Abstract:
This paper presents a comparative exploration of what effect the disruption of the standard form narrative expression has on the reception process within an established traditional context, examining first the early Greek oral poetic tradition represented by Homeric epic. and then comparing the Athenian black-figure vase-painting tradition of the 6th century BC. The two phenomena to be examined are the narrator's apostrophe of a character in epic, which disrupts the normal flow or third-person narrative, and the frontal face in Attic black-figure vase-painting, which disrupts the normal representation of figures with profile heads.