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." Contents......Page 12 ASPECTS OF INDO-EUROPEAN POETICS......Page 16 I. The Field of Comparative Poetics: Introduction and Background......Page 18 1. The comparative method in linguistics and poetics......Page 20 2. Sketch for a history of Indo-European poetics......Page 29 3. Poetics as grammar: Typology of poetic devices, and some rules of poetic grammar......Page 45 4. Poetics as repertory: The poetic traditions of the Indo-European world—sources and texts......Page 67 5. The Indo-European poet: His social function and his art......Page 85 6. The poet's truth: The power, particularity, and preserveration of the word......Page 102 II. Case Studies......Page 112 7. Greece and the art of the word......Page 114 8. Vedic India and the art of the word......Page 126 9. Ireland and the art of the syllable......Page 134 10. Saxa loquuntur: The first age of poetry in Italy—Faliscan and South Picene......Page 143 11. Most ancient Indo-Europeans......Page 152 12. The comparison of formulaic sequences......Page 169 13. An Indo-European stylistic figure......Page 182 14. A late Indo-European traditional epithet......Page 187 15. An Indo-European theme and formula: Imperishable fame......Page 190 16. The hidden track of the cow: Obscure styles in Indo-European......Page 196 III. The Strophic Style: An Indo-European Poetic Form......Page 212 17. Some Indo-European prayers: Cato's lustration of the fields......Page 214 18. Umbria: The Tables of Iguvium......Page 231 19. Italy and India: The elliptic offering......Page 243 20. Strophic structures as "rhythmic prose"? Italic......Page 246 21. Strophic structures in Iranian......Page 249 22. 'Truth of truth', 'most kavi of kavis', 'throng-lord of throngs': An Indo-Iranian stylistic figure......Page 258 23. More Strophic structures......Page 264 24. Early Irish rosc......Page 272 25. The Aśvamedha or Horse Sacrifice: An Indo-European liturgical form......Page 282 26. Orphic gold leaves and the great way of the soul: Strophic style, funerary ritual formula, and eschatology......Page 294 HOW TO KILL A DRAGON IN INDO-EUROPEAN: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE THEORY OF THE FORMULA......Page 310 IV. The Basic Formula and Its Variants in the Narration of the Myth......Page 312 27. Preliminaries......Page 314 28. The root *g[sup(u)]hen-: Vedic han-......Page 321 29. The root *g[sup(u)]hen-: Avestan jan-......Page 330 30. The root *g[sup(u)]hen-: Hittite kuen- and the Indo-European theme and formula......Page 338 31. The slayer slain: A reciprocal formula......Page 341 32. First variant: The root *udeh-......Page 347 33. 'Like a reed': The Indo-European background of a Luvian ritual......Page 352 34. Second variant: the root *terh[sub(2)]-......Page 360 35. Latin tarentum, the ludi saeculares, and Indo-European eschatology......Page 364 36. The myth in Greece: Variations on the formula and theme......Page 374 37. Expansion of the formula: A recursive formulaic figure......Page 387 38. Herakles, the formulaic hero......Page 391 39. Hermes, Enualios, and Lukoworgos: The Serpent-slayer and the Man-slayer......Page 400 40. Nektar and the adversary Death......Page 408 41. The saga of Iphitos and the hero as monster......Page 415 42. The name of Meleager......Page 425 43. The Germanic world......Page 431 44. Thor's hammer and the mace of Contract......Page 446 V. Some Indo-European Dragons and Dragon-Slayers......Page 456 45. Fergus mac Léti and the muirdris......Page 458 46. Typhoeus and the Illuyankas......Page 465 47. Python and Ahi Budhnya, the Serpent of the Deep......Page 477 48. Azi dakāka, Viśvarupa, and Geryon......Page 481 VI. From Myth to Epic......Page 486 49. From God to hero: The formulaic network in Greek......Page 488 50. The best of the Achaeans......Page 500 51. To be the death of: Transformation of the formula......Page 505 52. The formula without the word: A note on Euripides and Lysias......Page 510 53. The basic formula and the announcement of death......Page 516 54. Further Indo-European comparisons and themes......Page 522 55. The song of victory in Greek......Page 527 VII. From Myth to Charm......Page 534 56. From dragon to worm......Page 536 57. The charms of Indo-European......Page 542 58. Indo-European medical doctrine......Page 554 59. The poet as healer......Page 557 Abbreviations......Page 562 References......Page 567 B......Page 594 D......Page 595 G......Page 596 L......Page 597 M......Page 598 P......Page 599 S......Page 600 T......Page 601 Z......Page 602 Index of passages......Page 603 Index of words......Page 618 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."

Teeming with creatures, both real and imagined, this encyclopedic study in cultural history illuminates the hidden web of connections between the Victorian fascination with fairies and their lore and the dominant preoccupations of Victorian culture at large. Carole Silver here draws on sources ranging from the anthropological, folkloric, and occult to the legal, historical, and medical. She is the first to anatomize a world peopled by strange beings who have infiltrated both the literary and visual masterpieces and the minor works of the writers and painters of that era.

Examining the period of 1798 to 1923, Strange and Secret Peoples focuses not only on such popular literary figures as Charles Dickens and William Butler Yeats, but on writers as diverse as Thomas Carlyle, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Charlotte Mew; on artists as varied as mad Richard Dadd, Aubrey Beardsley, and Sir Joseph Noel Paton; and on artifacts ranging from fossil skulls to photographs and vases. Silver demonstrates how beautiful and monstrous creatures—fairies and swan maidens, goblins and dwarfs, cretins and changelings, elementals and pygmies—simultaneously peopled the Victorian imagination and inhabited nineteenth-century science and belief. Her book reveals the astonishing complexity and fertility of the Victorian consciousness: its modernity and antiquity, its desire to naturalize the supernatural, its pervasive eroticism fused with sexual anxiety, and its drive for racial and imperial dominion.

INDO-EUROPEAN is the name that has been given since the early 19th century to the large and well-defined genetic family which includes most of the languages of Europe, past and present, and which extended geographically, before the colonization of the New World, from Iceland and Ireland in the west across Europe and Asia Minor-where Hittite was spoken-through Iran to the northern half of the Indian subcontinent. IN 1846, WILLIAM JOHN THOMS, who contributed the term folklore to the English language, commented in The Athenaeum that "belief in fairies is by no means extinct in England" (Merton, p. 55).

in how To Kill A Dragon Calvert Watkins Follows The Continuum Of Poetic Formulae In Indo-european Languages, From Old Hittite To Medieval Irish.