Values of literature /
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Why we read literature and why we should read literature are age-old questions that have, in recent years, gained unprecedented scope and intensity, against the backdrop of what has been perceived as a world-wide crisis in the humanities. While scholars frequently discuss different types of value separately, in this volume values of literature are approached in the plural: we argue that the ethical, aesthetic, cognitive, affective, social, historical, and existential values of literature should be explored in connection with each other. The three parts of the book explore the relationship between ethics and aesthetics; the cognitive, affective, and social values of literature; and the construction and questioning of literary values in society. Throughout the book, we discuss the different things literature can do - ranging from affirmation of social dogmas to its capacities for self-questioning and challenging of moral certainties - through the dynamic interplay of its ethical and aesthetic, cognitive and affective aspects. Literature not only reflects and draws on the values of the historical world from which it stems; it also actively addresses, challenges, and transforms those values and explores new ways to understand value. Through these complementary processes, literature engages in its own distinctively literary forms of value inquiry.
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1 online resource (vi, 222 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789401212052 :
0929-8436 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Roman Ingarden's philosophy of literature : phenomenological account /
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In Roman Ingarden's Philosophy of Literature Wojciech Chojna discusses Ingarden's theory of literary works and develops a phenomenological account of identity which accommodates differences in interpretations and value judgments without succumbing to relativism. The latter is overcome not through falling back on essentialism but from within relativism. Literature offers us diverse experiences changing our perceptions of ourselves and the worlds we live inches Absolutism proclaiming unmitigated access to the meaning of literary texts is intolerant of differences and leads to violence in life. Conversely, relativism, in the illusory spirit of radical tolerance, turns meanings and values into historically contingent, incompatible interpretations, where communication and reconciliation is impossible, thus justifying ideological conflicts and violence.
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1 online resource (181 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004357181 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Courageous vulnerability : ethics and knowledge in Proust, Bergson, Marcel, and James /
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This work develops the ethical attitude of courageous vulnerability through the integration of Marcel Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time and the philosophies of Henri Bergson, William James, and Gabriel Marcel. Central to the discussion is the phenomenon of involuntary memory, taken from common experience but "discovered" and made visible by Proust. Through the connection between a variety of themes from both Continental and American schools of thought such as Bergson's phenomenological account of the artist, James' "will to believe," and Marcel's "creative fidelity," the courageously vulnerable individual is shown to take seriously the ethical implications of the knowledge gained from involuntary memories and similar "privileged moments," and do justice to the "something more" which, though part of our experience of ourselves and others, escapes rigid philosophical analysis.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004182776 :
1875-2470 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Prominent Murder Victims of the Pre- and Early Islamic Periods Including the Names of Murdered Poets : Introduced, Edited, Translated from the Arabic, and Annotated /
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Muḥammad ibn Ḥabīb (d. 860), a specialist in Arab history, tribal genealogy, and poetry, who lived in Baghdad, collected in his Prominent Murder Victims many stories of murderers and murder victims from the legendary pre-Islamic past, such as how Bilqīs, the Arabic name for the Queen of Sheba, came to power, to the assassinations ordered by viziers or caliphs in the early Islamic centuries. A lengthy appendix deals with poets from pre- and early Islamic times who were killed. The stories are entertaining as well as informative. Strikingly, the author refrains from explicit moralising. The present book offers a richly annotated English translation together with an improved Arabic text and indexes of persons, places, and rhymes.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004446359
9789004446342
The Silvae of Statius : structure and theme /
: "Revision of my doctoral dissertation submitted in 1976 at the University of North Carolina." : 1 online resource (146 pages) : Includes bibliographical references (p. 134-135) and index. : 9789004327702 : Available to subscribing member institutions only.
From Delos to Delphi : a literary study of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo /
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This detailed literary and rhetorical analysis of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo treats the poem as a unified work of art in which sophisticated poetic craftsmanship is put to the service of serious ethical thought. By means of parallels from Homer, Hesiod, and other Homeric hymns, as well as from later epideictic poetry and prose, the author seeks to show that the poet of the Hymn follows a coherent ''program'' whose intention is to praise Apollo from his birth on humble Delos to his establishment in a position of glory at Delphi. At the same time, the ''Delian'' and ''Pythian'' portions of the hymn are linked by a complex network of ideas bearing on the ethos of Apollo and the nature of his Delphic oracle. The study takes into account previous scholarship on the Hymn and provides appendices on ''The Question of Unity'' and ''The Cosmological Hierarchy and Apollo's Timai ''.
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Includes indexes. :
1 online resource (xii, 130 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 122-123). :
9789004328280 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
L. Annaeus Seneca Troades : introduction, text, and commentary /
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A.J. Keulen's new commentary on Seneca's Troades is the fruit of a lifetime devotion to this play. This extensive philological commentary on the Troades is a most welcome contribution to the study of Seneca's plays. Meaning, history and usage of Seneca's vocabulary are thoroughly discussed. The author provides ample comparison with Senecan prose and rival poets. In addition, the commentary addresses composition and word order, and discusses textual, metrical and grammatical difficulties. A full bibliography and three indices complete this valuable book.
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1 online resource (573 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 529-550) and indexes. :
9789004351080 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Ovid, Fasti 1 : a commentary /
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This commentary provides a detailed analysis of the first book of Ovid's Fasti , a complex poem which takes as its central framework the Roman calendar in the late Augustan/early Tiberian period and purports to deal with its religious festivals and their origins. Book 1 covers the month of January, and has proven to be particularly challenging to readers in light of the apparent revision/reworking of the text undertaken by the poet whilst in exile. This commentary - the most extensive yet on any single book of the poem - locates the text of Book 1 firmly in its literary, historical and socio-political contexts and seeks both to incorporate and build on the recent scholarship on the poem. In light of the special nature of Book 1, the commentary is prefaced by two introductory sections, the second of which tackles head-on the problems (and dynamics) of post-exilic reworking of the text.
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Enlargement of author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Manchester, 1999. :
1 online resource (xii, 365 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [329]-337) and index. :
9789047414179 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Aristophanes and Athenian society of the early fourth century B.C. /
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The purposes of this short monograph are to identify and analyze the problems of Athenian society with which the last two extant plays of Aristophanes - the Ekklesiazousai and the Ploutos - are concerned, as well as to examine the playright's views on the essence of these problems and on attempts to find satisfactory solutions to them. The work contains an introduction and seven sections: 1. Historical Background; 2. Poverty: Symptoms, Ideas regarding Solutions and Criticisms of Ideas; 3. Poverty versus Riches; 4. The sources of the ''Communistic'' Ideas; 5. Misthos Ekklesiastikos ; 6. The Censure of Materialism; 7. Aristophanes and the ''Middle Road''. The author has attempted here to set forth both the value of Aristophanes' last plays as historical sources and the significance of their social message.
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1 online resource (46 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 44-46). :
9789004328167 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Brill's companion to prequels, sequels, and retellings of classical epic /
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The epics of ancient Greece and Rome are unique in that many went unfinished, or if they were finished, remained open to further narration that was beyond the power, interest, or sometimes the life-span of the poet. Such incompleteness inaugurated a tradition of continuance and closure in their reception. Brill's Companion to Prequels, Sequels, and Retellings of Classical Epic explores this long tradition of continuing epics through sequels, prequels, retellings and spin-offs. This collection of essays brings together several noted scholars working in a variety of fields to trace the persistence of this literary effort from their earliest instantiations in the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer to the contemporary novels of Ursula K. Le Guin and Margaret Atwood.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004360921 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Three Aeginetan odes of Pindar : a commentary on Nemean V, Nemean III and Pythian VIII /
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A study of three epinicia of Pindar, which have in common that they celebrate victories of Aeginetan athletes and that they respond to the contemporary political situation in Aegina and to circumstances of the victory. The primary objective of this book is to provide an interpretation of each of the three odes as meaningful, coherent works of the literary art. For each ode, it provides a commentary in which problems of text and interpretation are discussed in detail, a structural and metrical analysis, and an interpretative essay, in which the observations of detail are brought together in order to provide an answer to the question as to how the ode at hand could have functioned as a coherent, meaningful epinicion . The introduction addresses questions of method and provides a description of Pindar's style.
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1 online resource (xii, 721 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 667-698) and indexes. :
9789004351240 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The rhetoric of gender terms : 'man', 'woman', and the portrayal of character in Latin prose /
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The aim of this work is to recover classical Roman assumptions about women on the basis of the surviving linguistic data. The author provides a control to her study of the connotations of the major Latin words for women in the form of a corresponding examination of how Roman authors use the various words for men. The resulting analysis throws light not only on Roman gender vocabulary but also on Roman cultural perceptions of class, moral worth and nationality. Furthermore, the author's detailed discussions of strictly linguistic evidence enable her to offer several original and persuasive insights about the traditional Latin literary representation of women. Understanding the connotative range of gender terms such as homo , vir , femina , mulier also reveals the value judgments made by ancient authors on male and female behaviour and can even be applied as a tool of historical analysis.
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1 online resource (x, 216 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 205-208) and index. :
9789004329164 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Statius Thebaid VII : a commentary /
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The epic poem the Thebaid by P. Papinius Statius, written about AD 80 to 92, deals with the fraternal strife between Oedipus' sons Eteocles and Polynices for the mastery of Thebes. Book VII describes the forced march of the Seven and their arrival at Thebes, Jocasta's vain attempt at mediation and Amphiaraus' spectacular katabasis . This book is the first which deals with Thebaid VII since Barth (1664) and Amar andamp; Lemaire (1825-30). Apart from being a commentary in the philological sense, it examines in close detail the poet's mannered style and analyses the text as a system of intertextual references. In addition to Homer and Vergil, specific passages from Euripides, Lucan, Seneca and especially Valerius Flaccus were exploited by Statius to create his challenging imitation. The identification of these sources offers the key to interpret and evaluate the poet's artistic intentions. The Introduction discusses Statius' technique of multiple imitation. The information brought together has been made easily accessible by full indexes and an appendix listing the passages imitated by Statius.
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1 online resource (xlii, 462 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 424-434) and indexes. :
9789004329393 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Studies in Euripides' Orestes /
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This work challenges recent critical assessments that emphasize the allegedly subversive elements in Euripides' play. The Orestes is found to present a curious mélange of early and late Euripidean features, resulting in a drama where the tragic potential of Orestes' predicament becomes lost amid the moral, political and situational chaos that dominates the late Euripidean stage. Throughout, emphasis is placed on reading the Orestes in light of Greek stage conventions and the poet's own practice. Of particular interest are: an original examination, in light of Greek rhetorical practice, of Orestes' agon with Tyndareus; an analysis of the Phrygian's monody as a cunning hybrid of Timothean nome and traditional messenger speech; and a re-evaluation of the play's troubling deus ex machina.
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Rev. version of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 1990. :
1 online resource (xiii, 364 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 345-357) and index. :
9789004329249 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Proba the Prophet : the Christian Virgilian Cento of Faltonia Betitia Proba /
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In Proba the Prophet: The Christian Virgilian Cento of Faltonia Betitia Proba Sigrid Schottenius Cullhed offers an in-depth study and reappraisal of the Cento of Proba and its reception. Proba's poem belongs to the few extant Latin texts from Antiquity penned by a woman writer, and one of the oldest Christian Latin poems. Schottenius Cullhed surveys and challenges common preconceptions and biographical constructions of the poem's author and early readers, and examines their impact on interpretations and evaluations of the text. The author also develops and puts to use an alternative model for understanding the poem and convincingly shows how the Virgilian source texts form a complex net of internal and external biblical typologies within the Cento .
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1 online resource (262 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-253) and indexes. :
9789004289482 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Dolos and Dikê in Sophokles' Elektra /
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The main problem facing critics of Sophokles' Elektra has always been understanding the presentation of the vengeance and the nature of justice it represents. This volume addresses the ethical issues of this play through an analysis of the language and argumentation which the characters use to explain and justify their behaviour. The focus is on the examination of the themes of aidôs and dolos , and the way in which each contributes to our overall understanding of the vengeance as an act which, for all its justice, remains shameful. By exploring the union between these two contradictory elements, this study exposes the ethical complexity of Sophokles' treatment of the vengeance theme. Dolos andamp; Dikê contains a useful critique of recent interpretative approaches to the play, a full bibliography, and a complete index of passages cited.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D)--Dalhousie University. :
1 online resource (viii, 207 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-198) and indexes. :
9789047400592 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.