Narrative tradition in early Greek oral poetry and vase-painting

Archaic Athenian vase-painting of the sixth century BC exhibits visual narrative phenomena that are very similar to the verbal narrative patterns of traditional, orally composed poetry: in the poetry these are the familiar formulaic phrases and themes analyzed by Milman Parry and the ensuing train of oral theorists; in the art they take the form of repetitious iconography and recurrent compositional structures.1 In the vase-paintings as in the poems the same question arises: do the repetitions have an aesthetic or significatory function in the narrative context, or are they rather incidental and even impedimental to the process of reception? In his recent work on oral traditions, John Miles Foley (1991) has recognized the need to develop a new theory of reception for oral and oral-derived poetry, one that takes into specific account the peculiar characteristics of oral composition. It will be argued that this theory can usefully be applied also to the vase-paintings