Bion of Smyrna: The Fragments and the Adonis

Bion of Smyrna: The Fragments and the Adonis
Author: Bion
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 1997-03-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521573160

The work of Bion of Smyrna, the late Hellenistic writer of bucolic poetry, survives in seventeen fragments and the longer Epitaph on Adonis. In this edition, J. D. Reed presents a Greek text of the poems together with a facing translation. The substantial introduction covers Bion's place in the bucolic tradition, his reinterpretation of ritual and myth in the Adonis poem (with attention to its social context), and various aspects of his style. It also includes a detailed examination of the textual transmission. The commentary investigates fully details arising from the texts, with an emphasis on linguistic and literary-historical issues. This is a comprehensive treatment of Bion, his poetry and his place in the literary tradition.

The Many-Headed Muse

The Many-Headed Muse
Author: Pauline A. LeVen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2014-01-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107653932

This is the first monograph entirely devoted to the corpus of late classical Greek lyric poetry. Not only have the dithyrambs and kitharodic nomes of the New Musicians Timotheus and Philoxenus, the hymns of Aristotle and Ariphron, and the epigraphic paeans of Philodamus of Scarpheia and Isyllus of Epidaurus never been studied together, they have also remained hidden behind a series of critical prejudices – political, literary and aesthetic. Professor LeVen's book provides readings of these little-known poems and combines engagement with the style, narrative technique, poetics and reception of the texts with attention to the socio-cultural forces that shaped them. In examining the protean notions of tradition and innovation, the book contributes to the current re-evaluation of the landscape of Greek poetry and performance in the late classical period and bridges a gap in our understanding of Greek literary history between the early classical and the Hellenistic periods.

O ye Gentlemen: Arabic Studies on Science and Literary Culture

O ye Gentlemen: Arabic Studies on Science and Literary Culture
Author: Arnoud Vrolijk
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 576
Release: 2007-10-31
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9047422058

O ye Gentlemen explores two vital strands in Arabic culture: the Greek tradition in science and philosophy and the literary tradition. They are permanent and, though drawing on Islam as a dominant religion, they are by no means dependent on it. That the strands freely interweave within the broader scope of Schrifttum is shown by more than thirty essays on subjects as varied as the social organisation of bees, spontaneous generation in the Shiʿite tradition, astronomy in the Arabian nights, the benefits of sex, precious stones in a literary text, the virtue of women in Judaeo-Arabic stories, animals in Middle Eastern music and the transmission of Arabic science and philosophy to the medieval West.

Hellenistic Literature: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide

Hellenistic Literature: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide
Author: Oxford University Press
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 38
Release: 2010-05-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0199802998

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of the ancient world find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult and editorial commentary to make it clear how the cited sources are interrelated. A reader will discover, for instance, the most reliable introductions and overviews to the topic, and the most important publications on various areas of scholarly interest within this topic. In classics, as in other disciplines, researchers at all levels are drowning in potentially useful scholarly information, and this guide has been created as a tool for cutting through that material to find the exact source you need. This ebook is just one of many articles from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Classics, a continuously updated and growing online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through the scholarship and other materials relevant to the study of classics. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www.aboutobo.com.

Woman's Songs in Ancient Greece

Woman's Songs in Ancient Greece
Author: Anne L. Klinck
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2008-12-15
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0773577211

Through a balanced discussion of poetry as performance, relevant kinds and genres of poetry, the definition and scope of "woman's song" as a mode, partheneia (maidens' songs) and the girls' chorus, lyric in the drama, echoes and imitations of archaic woman's song in Hellenistic poetry, and inferences about the differences between male and female authors, Klinck demonstrates that woman's song is ultimately best understood as the product of a male-dominated culture but that feminine stereotypes, while refined by skilful male poets, are interrogated and shifted by female poets.

A Companion to Hellenistic Literature

A Companion to Hellenistic Literature
Author: James J. Clauss
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 578
Release: 2014-01-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1118782909

Offering unparalleled scope, A Companion to Hellenistic Literature in 30 newly commissioned essays explores the social and intellectual contexts of literature production in the Hellenistic period, and examines the relationship between Hellenistic and earlier literature. Provides a wide ranging critical examination of Hellenistic literature, including the works of well-respected poets alongside lesser-known historical, philosophical, and scientific prose of the period Explores how the indigenous literatures of Hellenized lands influenced Greek literature and how Greek literature influenced Jewish, Near Eastern, Egyptian, and Roman literary works

Talking Books

Talking Books
Author: G. O. Hutchinson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2008-08-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0199279411

Doing things with books -- The Aetia: Callimachus' Poem of knowledge -- Hellenistic epic and Homeric form -- The new Posidippus and Latin poetry -- The Catullan corpus, Greek epigram, and the poetry of objects -- The publication and individuality of Horace's Odes Books 1-3 -- Horace and archaic Greek poetry -- Ovid, Amores 3: the book -- The metamorphosis of metamorphosis: p. Oxy. 4711 and Ovid -- Structuring instruction: didactic poetry and didactic prose -- Books and scales.

The Captive Woman's Lament in Greek Tragedy

The Captive Woman's Lament in Greek Tragedy
Author: Casey Dué
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2010-01-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0292782225

The laments of captive women found in extant Athenian tragedy constitute a fundamentally subversive aspect of Greek drama. In performances supported by and intended for the male citizens of Athens, the songs of the captive women at the Dionysia gave a voice to classes who otherwise would have been marginalized and silenced in Athenian society: women, foreigners, and the enslaved. The Captive Woman's Lament in Greek Tragedy addresses the possible meanings ancient audiences might have attached to these songs. Casey Dué challenges long-held assumptions about the opposition between Greeks and barbarians in Greek thought by suggesting that, in viewing the plight of the captive women, Athenian audiences extended pity to those least like themselves. Dué asserts that tragic playwrights often used the lament to create an empathetic link that blurred the line between Greek and barbarian. After a brief overview of the role of lamentation in both modern and classical traditions, Dué focuses on the dramatic portrayal of women captured in the Trojan War, tracing their portrayal through time from the Homeric epics to Euripides' Athenian stage. The author shows how these laments evolved in their significance with the growth of the Athenian Empire. She concludes that while the Athenian polis may have created a merciless empire outside the theater, inside the theater they found themselves confronted by the essential similarities between themselves and those they sought to conquer.

Polyeideia

Polyeideia
Author: Benjamin Acosta-Hughes
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2002-09-03
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780520923683

This book provides a new literary treatment of an often-overlooked collection of fragmentary poems from the third century B.C.E. Alexandrian poet Callimachus. Callimachus' Iambi form a collection of thirteen poems, which rework archaic Greek iambography and look forward to Roman satire and other genres, especially to such collections as Horace's Epodes. The poems are especially significant as examples of cultural memory since they are composed both as an act of commemorating earlier poetry and as a manipulation of traditional features of iambic poetry to refashion the iambic genre. This book fills a significant gap by providing the first complete translation of several of these fragmentary poems in English, along with line-by-line commentary, notes, and literary analysis. The structure of the book is thematic, with chapters focusing on such topics as poetic voice, fable, ethical criticism, and statuary. Each chapter consists of an introduction, text and selected critical apparatus, translation, and comprehensive thematic discussion. Acosta-Hughes focuses especially on Callimachus' manipulation of traditional features of archaic iambic poetry such as persona loquens, ethical and critical message, and eristic dialogue. He also includes a detailed analysis of the Alexandrian poet's artistic relationship with the earlier iambic poets Archilochus and Hipponax. Polyeideia will interest not only readers of Greek and Hellenistic poetry but also readers of Roman satire and invective verse, as well as those intrigued by the processes of memorializing and fashioning poetic culture.