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This book offers a new edition and comprehensive commentary of the extant fragments of genealogical and antiquarian epic dating to the archaic period (8th-6th cent. BC). By means of a detailed study of the multifaceted material pertaining to the remains of archaic Greek epic other than Homer, Hesiod, and the Homeric Hymns, it provides readers with a critical reassessment of the ancient evidence, allows access to new material hitherto unnoticed or scattered in various journals after the publication of the three standard editions now available to us, and offers a full-scale commentary of the extant fragments. This book fills a gap in the study of archaic Greek poetry, since it offers a guiding tool for the further exploration of Greek epic tradition in the archaic period and beyond.
This study of the gooi or personal laments in Homer ́s Iliad once and for all articulates the poetic techniques regulating this type of speech. Going beyond the tendency to view lament as a repetitive and group-based activity, this work shows instead the primacy of the goos, a sub-genre which the Iliad has "produced" by absorbing the funerary genre of lament. Oral theory, narratology, semiotics, rhetorical analysis are deftly applied to explore the ways personal laments develop principal epic themes and unravel narrative threads weaving the thematical texture of the entire Iliad (and beyond): the wrath of Achilles, the deaths of Patroclus and Hector, the grief of Achilles and his future death, the foreshadowing of Troy ́s destruction. Winner of the Annual Award in Classics (2007) of the Academy of Athens.
Exploring the functions of space in the Iliad, Christos Tsagalis shows how active spatial representation in similes and descriptive passages influences characterization and narrative action. He also analyzes Homeric modes of visual memory, implicit knowledge, and mnemonic formats in order to better understand descriptive and ekphrastic passages
Fourth-century Attic grave epigrams reflect a transitional phase in the evolution of the genre of epigram. They testify to a shift of interest towards social issues such as the family, the deceased’s age and profession. In a turbulent period of restlessness and uncertainty that followed the devastating Peloponnesian war, the commemoration of the departed in private monuments became an effective mechanism of displaying publicly a new set of social concerns. It is within these contexts that special emphasis has been put on the composition of sepulchral epigrams, their gradual autonomization and sophistication. This book explores this decisive phase in the evolution of the epigram by reconstructing as many ancient contexts as possible on the one hand, and studying sepulchral epigrams as a poetic art on the other.
Next to the Theogony and the Works and Days stands an entire corpus of fragmentary works attributed to the Boeotian poet Hesiod that has during the last thirty years attracted growing scholarly interest. Whereas other studies have concentrated either on the interpretation of the best preserved work of this corpus, the Catalogue of Women, or have offered detailed commentaries, this volume aims at bringing together studies focusing on generic and contextual factors pertaining to the various works of the Hesiodic corpus, the Catalogue of Women included, and the corpus' afterlife in Rome and Byzantium.
Tsagalis argues that just as the discarded text of a palimpsest still carries traces of its previous writing, so the Homeric tradition unfolds its awareness of alternate versions as it reveals signs of their erasure.
The poems of the Epic Cycle are assumed to be the reworking of myths and narratives which had their roots in an oral tradition predating that of many of the myths and narratives which took their present form in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The remains of these texts allow us to investigate diachronic aspects of epic diction as well as the extent of variation within it on the part of individual authors - two of the most important questions in modern research on archaic epic. They also help to illuminate the early history of Greek mythology. Access to the poems, however, has been thwarted by their current fragmentary state. This volume provides the scholarly community and graduate students with a thorough critical foundation for reading and interpreting them.
The Doloneia is the most controversial book of the Iliad, its authenticity being doubted since antiquity. But by applying sophisticated interpretive tools, this book maintains that Iliad 10 was not composed by a single poet, that it is thematically consonant with the rest of the Iliad, and that it has evolved from an earlier Iliadic version.
In the wake of recent advances in the treatment of longstanding problems pertaining to the interpretation of Homeric poetry, this volume brings together cutting-edge research from a cohort of acclaimed scholars on Homer and the Homeric Hymns. The variety of topics covered spans the entire field of Homeric philology: the methods and solutions provided for a new edition of the Odyssey, the puzzle of the relation between the festival of the Panathenaea and the Homeric text, the disclosure of the meaning of notorious cruces pertaining to arcane formulas, the two emblematic heroes of the Iliad and the Odyssey, Achilles and Odysseus, Homeric poetics, the range and use of repetition in a traditional medium, the composition of the Homeric epics, the Apologoi and 'Cyclic' Narrative, as well as the Homeric Hymns to Hermes and Aphrodite.
Questions about how ancient Greek texts establish their authority, reflect on each other, and project their own truths have become central for a wide range of recent critical discourses. In this volume, an influential group of international scholars examines these themes in a variety of poetic and rhetorical genres. The result is a series of striking and original readings from different critical perspectives that display the centrality of these questions for understanding the poetic and rhetorical aims of ancient Greek texts. Characterized by a combination of close attention to philological detail and theoretical sophistication, the essays in this volume make a compelling case for this kind of focused, critically informed dialogue about the nature of ancient textual praxis. Students of classical literature will find a wealth of critical insights and challenging new readings of many familiar texts.