'Almost knowing how to read': Scribes as creative partners in Homeric transmission

The ultimate origins of the Homeric texts are mysterious, despite centuries of theorizing. Although the textual transmission can be traced as far back as the medieval period, there is much disagreement about the nature of the texts and their transmission prior to that period. The present study endeavors to shed light on these issues through a close study of early papyri of Homer with a high degree of textual variation. Such papyrus texts, the majority of which are pre-150 BCE, tend to contain many readings that differ from the medieval vulgate, and are known for this reason as eccentric papyri. The first chapter of my study surveys various theories that have been put forward to explain the textual variation in early papyrus texts, and makes the case for my theory regarding the improvisational copying of certain passages. Chapter 2 examines Iliad papyrus 12, in which textual variants have a particular tendency to heighten the emotional appeal of speeches, always an essential feature of oral performance. In Chapter 3 I turn to Odyssey papyrus 31, in which variants are particularly abundant in passages that use the discourse marker autar to focus the narrative on the thoughts and actions of Odysseus. My conclusion argues that these variants, far from being the thoughtless products of incompetent copyists, make the poem both more Homeric and more Hellenistic and that my approach, which emphasizes the phenomenology of these variants rather than focusing on any particular reading, will be one of the most productive ways to interpret early textual variants of Homer as the field of Homeric studies moves forward.