Kategoria BISAC: Literary Criticism >> Ancient and Classical

Ancient Greece has for too long been studied in isolation from its Near Eastern neighbors. And the ancient Near East itself has for too long been seen as an undifferentiated cultural monolith. Classics and Near Eastern Studies, in our modern universities, continue to be separated by various disciplinary, linguistic, and ideological walls. Yet there is a growing trend to dismantle these divides and look at the Greek world within its fullest geographical and cultural contexts.

This book aims to bring the comparative study of Greek and Near Eastern cosmogonies to a new level. It...

Arion's Lyre examines how Hellenistic poetic culture adapted, reinterpreted, and transformed Archaic Greek lyric through a complex process of textual, cultural, and creative reception. Looking at the ways in which the poetry of Sappho, Alcaeus, Ibycus, Anacreon, and Simonides was preserved, edited, and read by Hellenistic scholars and poets, the book shows that Archaic poets often look very different in the new social, cultural, and political setting of Hellenistic Alexandria. For example, the Alexandrian Sappho evolves from the singer of Archaic Lesbos but has distinct...

Beginning with Sappho in the seventh century B.C.E and ending with Egeria in the fifth century C.E., Snyder profiles ancient Greek and Roman women writers, including lyric and elegiac poets and philosophers and other prose writers. The writers are allowed to speak for themselves, with as much translation from their extant works provided in text as possible. In addition to giving readers biographical and cultural context for the writers and their works, Snyder refutes arguments representing prejudicial attitudes about women s writing found in the scholarly literature. Covering writers from...

In ancient Greece, the spoken word connoted power, whether in the free speech accorded to citizens or in the voice of the poet, whose song was thought to know no earthly bounds. But how did silence fit into the mental framework of a society that valued speech so highly? Here Silvia Montiglio provides the first comprehensive investigation into silence as a distinctive and meaningful phenomenon in archaic and classical Greece. Arguing that the notion of silence is not a universal given but is rather situated in a complex network of associations and values, Montiglio seeks to establish...

Beyond the Fifth Century brings together 13 scholars from various disciplines (Classics, Ancient History, Mediaeval Studies) to explore interactions with Greek tragedy from the 4th century BCE up to the Middle Ages. The volume breaks new ground in several ways. Its chronological scope encompasses periods that are not usually part of research on tragedy reception, especially the Hellenistic period, late antiquity and the Middle Ages. The volume also considers not just performance reception but various other modes of reception, between different literary genres and media...

Agonistic or friendly song exchange in idyllic settings forms the very heart of Roman pastoral. It is also a key means of metapoetic stance-taking on the part of the long line of authors who have cultivated this "traditional" genre. The present book examines the motif of song exchange in Roman bucolic poetry under this double aspect: as a central theme with established or constantly forming sub-themes and paraphernalia (thus providing a comprehensive listing, description and analysis of such scenes in the totality of Roman literature), and as the locus where, thanks to its very...