THE RESTRICTED FREEDOM OF HOMER AEDO

The following paper aims at discussing the position of the professional singer in the Homeric poems, especially in the Odyssey. We shall discuss the roles of Phemius and of the Micenas' singer. Our main task will be to examine how the songs of the singers are conditioned by two main variables: the Muse, who we can call tradition, and the political power of kings and nobles to which the singers were subordinated. We shall defend that there is always the possibility of a free movement for a singer, even if it is sometimes small. Such freedom may stay in relation to tradition, since different performance occasions and, consequently, different audiences do reasonably influence the way the singer tells some traditional story, and it may stay in relation to power structures. In such case, however, the singer's independence may manifest itself precisely in a refusal to change his song.