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The cultures of ancient China and ancient Greece have exerted immeasurable influence on later civilizations. The texts and cultural values of classical China spread throughout East Asia and became the foundation of learning in Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Greek learning and culture receive credit for many of the intellectual paradigms of the West. Probably the one which is most distinctly Western is the tradition of logical proof and the related assumption that, as Aristotle put it in 'Metaphysics' 980, 'we all desire to know.' In contrast, the Chinese tradition, as exemplified by Laozi's 'Dao de jing,' cautions that through our desire to know we may forfeit wisdom, thus engendering a split bet...
In this groundbreaking book, Dennis R. MacDonald offers an entirely new view of the New Testament gospel of Mark. The author of the earliest gospel was not writing history, nor was he merely recording tradition, MacDonald argues. Close reading and careful analysis show that Mark borrowed extensively from the Odyssey and the Iliad and that he wanted his readers to recognise the Homeric antecedents in Mark's story of Jesus. Mark was composing a prose anti-epic, MacDonald says, presenting Jesus as a suffering hero modeled after but far superior to traditional Greek heroes. Much like Odysseus, Mark's Jesus sails the seas with uncomprehending companions, encounters preternatural opponents, and suffers many things before confronting rivals who have made his house a den of thieves. In his death and burial, Jesus emulates Hector, although unlike Hector Jesus leaves his tomb empty. Mark's minor characters, too, recall Homeric predecessors: Bartimaeus emulates Tiresias; Joseph of Arimathea, Priam; and the women at the tomb, Helen, Hecuba, and Andromache. And, entire episodes in Mark mirror Homeric episodes, including stilling the sea, walking on water, feeding the multitudes, the Triumphal E
The myth of the Calydonian boar-hunt belongs to the great mythical cycles of the ancient world. P. Grossardt now offers the first complete presentation of all literary sources of the Calydonian hunt, as well as of other adventures of its central hero Meleagros. The sources have been arranged by genre and their literary context has been taken well into account. The author gives special attention to the development of different versions of the legend. Individual poets, Grossardt observes, used the myth of the Calydonian boar-hunt as a functional element in a larger context or in conscious contrast to older texts. In reconstructing the prehistory of the legend and its religious background, the author shows that the Calydonian boar-hunt myth originally had the function of an aition for the cult of Artemis Laphria and that it was taken up by the epic tradition long before Homer.
In dramatic representations and narrative reports of inner deliberation the Odyssey displays the workings of the human mind and its hero's practical intelligence, epitomized by anticipating consequences and controlling his actions accordingly. Once his hope of returning home as husband, father and king is renewed on Calypso's isle, Odysseus shows a consistent will to focus on this purpose and subordinate other impulses to it. His fabled cleverness is now fully engaged in a gradually emerging plan, as he thinks back from that final goal through a network of means to achieve it. He relies on "signs"--inferences in the form "if this, then that" as defined by the Stoic Chrysippus--and the nature...
This collection of essays deals with one central problem: who is the "I" in the odes of the ancient Greek poet Pindar? Since antiquity, the complex and allusive language of the first-person statements has provoked many different answers. In First Person Fictions, Lefkowitz describes the function and nature of Pindar's "I"-statements and offers a controversial solution, proposing that the voice of the victory odes is, rather than a changing identity, the voice of the poet himself. Also refuting the traditional belief that the odes were sung by a chorus, Lefkowitz shows that in most cases they were sung as solos in the tradition of the Homeric bards. Extensively rewritten since their publication as articles, these essays are sure to provide a controversial and stimulating approach to the study of Pindar.
Thalmann concentrates on the representation of slaves and on the dynamics of competition and family structure in the contest of the bow to interpret the Odyssey - and, implicity, epic poetry generally - as an intervention in the conflicts that surrounded the birth of the polis.
Taking the culturally resonant motif of the descent to the underworld as his guiding thread, David L. Pike traces the interplay between myth and history in medieval and modernist literature. Passage through Hell suggests new approaches to the practice of comparative literature, and a possible escape from the current morass of competing critical schools and ideologies. Pike's readings of Louis Ferdinand Céline and Walter Benjamin reveal the tensions at work in the modern appropriation of structures derived from ancient and medieval descents. His book shows how these structures were redefined in modernism and persist in contemporary critical practice. In order to recover the historical corpus...
Dieser Band versammelt Beiträge von namhaften europäischen und amerikanischenAltertumswissenschaftlern und Religionswissenschaftlern, die einen repräsentativen Querschnitt der zeitgenössischen Erforschung des Mythos, seiner Erscheinungsformen und seiner Transformationen in unterschiedlichen Bereichen und Epochen darbieten.
This is the first volume of a projected six-volume Commentary on Homer's Iliad, under the General Editorship of professor G.S. Kirk. Professor Kirk himself is the editor of the present volume, which covers the first four Books of Iliad. It consists of four introductory chapters, dealing in particular with rhythm and formular techniques, followed by the detailed commentary which aims at helping serious readers by attempting to identify and deal with most of the difficulties which might stand in the way of a sensitive and informed response to the poem. The Catalogues in Book 2 recieve especially full treatment. The book does not include a Greek text - important matters pertaining to the text are discussed in the commentary. It is hoped that the volume as a whole will lead scholars to a better understanding of the epic style as well as of many well-known thematic problems on a larger scale. This Commentary will be an essential reference work for all students of Greek literature. Archaeologists and historians will also find that it contains matters of relevance to them.