they be corrected. Every author is ultimately responsible for his
or her own omissions and mistakes, and the willingness of others
to allow us to embarrass ourselves is no excuse for actually
doing so. All the same, this is a tragedy which could have been
averted. Perhaps there is a place in the world for a new American
series of revised doctoral dissertations in the Classics. If
monographs of this sort are to be taken seriously and do anyone
any good, however, they must be thoroughly updated and rewritten
by their authors and then conscientiously read and reviewed by
independent senior scholars and edited in a professional,
painstaking manner. Otherwise, there is no point to the
enterprise, which merely damages the credibility of all of those
involved. Serious soul-searching is in order for everyone who
participated in bringing The Stranger's Welcome to press and did
not speak up to save it while it was still possible to do so.   

S. Douglas Olson  
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign