Narrative authority From epic to drama

At the centre of this thesis are the narratives in epic, lyric, and the choral odes of tragedy. Previous scholarly work has argued that there are continuities between these genres and shown that the choral odes of tragedy contain many characteristics of epic and lyric. This thesis makes a contribution to this line of research by investigating if and how the tragic poets adopted – and developed – narrative techniques from their epic and lyric predecessors.
The argument focuses on the subject of narrative authority, or the competence that a narrator claims to have to give a reliable account of events. This form of authority is based on the relationship between the narrator and his narrative as well as his knowledge of the events in his narrative. I argue that an investigation of this subject can help interpret epic, lyric, and tragic texts. Discussions and analyses of texts, therefore, are an important part of this thesis.