The potential of ancient Greek poetic etymologizing and its reception in antiquity are analyzed with new interpretive models. The author studies poetic etymology in a holistic and integrative manner, as a tool of thematic and narrative unification. Select passages from Homer and archaic lyric poetry provide the matrix for etymological patterns; their validity is examined in an intertextual study of the names of Pelops and his kin. This family exhibits a consistent naming system: the signifiers and signifieds of its male members manifest a lexical and semantic affinity; fathers and sons are linked with inherited linguistic and behavioral bonds. Pelops is given a focal position on account of his preeminence at Olympia and his polyvalent and polysemous name, in which the ambiguities and polarities of his mythic and cultic identity are embedded.

Ancient Poetic Etymology: The Pelopids: Fathers and Sons (Palingenesia. Schriftenreihe für Klassische Altertumswissenschaft) PDF

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