Author: Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1350255777 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 257
Book Description
This collection of essays sheds new light on the relationship between two of the main drivers of intellectual discourse in ancient Greece: the epic tradition and the Sophists. The contributors show how throughout antiquity the epic tradition proved a flexible instrument to navigate new political, cultural, and philosophical contexts. The Sophists, both in the Classical and the Imperial age, continuously reconfigured the value of epic poetry according to the circumstances: using epic myths allowed the Sophists to present themselves as the heirs of traditional education, but at the same time this tradition was reshaped to encapsulate new questions that were central to the Sophists' intellectual agenda. This volume is structured chronologically, encompassing the ancient world from the Classical Age through the first two centuries AD. The first chapters, on the First Sophistic, discuss pivotal works such as Gorgias' Encomium of Helen and Apology of Palamedes, Alcidamas' Odysseus or Against the Treachery of Palamedes, and Antisthenes' pair of speeches Ajax and Odysseus, as well as a range of passages from Plato and other authors. The volume then moves on to discuss some of the major works of literature from the Second Sophistic dealing with the epic tradition. These include Lucian's Judgement of the Goddesses and Dio Chrysostom's orations 11 and 20, as well as Philostratus' Heroicus and Imagines.
Author: Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1350255785 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 257
Book Description
This collection of essays sheds new light on the relationship between two of the main drivers of intellectual discourse in ancient Greece: the epic tradition and the Sophists. The contributors show how throughout antiquity the epic tradition proved a flexible instrument to navigate new political, cultural, and philosophical contexts. The Sophists, both in the Classical and the Imperial age, continuously reconfigured the value of epic poetry according to the circumstances: using epic myths allowed the Sophists to present themselves as the heirs of traditional education, but at the same time this tradition was reshaped to encapsulate new questions that were central to the Sophists' intellectual agenda. This volume is structured chronologically, encompassing the ancient world from the Classical Age through the first two centuries AD. The first chapters, on the First Sophistic, discuss pivotal works such as Gorgias' Encomium of Helen and Apology of Palamedes, Alcidamas' Odysseus or Against the Treachery of Palamedes, and Antisthenes' pair of speeches Ajax and Odysseus, as well as a range of passages from Plato and other authors. The volume then moves on to discuss some of the major works of literature from the Second Sophistic dealing with the epic tradition. These include Lucian's Judgement of the Goddesses and Dio Chrysostom's orations 11 and 20, as well as Philostratus' Heroicus and Imagines.
Author: Daniel S. Richter Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199837473 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 777
Book Description
The study of the Second Sophistic is a relative newcomer to the Anglophone field of classics, and much of what characterizes it temporally and culturally remains a matter of legitimate contestation. This Handbook offers a diversity of scholarly voices that attempt to define the state of this developing field. Included are chapters that offer practical guidance on the wide range of valuable textual materials that survive, many of which are useful or even core to inquiries of particularly current interest (e.g., gender studies, cultural history of the body, sociology of literary culture, history of education and intellectualism, history of religion, political theory, history of medicine, cultural linguistics, intersection of the classical traditions and early Christianity).
Author: Kendra Eshleman Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1139851837 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 305
Book Description
This book examines the role of social networks in the formation of identity among sophists, philosophers and Christians in the early Roman Empire. Membership in each category was established and evaluated socially as well as discursively. From clashes over admission to classrooms and communion to construction of the group's history, integration into the social fabric of the community served as both an index of identity and a medium through which contests over status and authority were conducted. The juxtaposition of patterns of belonging in Second Sophistic and early Christian circles reveals a shared repertoire of technologies of self-definition, authorization and institutionalization and shows how each group manipulated and adapted those strategies to its own needs. This approach provides a more rounded view of the Second Sophistic and places the early Christian formation of 'orthodoxy' in a fresh context.
Author: Roger Brock Publisher: A&C Black ISBN: 1472502175 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 341
Book Description
The great helmsman, the watchdog of the people, the medicine the state needs: all these images originated in ancient Greece, yet retain the capacity to influence an audience today. This is the first systematic study of political imagery in ancient Greek literature, history and thought, tracing it from its appearance, influenced by Near Eastern precursors, in Homer and Hesiod, to the end of the classical period and Plato's deployment of images like the helmsman and the doctor in the service of his political philosophy. The historical narrative is complemented by thematic studies of influential complexes of images such as the ship of state, the shepherd of the people, and the state as a household, and enhanced by parallels from later literature and history which illustrate the persistence of Greek concepts in later eras.
Author: Barbara Graziosi Publisher: A&C Black ISBN: 1849667500 Category : Poetry Languages : en Pages : 177
Book Description
This book offers a new approach to the study of Homeric epic by combining ancient Greek perceptions of Homer with up-to-date scholarship on traditional poetry. Part I argues that, in the archaic period, the Greeks saw the lliad and Odyssey neither as literary works in the modern sense nor as the products of oral poetry. Instead, they regarded them as belonging to a much wider history of the divine cosmos, whose structures and themes are reflected in the resonant patterns of Homer's traditional language and narrative techniques. Part II illustrates this claim by looking at some central aspects of the Homeric poems: the gods and fate, gender and society, death, fame and poetry. Each section shows how the patterns and preoccupations of Homeric storytelling reflect a historical vision that encompasses the making of the universe, from its beginnings when Heaven mated with Earth, to the present day.
Author: D. C. Feeney Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand ISBN: 9780198149385 Category : Computers Languages : en Pages : 449
Book Description
The role of the gods in the classical world's epic tradition has been the subject of controversy since ancient times, and many modern readers continue to find their presence a source of frustration. Although the problem of the gods in some individual works has been intensely discussed, this is the first study to be devoted to the classical literary tradition as a whole, together with the apparatus of critical scholarship which was part of that tradition. The work of the ancient critics provides some access to the interpretative conventions of the original reading community, while their theories of fiction and genre also shed light on the problems of the truth-value of epic fiction and the kind of belief that poetry generates. Their work is only a preliminary guide, however, and the major portion of this study is devoted to the poets themselves and to the themes particularly associated with them: discussion of fiction is located with Apollonius, allegory with Statius, anthropomorphism with Ovid, and so on. The survey seeks to restore a sense of the power of this unique form of fiction.
Author: Catherine M. Keesling Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108211275 Category : Art Languages : en Pages : 329
Book Description
In this book, Catherine M. Keesling lends new insight into the origins of civic honorific portraits that emerged at the end of the fifth century BC in ancient Greece. Surveying the subjects, motives and display contexts of Archaic and Classical portrait sculpture, she demonstrates that the phenomenon of portrait representation in Greek culture is complex and without a single, unifying history. Bringing a multi-disciplinary approach to the topic, Keesling grounds her study in contemporary texts such as Herodotus' Histories and situates portrait representation within the context of contemporary debates about the nature of arete (excellence), the value of historical commemoration and the relationship between the human individual and the gods and heroes. She argues that often the goal of Classical portraiture was to link the individual to divine or heroic models. Offering an overview of the role of portraits in Archaic and Classical Greece, her study includes local histories of the development of Greek portraiture in sanctuaries such as Olympia, Delphi and the Athenian Acropolis.
Author: Michael Share Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1350113131 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 233
Book Description
This volume completes, starting from chapter 6, the commentary by the young Philoponus on Aristotle's Categories, of which chapters 1–5 were previously published in this series (Philoponus: On Aristotle Categories 1–5 with Philoponus: A Treatise Concerning the Whole and the Parts). This ancient commentary was the first work in the Aristotelian syllabus after a general introduction to Aristotle by the same author. It is influenced by an extant short anonymous record of Philoponus' teacher Ammonius' lectures on the same work, but Philoponus' commentary is two and a half times as long as that anonymous record, and includes special contributions of Philoponus' own, for example in philology, Christian theology and in disagreements with Aristotle. This English translation of Philoponus' work is the latest volume in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series and makes this philosophical work accessible to a modern readership. The translation is accompanied by an introduction, comprehensive commentary notes, bibliography, glossary of translated terms and a subject index.
Author: Philostratus (the Athenian) Publisher: BRILL ISBN: 9789004127012 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
This English translation, with introduction and notes, an extensive glossary, maps, and topical bibliographies, explores religious authority and revealed knowledge and is indispensable for the study of Homer, heroes, literature, religion, and culture in the Roman Empire and Late Antiquity. Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org).
Author: 
Author: 
Author: Daniel S. Richter
Author: Kendra Eshleman
Author: Roger Brock
Author: Barbara Graziosi
Author: D. C. Feeney
Author: Catherine M. Keesling
Author: Michael Share
Author: Philostratus (the Athenian)