This book, consisting of three self-contained studies, deals with the Euripidean messenger-speech. The first study concerns the form of the messenger-speech, which is that of a first-person narrative, and the consequences of this form. The second study analyses the messenger's style of presentation. In the third study the place and function of the messenger-speech within the play is discussed.
Although scholars have dealt with the messenger-speech before, there is no single, up-to-date work of reference available. The present study aims at filling this void, while making use of analytical...

Herodotus' Histories can be read in many ways. Their literary qualities, never in dispute, can be more fully appreciated in the light of recent developments in the study of pragmatics, narratology, and orality. Their intellectual status has been radically reassessed: no longer regarded as naive and 'archaic', the Histories are now seen as very much a product of the intellectual climate of their own day - not only subject to contemporary literary, religious, moral and social influences, but actively contributing to the great debates of their time. Their reliability as historical...

This is the first in a series of volumes which together will provide an entirely new history of ancient Greek (narrative) literature. Its organization is formal rather than biographical. It traces the history of central narrative devices, such as the narrator and his narratees, time, focalization, characterization, description, speech, and plot. It offers not only analyses of the handling of such a device by individual authors, but also a larger historical perspective on the manner in which it changes over time and is put to different uses by different authors in different genres. The first...