Arete and the Odyssey's Poetics of Interrogation

Justin Arft explores how the Phaeacian queen, Arete, is at the heart of an epic-scale "poetics of interrogation" used throughout the Odyssey to negotiate Odysseus' kleos, or epic renown. The queen and her question invite new applications of oral poetics that shed light on the structure, composition, and reperformance of the Odyssey.