Criteria of Truth

Representations of Truth and Falsehood in Hellenistic Poetry
Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-0-674-29242-0
Verlag: Harvard University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 100, 262 Seiten, Format (B × H): 150 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 454 g

Reihe: Hellenic Studies Series

Amidst conflicting information and personal experiences, how can someone distinguish between truth and falsehood? Criteria of Truth: Representations of Truth and Falsehood in Hellenistic Poetry tackles this fundamental question through a study of five Hellenistic poems dated to the third and second centuries BCE: Aratus’s Phaenomena, Nicander’s Theriaca, Callimachus’s Aetia, Apollonius of Rhodes’s Argonautica, and Lycophron’s Alexandra. Situating these poetic works in their intellectual and literary milieu, Kathleen Kidder applies the philosophic concept of the criterion of truth, arguing that each poetic persona represents a different criterion for interrogating truth and falsehood. Moreover, by analyzing the poems’ allusions, myths, and poetic language, Kidder demonstrates how this poetry can encapsulate the tensions not only between truth and falsehood, but also between order and chaos, certainty and doubt, clarity and obscurity, seen and unseen, and being and seeming.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kidder, Kathleen

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Lyrik und Dichter
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Literaturwissenschaft

Über Autor(innen)

Kidder, Kathleen
Kathleen Kidder is Professor of Practice in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at the University of Houston.