Zeus, Ancient Near Eastern Notions of Divine Incomparability, and Similes in the Homeric Epics

Classical Antiquity 31 (1):56-91 (2012)
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Abstract

This article explores the significance of the following fact: in neither the Iliad nor the Odyssey does one find a simile about Zeus. I argue that just as ancient Near Eastern texts characterize a god by declaring it impossible to fashion a comparison about him or her, so the Homeric epics characterize Zeus by avoiding statements in the shape “Zeus (is) like X.”

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10.1525/ca.2012.31.1.56

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The Philosophy of Rhetoric.I. Richards - 1937 - Philosophical Review 46:676.
The Philosophy of Rhetoric.I. A. Richards - 1970 - Philosophy and Rhetoric 3 (2):120-124.
Beyond literal similarity.Andrew Ortony - 1979 - Psychological Review 86 (3):161-180.
The masters of truth in Archaic Greece.Marcel Detienne - 1996 - Cambridge, Mass.: the MIT Press.

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