Groaning tears : ethical and dramatic aspects of suicide in Greek tragedy /
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Groaning Tears examines suicide in Greek tragedy in light of the fifth-century ethical climate. No full-scale work has previously been devoted to this pervasive topic. The particular focus of identifying suicide as a response to the expectations of popular ethics and social demands makes it useful for scholars and students of drama, ethics and sociology. Chapter one establishes the ethical background of audiences in the fifth century while chapters two through five examine suicide in the context of whole plays based on motivational distinctions: to avoid disgrace and preserve an honorable reputation; to avoid further suffering; to end grief; and to sacrifice oneself for a greater good. The final chapter considers a drama of lighter tone that presents suicide in all of its ethical and theatrical aspects.
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1 online resource (x, 210 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 186-199) and index. :
9789004329522 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
History of the Graeco-Latin fable /
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Spanning from Sumer to the present day few literary genres show greater continuity throughout their history than the fable. Historical evidence reaching as far back as Antiquity, supports the study of more than 500 works considered to be fables. This translation of the original Spanish, standard work on the fable, traces the history of the Graeco-Latin fable, investigates its origins, reconstructs lost collections from the Hellenistic Age, and establishes relationships between the fablist of the Imperial Age and the study of Medieval, Greek and Latin fables. Supplements at the end of each chapter have been added, giving information on a new bibliography and some new data, together with references to subsequent studies.
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"This edition has been revised and updated by the author and Gert-Jan van Dijk." :
1 online resource (3 volumes (xviii, 740, xx, 756, xlviii, 1168 pages)) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004351202 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Theatrum Arbitri : theatrical elements in the Satyrica of Petronius /
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Theatrum Arbitri is a literary study dealing with the possible influence of Roman comic drama (comedies of Plautus and Terence, theatre of the Greek and Roman mimes, and fabula Atellana ) on the surviving fragments of Petronius' Satyrica . The theatrical assessment of this novel is carried out at the levels of plot-construction, characterization, language, and reading of the text as if it were the narrative equivalent of a farcical staged piece with the theatrical structure of a play produced before an audience. The analysis follows the order of each of the scenes in the novel. The reader will also find a brief general commentary on the less discussed scenes of the Satyrica , and a comprehensive account of the theatre of the mimes and its main features.
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Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.--University of Glasgow, 1993). :
1 online resource (xxv, 225 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-207) and indexes. :
9789004329515 :
0169-8958 ; :
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Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, Book I : a commentary /
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This work provides a full commentary on the first book of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica , an epic which has received increased attention in the last few decades, as may be seen from two recent editions (1997 and 2003). Its first aim is to clarify the text, which is sometimes rather difficult and, in places, still not established with certainty. Apart from this philological aspect, the literary merits of the poem have also been taken into account.
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1 online resource (xviii, 506 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 493-503) and indexes. :
9789047405672 :
0169-8958 ; :
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The Chaonian dove : studies in the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid of Virgil /
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This is the first book-length critical study of the three Virgilian works to be published in English for twenty years. It examines in detail the thematic design and intent of the Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid , and documents the development of their political, moral and poetic pessimism. It presents the interrelationship of the three texts, their intertextuality, as integral to their meaning. The book is in three main parts - 'Pastoral Meditation', 'Didactic Paradox', 'Epic Vision' - corresponding to the three Virgilian works. A brief introductory chapter is concerned with questions of method and the problem of Virgil misread. A chief focus of the book is Virgil's preoccupation with the relationship between poetry, art - art's values, perceptions, visions - and the political/historical world, and the changing nature of Virgil's attitude to the socio-moral responsibilities of Rome. The evolution of Vergil's presentation both of Roman imperium and of man's place in nature and history is carefully delineated. With close scrutiny of the language, imagery, structures and design of the three texts and of their verbal and thematic interrelationship, the book offers a substantial reassessment of the major political, psychological and moral ideas of Virgil's poetic oeuvre . An intricate and persuasive picture emerges of Virgil's intellectual and poetic development and a radically new conception of Virgil's image of himself as poet. The provision of translations makes the book accessible to the Latinless reader.
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Includes indexes. :
1 online resource (x, 196 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 180-183). :
9789004328297 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Narrative setting and dramatic poetry /
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This volume evaluates a single element of tragic art, namely the way in which narrative descriptions of place participate in the poetry of tragedy. They join together structures of the theater to create a context for tragic performance, and ultimately reflect upon tragedy's connection to earlier narrative forms and to the traditional tales that regularly supply tragic plots. The first part of this book examines the introductory function of spatial descriptions and the peculiar resources offered to the playwright by cult settings. In the second part, the spatial oppositions, that are inherent structuring devices in traditional tales, are taken up in chapters treating the motif of exile in extant tragedy.
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Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral--Yale), presented in 1985 under the title, Setting and theme in Greek tragedy. :
1 online resource (178 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 162-168) and index. :
9789004329201 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Psychological and ethical ideas : what early Greeks say /
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Psychological and Ethical Ideas studies what Greek poets and philosophers of the Archaic Age of Greece say about certain psychological and ethical ideas. These ideas include "psychological activity", "soul", "excellence", and "justice". These ideas were chosen to show how early Greek individuals think, act, and relate to other people and to their universe. The book first discusses the nature of the literature of the Archaic Age. It then treats in detail what early Greeks say about the four ideas, presenting numerous quotations (all in translation). The book concludes with an overview of the ideas discussed. The book introduces the reader to important ideas of the Archaic Age, showing what both poets and philosophers thought. These ideas are central to this period and were to have an important role in the literature and philosophy of later Greek authors, especially in the drama of the fifth century and the philosophy of the fourth century.
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1 online resource (xii, 262 pages) : maps. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 243-249) and indexes. :
9789004329492 :
0169-8958 ; :
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The renewal of epic : responses to Homer in the Argonautica of Apollonius /
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The Renewal of Epic considers various modes of allusion to Homer in the Argonautica of Apollonius, dealing not only with similarities in phraseology but also with thematic and structural resemblances. After an introduction, two chapters discuss Apollonian techniques in treating repeated Homeric scenes: sacrifice, shipwreck, boxing and battle. The central section of the work considers the multiple links between the adventures of the Argonauts and Odysseus' wanderings. A final chapter explores Apollonius' innovative treatment of the divine, both generally and in particular scenes. The work shows convincingly that the Argonautica reproduces many of the patterns which have been found in the Iliad and Odyssey . It demonstrates the presence of allusion at every level in the poem, linking it to its predecesors and acting as an essential interpretative aid to the reader.
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1 online resource (x, 335 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 306-317) and indexes. :
9789004329775 :
0169-8958 ; :
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Leaving words to remember : Greek mourning and the advent of literacy /
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This volume examines the influence of literacy on the development of different genres of mourning in ancient Greece. The oral tradition of lament in the Homeric poems forms the point of departure for close readings of epigraphic material and written texts commemorating the dead in the archaic and classical periods, including grave epigrams, threnoi, tragedy, and Athenian epitaphioi . These texts reveal the non-linear development of Greek literacy and offer insight into the ongoing influence of lament in diverse poetic genres and the evolving uses of death and mourning in different media. In particular, the discussion focuses on the role of writing in commemorating soldiers and the evolution of the written memorial into a historical and civic medium of communication.
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1 online resource (vi, 206 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047400455 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Homeric morality /
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Homeric Morality is an attempt to answer two questions: whether or not the Homeric gods are concerned with 'justice' in human society, and what mechanism controls the social behaviour of Homeric man. It shows that the gods distribute good and bad fortune to men not in response to their moral behaviour, bus as required by fate; men, however, believe that the gods are concerned with human morality, and subsequently their behaviour is restrained by their faith in the moral gods as well as by many other forces, social and emotional. This volume, taken as a whole, serves as a sustained critique of two influential works in the field, The Justice of Zeus by H. Lloyd- Jones and Merit and Responsibility by A.W.H. Adkins.
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1 online resource (xiv, 261 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004329362 :
0169-8958 ; :
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Neuplatonisches Gedankengut in den "Homilien über die Seligpreisungen" Gregors von Nyssa /
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This volume thoroughly analyses the Neoplatonic sources and background of Gregory of Nyssa's eight Homilies on the Beatitudes according to the most preeminent themes: human virtue, knowledge of God and Self, negative theology, God's sublimity, ἀπάθεια and ὁμοιώσις, the mutual relationship of the virtues, the Logos as physician, the essence of beauty, the contemplation of the universe, unification. The study complements the first commentary of the homilies published in Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae volume 52 and provides a deep and rich mine of specialised knowledge in a field that is particularly important for the understanding of Gregory's thought.
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1 online resource (xvii, 234 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-192) and indexes. :
9789047413776 :
0920-623X ; :
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The figure of Joseph in post-Biblical Jewish literature /
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This book is a comparative study in the hermeneutics of the ancient interpretations of the biblical Joseph story. Assuming that every interpretation results from a creative encounter between the ultimately open text of Scripture and the specific thought world of the interpreter, it examines the particular way in which each exegete construes the biblical outline of Joseph's character. Paying special attention to the literary nature of the sources, the study begins with an analysis of the narrative methods and the hermeneutic potential of the biblical story, and then proceeds to the inter-testamental evidence. The central concern of this study is to compare the different interpretations of the philosopher Philo, the historian Josephus and the Midrash Genesis Rabbah. These sources do not only range over a considerable amount of time but significantly derive respectively from the Greek and Hebrew cultural realm. Consequently, their figures of Joseph fulfil distinctly different purposes, ranging from an idealisation of Joseph as a Hellenistic politician to autobiographical apologetics and religious instruction.
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1 online resource (178 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 165-173) and indexes. :
9789004332690 :
0169-734X ; :
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.
Antimachus of Colophon : text and commentary /
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This volume is an edition of the fragments of the Greek epic and elegiac poet, Antimachus of Colophon (ca. 400 B.C.), an important figure linking the literatures of Archaic and Classical Greece with that of the Hellenistic Age. The introduction examines the poet's life and work, discussing both his poetry and his activity as a Homeric scholar. It concludes with an assessment of his reception by Hellenistic and later writers. The body of the book is a critical edition of the 200-plus fragments of Antimachus' work. Each fragment is supplied with a commentary elucidating both text and context, with particular emphasis on Antimachus' use of his predecessors, especially Homer, and on his own influence upon the Hellenistic scholar-poets.
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1 online resource (x, 478 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 447-454) and indexes. :
9789004329812 :
0169-8958 ; :
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 ; :
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Reading the Ovidian heroine : Metamorphoses commentaries, 1100-1618 /
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This study investigates the reception of Ovid's heroines in Metamorphoses commentaries written between 1100 and 1618. The Ovidian heroine offers a telling window onto medieval and early modern clerical constructions of gender and selfhood. In the context of classical representations of the feminine, the book examines Ovid's engagement of the heroine to explore problems of intentionality. The second part of the study presents commentaries by such clerics as William of Orléans, the \'Vulgate\' commentator, Thomas Walsingham, and Raphael Regius, illustrating the reception of the Ovidian heroine in medieval France and England as well as in Renaissance Italy and Germany. The works analyzed here show that clerical readings of the feminine in Ovid reflect greater heterogeneity than is commonly alleged. Both moralizing summaries and Latin editions used as schooltexts are discussed.
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1 online resource (xxviii, 187 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-183) and index. :
9789004351011 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Ancient stepmothers : myth, misogyny, and reality /
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Ancient Stepmothers is the first full-length study of the stepmother in Graeco-Roman antiquity. Several perspectives are covered: literary, historical and sociological, the last-mentioned making use of comparative material from modern studies of stepfamilies. The portrayal of the stepmother in myth and literature is thoroughly explored. The historical background in Athens and Rome is examined with a view to determining the relationship between fiction and real life. The book makes an important contribution to the study of both literary history and family relationships: in particular, it sheds light on attitudes to women, the portrayal of the stepmother being an outstanding illustration of misogynistic prejudice. It will also interest sociologists wishing to place studies of the contemporary stepfamily in a wider historical context: for this reason, all Greek and Latin is translated into English.
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1 online resource (xii, 288 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 272-277) and indexes. :
9789004329485 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Signs of orality : the oral tradition and its influence in the Greek and Roman world /
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The essays in this volume present new insights into the far-reaching influence of an early oral culture on subsequent development after the spread of literacy. At the outset, revisionist essays on the Homeric epics examine such questions as historical memory, Homer's audience(s), descriptive strategies, ring-composition, and the status of orality as a constitutive feature of the epics. These are followed by virtually unprecedented studies of the orality of later (written) literature, including Greek oratory, Virgilian epic, Pliny's Panegyricus and story-telling in late Greek writers. Included as well are two discussions of Athenian vase-painting: annular scene-composition in the black-figure tradition, and the implications of kalos -inscriptions. An introduction by leading oral theorist John Miles Foley situates all the essays at the leading edge of oral theoretical development.
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1 online resource (x, 261 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004351424 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Justice as an aspect of the polis idea in solon's political poems : a reading of the fragments in light of the of the researches of new classical archaeology.
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This book examines the meaning of justice or dike in the political poems of Solon from a new interpretative perspective. The first two chapters argue that neither standard historical nor literary treatments have provided an adequate foundation for understanding Solon's dike . The main defect lies in an inability to connect Solon's concrete political work with his poetic perceptions. The book's central proposal is that the polis idea, from new classical archaeology, provides an objective standard for an interpretation of Solon's dike , which remedies this defect. The third chapter sets forth the polis idea, which becomes the measure for an examination, in the final two chapters, of Solon's view of dike . The book thus exhibits an interdisciplinary approach to Archaic poetry.
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1 online resource (xviii, 284 pages) :
9789047402138 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.