(Gk.: ‘singer’, ‘bard’).
A term used by Homer to describe performers of epics (e.g. Phemius and Demodocus in the Odyssey) who sang and accompanied themselves on the Phorminx or kitharis (see Kithara). The language, musical accompaniment and details of performing practice of the aoidoi were transmitted orally, and their formulaic practice is believed to underlie the hexameter poetry of the Iliad and Odyssey themselves. Modern studies have explored the similarities between the practice of the aoidoi and that of the modern southern Slav singers of heroic epic accompanied by the gusli (see Lord). (In these oral traditions, each telling of a story – even the same story by the same performer – is likely to differ in detail.) Aoidoi were presumably independent artisans, although the Odyssey suggests that individuals could be linked to specific households.
The precise relationship between the early aoidoi and later performers of epic is not clear. There is evidence that the early kitharodes performed Homeric and other epic poetry (see Kitharode). Pausanias (Description of Greece, x.7.2–8) records that Homer and Hesiod, among others, competed in kitharodic contests at Delphi. According to Pseudo-Plutarch (On Music, 1132c) Terpander set Homeric and other hexameter verses to music in the kitharodic nomoi. The later kitharodes, however, even though the subjects of their songs remained epic, worked within the lyric tradition. From the 6th century bc the recitation of epic became the preserve of the rhapsode, a professional declaimer of Homeric and other epic who performed without musical accompaniment. Changes in epic performance at this time may have been affected by the written transmission and consequent memorization of poetry and an increase in the size of audiences.
See also Bard.
A.B. Lord: The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, MA, 1960/R)
G.S. Kirk: The Songs of Homer (Cambridge, 1962)
M.L. West: ‘The Singing of Homer and the Modes of Early Greek Music’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, ci (1981), 113–29
J. Herington: Poetry into Drama (Berkeley, 1985)
M.W. Edwards: Homer: Poet of the ‘Iliad’ (Baltimore, 1987)
GEOFFREY CHEW/DENISE DAVIDSON GREAVES