Cognition and type-scenes: the aoidos at work

The reunion of Odysseus and Penelope in Odyssey books 19-23 is examined in terms of a repeated type-scene, the 'recognition scene', which repeatedly enacts moments of testing and reintegration. It is shown that the conversation in book 19 shows signs of backtracking through the regular motif-sequence of the recognition scene. This backtracking is further shown to be a consistent practice, where moments of initial meeting of Odysseus and Penelope are glossed over; and the reader is prevented from noticing this by the narratological techniques used.