Hunter On Coming After

Studies in Post-Classical Greek Literature and its Reception
1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-3-11-021030-9
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 3, 917 Seiten, Gewicht: 10 g

Reihe: Trends in Classics - Supplementary VolumesISSN

This book gathers together many of the principal essays of Richard Hunter, whose work has been fundamental in the modern re-evaluation of Greek literature after Alexander and its reception at Rome and elsewhere. At the heart of Hunter’s work lies the high poetry of Ptolemaic Alexandria (Callimachus, Theocritus, and Apollonius of Rhodes) and the narrative literature of later antiquity (‘the ancient novel’), but comedy, mime, didactic poetry and ancient literary criticism all fall within the scope of these studies. Principal recurrent themes are the uses and recreation of the past, the modes of poetic allusion, the moral purposes of literature, the intellectual context for ancient poetry, and the interaction of poetry and criticism. What emerges is not a literature shackled to the past and cowed by an ‘anxiety of influence’, but an energetic and constantly experimental engagement with both past and present.

Zielgruppe

Academics, Libraries, Institutes

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hunter, Richard

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Antike Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Griechische & Byzantinische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Contents;5
2;Preface;9
3;Introduction;11
4;On Coming After;18
5;1. Apollo and the Argonauts:Two notes on Ap. Rhod. 2, 669 –719;39
6;2. Medea’s flight: the fourth Book of the Argonautica;52
7;3. ‘Short on heroics’: Jason in the Argonautica;69
8;4. Winged Callimachus;96
9;5. Bulls and Boxers in Apollonius and Vergil;99
10;6. Greek and Non-Greek in the Argonautica of Apollonius;105
11;7. Callimachus and Heraclitus;125
12;8. Writing the God: Form and Meaning in Callimachus, Hymn to Athena;137
13;9. Written in the Stars: Poetry and Philosophy in the Phainomena of Aratus;163
14;10. The Presentation of Herodas’ Mimiamboi;199
15;11. Callimachean Echoes in Catullus 65;216
16;12. Plautus and Herodas;222
17;13. Bion and Theocritus: a note on Lament for Adonisv. 55;239
18;14. Mime and mimesis: Theocritus, Idyll 15;243
19;15. The Divine and Human Map of the Argonautica;267
20;16. Callimachus swings (frr. 178 and 43 Pf.);288
21;17. Before and after epic: Theocritus (?), Idyll 25;300
22;18. (B)ionic man: Callimachus’ iambic programme;321
23;19. The Poet Unleaved. Simonides and Callimachus;336
24;20. The Poetics of Narrative in the Argonautica;353
25;21. Virgil and Theocritus: A Note on the Reception of the Encomium to Ptolemy Philadelphus;388
26;22. The Sense of an Author: Theocritus and [Theocritus];394
27;23. Imaginary Gods? Poetic theology in the Hymns of Callimachus;415
28;24. Theocritus and the Style of Cultural Change;444
29;25. Notes on the Lithika of Poseidippos;467
30;26. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic Poetry;480
31;27. The prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes (‘Pseudo-Scymnus’);513
32;28. Sweet nothings – Callimachus fr. 1.9 –12 revisited;533
33;29. The Reputation of Callimachus;547
34;30. Hesiod, Callimachus, and the invention of morality;569
35;Frontmatter;585
36;Contents;589
37;31. The Comic Chorus in the fourth century;595
38;32. Philemon, Plautus and the Trinummus;613
39;33. The Aulularia of Plautus and its Greek original;632
40;34. Middle Comedy and the Amphitruo of Plautus;647
41;35. ‘Acting down’: the ideology of Hellenistic performance;663
42;36. Showing and telling: notes from the boundary;683
43;37. Generic consciousness in the Orphic Argonautica?;701
44;38. Aspects of technique and style in the Periegesis of Dionysius;720
45;39. The Periegesis of Dionysius and the traditions of Hellenistic poetry;738
46;40. History and Historicity in the Romance of Chariton;757
47;41. Longus and Plato;795
48;42. Growing up in the ancient novels: a response;810
49;43. The Aithiopika of Heliodorus: beyond interpretation?;824
50;44. ‘Philip the Philosopher’ on the Aithiopika of Heliodorus;849
51;45. Plato’s Symposium and the traditions of ancient fiction;865
52;46. Isis and the Language of Aesop;887
53;47. The curious incident …: polypragmosyne and the ancient novel;904
54;General Index;917

Leseproben

(S. 212-213)

The history of the reception of Herodas’ mimiambs1 has run the full gamut from enthusiasm for ‘the ancient realist’ to a rather weary dismissal in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, “aesthetic mannerism, not ‘realism’ […] the invitation to prurience and social snobbery which they convey makes them tedious”.2 What kind of ‘realist’ mode informs the mimiambs has always been a (perhaps the) central critical question, particularly for those who have tried to offer a general appreciation of the qualities of these intriguing texts. R. Ussher, for example, asserts: “Herodas’ characters […] are real people, captured in real moments of existence, and drawn with psychological perceptiveness. They are not realistic, inasmuch as they use language which no Greek of their day (or ever) spoke […] what is real is the society within which they live their sometimes unattractive lives […]”,3 and W.G. Arnott similarly seeks to distinguish between what he sees as Herodas’ exact “observation of the small, realistic details of low life”, his “observation of real-life conversations”, and the foolishness of any attempt to label his poems as ‘realistic’. Thus, he notes of Bitinna’s relenting at the end of Poem 5, “this is the way petty pride operates in petty human beings, Herodas’ observation of human behaviour is again exact”.

A denial of any simple concept of the poems as ‘realist’, based upon language, metre and literary texture, may be accepted without further discussion,5 rather, these features overtly proclaim the mimetic, representational sta tus of the mimiambs, and are a constant reminder to the audience6 that they are not being offered unmediated access to ‘slices of life’. As to the second part of the dichotomy offered by Ussher and Arnott, the appeal to Herodas’ ‘exact observation’ and ‘psychological perceptiveness’ there is perhaps little that can be said. Everyone forms their own notions of what is ‘true to life’ on the basis of their own experiences (including their experience of art), and such things can hardly be the subject of argument. On the other hand, we may hope to find in the poems themselves a guide to approaching these problems.

In this paper I wish to raise some general problems of ‘character’ and ‘voice’ in the mimiambs, as the background to a consideration of the speech of Battaros in Poem 2. My two strategies will be an examination of passages in the poems themselves which seem to be pointing us in a particular interpretative direction, and secondly a comparison with certain aspects of Plautine dramaturgy, suggestive points of contact between the Greek mimiambist and the Roman comic dramatist will, I hope, emerge. In Poem 4 two women visit a shrine of Asklepios to offer thanks for a cure from sickness. While their offering is being presented to the god by the sacristan, they admire the works of art in the shrine, the two sections of ‘art admiration’ are separated by some typically Herodan abuse of a slave (41 –56). and uneducated, and some critics have indeed wished to see here reflections of Herodas’ own ar tistic program.9 How we should react to what the women say remains, however, to be investigated.

Über Autor(innen)

Richard Hunter, University of Cambridge, U.K.