Archery at the Dark of the Moon

by Norman Austin

Book by Austin, Norman

311 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1975

Reviews

[Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Archery at the Dark of the Moon, Norman Austin argues forcefully for Homer as a skillful poet fully in control of his imagery and effects. In the first chapter, he opposes the idea that Homer's formulas are strictly a way to convey simple meanings while filling out the dactylic hexameter line. Here Austin is critiquing the work of Milman Parry, though he assigns a harder, more robotic edge to Parry's theories than I got when I read his work myself. Though Austin makes some strong points, showing how some of Homer's repetitions are less formulaic than Parry's statistics suggest, I believe he misses the bigger picture. For me, Parry demonstrates how an oral poet, who is most likely illiterate, could be able to compose poems on the scale of the Iliad and the Odyssey. I think Parry's oral poet uses some of the same skillset that freestyle rappers use today. When my friends and I used to joke around with freestyling in college, we quickly developed (and stole from each other) filler rhymes that helped us maintain a flow. Thanks to Parry's work, I imagine that the Homeric formulas developed in a similar way.

Other chapters in Archery at the Dark of the Moon focus on Homer's use of metaphor and imagery, among other topics. Austin is certainly very sensitive to the qualities that make the Iliad and the Odyssey so powerful and enduring, even to this day. In a way, this book is a successor to Samuel Bassett's The Poetry of Homer. It updates the unitarian position against those who argue that the great epics have no single author.

Though Austin's arguments are often powerful and interesting, I must admit I found this book somewhat tedious to read. The chapters are very long, without convenient stopping points. As in other books with long chapters, it was hard to motivate myself to read just a few more pages when there was no end in sight.