MythosEikonPoiesis

Plato's philosophy offers one of the earliest reflections in Western thought on the nature and function of images, positioning the image not only as an object of critique but also as a metaphorical and conceptual tool for interpreting reality and human experience. This book explores the theme of the image in Plato's dialogues from this dual perspective: What constitutes an image for Plato, and what is its ontological and epistemological status? What role does visual metaphor play within the framework of Platonic metaphysics? On one hand, Plato associates images with illusion, falsehood, and deception, questioning their relation to truth and reality. On the other hand, he consistently employs the image as a metaphysical model to articulate the relationship between sensible realities and the Forms. The book also argues that a parallel reading of the Sophist and the Timaeus reveals in Plato an early and explicit theorization of the medium itself, alongside a reflection on the paradigm and its normative role in artisanal practices. These metaphors are examined not only in relation to the theory of Forms and participation, but also as essential to Platonic cosmology.

This study presents and interprets early Greek lyric poetry (seventh/sixth century BCE) in the contexts of its performance and is the first to consider those of the cultic-religious polis festival. Alongside literary sources, the volume also examines music and literary history, as well as iconography. Its media studies approach leads to the emergence of a new "history of early Greek lyric poetry."

Plato’s Timaeus is unique in Greek Antiquity for presenting the creation of the world as the work of a divine demiurge. The maker bestows order on sensible things and imitates the world of the intellect by using the Forms as models. While the creation-myth of the Timaeus seems unparalleled, this book argues that it is not the first of Plato’s dialogues to use artistic language to articulate the relationship of the objects of the material world to the world of the intellect.

The book adopts an interpretative angle that is sensitive to the visual and art-historical developments of Classical Athens to argue that sculpture, revolutionized by the advent of the lost-wax technique for the production of bronze statues, lies at the heart of Plato’s conception of the relation of the human soul and body to the Forms. It shows that, despite the severe criticism of mimēsis in the Republic, Plato’s use of artistic language rests on a positive model of mimēsis.

Plato was in fact engaged in a constructive dialogue with material culture and he found in the technical processes and the cultural semantics of sculpture and of the art of weaving a valuable way to conceptualise and communicate complex ideas about humans’ relation to the Forms.

Intertextuality is a well-known tool in literary criticism and has been widely applied to ancient literature, with, perhaps surprisingly, classical scholarship being at the frontline in developing new theoretical approaches. By contrast, the seemingly parallel notion of intervisuality has only recently begun to appear in classical studies. In fact, intervisuality still lacks a clear definition and scope. Unlike intertextuality, which is consistently used with reference to the interrelationship between texts, the term ‘intervisuality’ is used not only to trace the interrelationship between images in the visual domain, but also to explore the complex interplay between the visual and the verbal. It is precisely this hybridity that interests us. Intervisuality has proved extremely productive in fields such as art history and visual culture studies. By bringing together a diverse team of scholars, this project aims to bring intervisuality into sharper focus and turn it into a powerful tool to explore the research field traditionally referred to as ‘Greek literature’.

The presence of repetitions is a typical formal feature of the Homeric poems, a type of poetry that, before reaching a written version, has been orally composed and transmitted for centuries. This study deals with a particular category of repetitions: those uttered by ἄγγελοι, intermediaries of distance communication in a narrative universe characterized in turn by the oral transmission of information. The extensive presentation, in direct form, of both the speech of the sender of the message and that of the ἄγγελος (human or divine messenger, herald or ambassador), allows us to appreciate the discursive technique of the latter, between exact repetition (verbatim) and reformulation. This technique can be read in a meta-poetic key and used as a starting point to investigate, on the one hand, the compositional mechanisms at the basis of Homeric poetry and, on the other hand, the representation of the relations between the divine and human worlds. Mainly focused on the Iliad, the study also deals with the Odyssey by highlighting and explaining the numerous differences, between the two poems, in staging distance communication.

Il libro tratta di una categoria di ripetizioni presente nell’epica omerica, in particolare nell’Iliade: quelle pronunciate dagli ἄγγελοι, intermediari della comunicazione a distanza (messaggeri, araldi, ambasciatori) in un universo narrativo caratterizzato dalla trasmissione orale dell’informazione. Lo studio di tali ripetizioni consente di esplorare, sotto nuova luce, lo scenario performativo, culturale e religioso dei poemi omerici.

The fluidity of myth and history in antiquity and the ensuing rapidity with which these notions infiltrated and cross-fertilized one another has repeatedly attracted the scholarly interest. The understanding of myth as a phenomenon imbued with social and historical nuances allows for more than one methodological approaches. Within the wider context of interdisciplinary exchange of ideas, the present volume returns to origins, as it traces and registers the association and interaction between myth and history in various literary genres in Greek and Roman antiquity (i.e. an era when the scientific definitions of and distinctions between myth and history had not yet been perceived as such, let alone fully shaped and implemented), providing original ideas, new interpretations and (re)evaluations of key texts and less well-known passages, close readings, and catholic overviews. The twenty-four chapters of this volume expand from Greek epos to lyric poetry, historiography, dramatic poetry and even beyond, to genres of Roman era and late antiquity. It is the editors’ hope that this volume will appeal to students and academic researchers in the areas of classics, social and political history, archaeology, and even social anthropology.

While modern students of Greek religion are alert to the occasion-boundedness of epiphanies and divinatory dreams in Greek polytheism, they are curiously indifferent to the generic parameters of the relevant textual representations on which they build their argument. Instead, generic questions are normally left to the literary critic, who in turn is less interested in religion. To evaluate the relation of epiphanies and divinatory dreams to Greek polytheism, the book investigates relevant representations through all major textual genres in pagan antiquity. The evidence of the investigated genres suggests that the ‘epiphany-mindedness’ of the Greeks, postulated by most modern critics, is largely an academic chimaera, a late-comer of Christianizing 19th-century-scholarship. It is primarily founded on a misinterpretation of Homer’s notorious anthropomorphism (in the Iliad and Odyssey but also in the Homeric Hymns). This anthropomorphism, which is keenly absorbed by Greek drama and figural art, has very little to do with the religious lifeworld experience of the ancient Greeks, as it appears in other genres. By contrast, throughout all textual genres investigated here, divinatory dreams are represented as an ordinary and real part of the ancient Greeks' lifeworld experience.

The origins of satyr drama, and particularly the reliability of the account in Aristotle, remains contested, and several of this volume’s contributions try to make sense of the early relationship of satyr drama to dithyramb and attempt to place satyr drama in the pre-Classical performance space and traditions. What is not contested is the relationship of satyr drama to tragedy as a required cap to the Attic trilogy. Here, however, how Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (to whom one complete play and the preponderance of the surviving fragments belong) envisioned the relationship of satyr drama to tragedy in plot, structure, setting, stage action and language is a complex subject tackled by several contributors. The playful satyr chorus and the drunken senility of Silenos have always suggested some links to comedy and later to Atellan farce and phlyax. Those links are best examined through language, passages in later Greek and Roman writers, and in art. The purpose of this volume is probe as many themes and connections of satyr drama with other literary genres, as well as other art forms, putting satyr drama on stage from the sixth century BC through the second century AD. The editors and contributors suggest solutions to some of the controversies, but the volume shows as much that the field of study is vibrant and deserves fuller attention.

The aim of this book is to explore the definition(s) of ‘theatre’ and ‘metatheatre’ that scholars use when studying the ancient Greek world. Although in modern languages their meaning is mostly straightforward, both concepts become problematical when applied to ancient reality. In fact, ‘theatre’ as well as ‘metatheatre’ are used in many different, sometimes even contradictory, ways by modern scholars.
Through a series of papers examining questions related to ancient Greek theatre and dramatic performances of various genres the use of those two terms is problematized and put into question.
Must ancient Greek theatre be reduced to what was performed in proper theatre-buildings? And is everything was performed within such buildings to be considered as ‘theatre’? How does the definition of what is considered as theatre evolve from one period to the other?
As for ‘metatheatre’, the discussion revolves around the interaction between reality and fiction in dramatic pieces of all genres. The various definitions of ‘metatheatre’ are also explored and explicited by the papers gathered in this volume, as well as the question of the distinction between paratheatre (understood as paratragedy/comedy) and metatheatre.
Readers will be encouraged by the diversity of approaches presented in this book to re-think their own understanding and use of ‘theatre’ and ‘metatheatre’ when examining ancient Greek reality.

From Homer to Sophocles and Greek Middle Comedy, and from Plato and Protagoras to Ovid, this volume features a panoramic and cross-generic overview of the diverse handling and ad hoc elaboration of the overarching literary notions of "time" and "space". The twenty-one contributions of this volume written by an international group of esteemed scholars provide an equal number of hermeneutic approaches to individual, distinct aspects of Greek and Latin literature. The volume is purposely designed not as a linear display of knowledge, but rather as an anthology of select paradigms that aim to demonstrate the multidimensional function and multifaceted role of the twin notions of "time" and "space" throughout ancient Greek and Latin literary texts. The volume opens with analyses of conspicuous cases from epic poetry, proceeds with examples from drama (tragedy and comedy), and concludes with diverse instances of chronotopes (empirical, imaginary, and even shifting ones), in various literary genres.

The volume is of greatest relevance since it meets the cultural and theoretical trends of today’s Classics. It therefore will attract not only the interest of specialised Classicists but it is also intended for a wider general readership.

The book proposes an innovative journey through all the epic and lyric verses that mention the Muses in archaic Greece. Contextual observations, author by author, of the numerous epithets, specificities and actions of the divinities of inspiration offer a new, richer and more relevant overview of the mysterious musical phenomenon.

L'ouvrage propose un parcours inédit à travers l’ensemble des vers épiques et lyriques faisant mention des Muses en Grèce archaïque. Les observations contextuelles, auteur après auteur, des multiples épithètes, spécificités et actions des divinités inspiratrices offre une vue nouvelle, plus riche et plus parlante que nulle autre du mystérieux phénomène musical.

This book is about the bold, beautiful, and faithful heroines of the Greek novels and their mythical models, such as Iphigenia, Phaedra, Penelope, and Helen. The novels manipulate readerly expectations through a complex web of mythical variants and constantly negotiate their adventure and erotic plot with that of traditional myths becoming, thus, part of the imperial mythical revision to which they add the prospect of a happy ending.

Not a few of the more prominent and persistent controversies among classical scholars about approaches and methods arise from a failure to appreciate the fundamental role of time in structuring the interpretation of Greek culture. Diachrony showcases the corresponding importance of diachronic models for the study of ancient Greek literature and culture. Diachronic models of culture reach beyond mere historical change to the systemically evolving dynamics of cultural institutions, practices, and artifacts. The papers collected here illustrate the construction and proper use of such models. They emphasize the complementarity of synchronic and diachronic perspectives and highlight the need to assess how well diachronic models fit history. The contributors to this volume strive to be methodologically explicit as they tackle a wide range of subjects with a variety of diachronic approaches. Their work shows both the difficulty and the promise of diachronic analysis. Our incomplete knowledge of Greek antiquity throughout time and the Greeks' own preoccupation with the past in the construction of their present make diachronic analysis not just invaluable but indispensable for the study of ancient Greek literature and culture.

Representation of myth in the novel, as a poetic, narrative and aesthetic device, is one of the most illuminating issues in the area of ancient religion, for such narratives investigate in various ways fundamental problems that concern all human beings. This volume brings together twenty contributions (six of them to a Roundtable organized by Anton Bierl on myth), originally presented at the Fourth International Conference on the Ancient novel (ICAN IV) held in Lisbon in July 2008. Employing an interdisciplinary approach and putting together different methodological tools (intertextual, psychological, and anthropological), each offers a illuminating investigation of mythical discourse as presented in the text or texts under discussion. The collection as a whole demonstrates the exemplary and transgressive significance of myth and its metaphorical meaning in a genre that to some extent can be considered a modernized and secular form of myth that focuses on the quintessential question of love.

This book contributes to the understanding of Dionysos, the Greek god of wine, dancing, theatre and ecstasy, by putting together 30 studies of classical scholars. They combine the analysis of specific instances of particular dimensions of the god in cult, myth, literature and iconography, with general visions of Dionysos in antiquity and modern times. Only from the combination of different perspectives can we grasp the complex personality of Dionysos, and the forms of his presence in different cults, literary genres, and artistic forms, from Mycenaean times to late antiquity.

The ways in which Dionysos was experienced may vary in each author, each cult, and each genre in which this god is involved. Therefore, instead of offering a new all-encompassing theory that would immediately become partial, the book narrows the focus on specific aspects of the god. Redefinition does not mean finding (again) the essence of the god, but obtaining a more nuanced knowledge of the ways he was experienced and conceived in antiquity.

This book offers the first attempt at understanding interpersonal violence in ancient Athens. While the archaic desire for revenge persisted into the classical period, it was channeled by the civil discourse of the democracy. Forensic speeches, curse tablets, and comedy display a remarkable openness regarding the definition of violence. But in daily life, Athenians had to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. They did so by enacting a discourse on violence in the performance of these genres, during which complex negotiations about the legitimacy of violence took place. Performances such as the staging of trials and comedies ritually defined the meaning of violence and its appropriate application. Speeches and curse tablets not only spoke about violence, but also exacted it in a mediated form, deriving its legitimate use from a democratic principle, the communal decision of the human jurors in the first case and the underworld gods in the second. Since discourse and reality were intertwined and the discourse was ritualized, actual violence might also have been partly ritualized. By still respecting the on-going desire to harm one’s enemy, this partial ritualization of violence helped restrain violence and thus contributed to Athens’ relative stability.

Herodotus is often criticised for his mythical representation of historical events. However, this offers an important key to the understanding of the text. Starting with the reconstruction of a contemporary mythical-ritual framework, in her reading of the Histories Katharina Wesselmann uses the associative content of the traditional themes of iniquity, madness, trickery and transition which underpin the Histories. In this way Herodotus no longer appears as the father of history writing, as Cicero called him, but rather as the heir to a tradition of storytelling.

The volume presented here is a collection of the contributions to an author’s colloquium with Walter Burkert, which was held in November 2007 in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Bielefeld. Well known experts looked in detail at the work of the internationally renowned scholar of Greek. In his epochal cultural-scientific studies focusing on the origins of human co-existence in rites, on violence, sacrifice, guilt and horrific scenarios of death, Burkert approached questions of biological behavioural research, anthropology and aggression theory, and developed an enormous intellectual impact that reached beyond classical and religious studies.

The series MythosEikonPoiesis begins with the publication of contributions to an international conference held at Castelen-Augst near Basle. The conference laid new foundations in examining the interdependence of myth, ritual and Greek literature in many different genres (Homeric epic, lyric poetry, Presocratic and Platonic philosophy, tragedy, comedy, satyr plays, historiography, Hellenistic poetry, and the novel) with regard to their textual structure and poetics. Working in interdisciplinary cooperation, some participants also direct their attention towards Egypt, the Near East, Rome, and to the reception of these poetological principles in modern literature.

The series MythosEikonPoiesis begins with the publication of contributions to an international conference held at Castelen-Augst near Basle. The conference laid new foundations in examining the interdependence of myth, ritual and Greek literature in many different genres (Homeric epic, lyric poetry, Presocratic and Platonic philosophy, tragedy, comedy, satyr plays, historiography, Hellenistic poetry, and the novel) with regard to their textual structure and poetics. Working in interdisciplinary cooperation, some participants also direct their attention towards Egypt, the Near East, Rome, and to the reception of these poetological principles in modern literature.