Exploring models for masculinity as they appear in major works of Greek literature, this book combines literary, historical, and psychological insights to examine how the ancient Greeks understood the meaning of a man's life. The thoughts and actions of Achilles, Odysseus, Oedipus, and other enduring characters from Greek literature reflect the imperatives that the ancient Greeks saw as governing a man's life as he moved from childhood to adult maturity to old age. Because the Greeks believed that men (as opposed to women) were by nature the proper agents of human civilization within the lar
The ancient works of Greek civilization had almost been wiped out of human consciousness until Renaissance revisited it. In early 1800s, when Greece was revolting against Turks after 400 years of slavery, Europe discovered the old Greek tragedies and works of Greek philosophers which had been oppressed by political power bearers. In the 19th century many free spirits like Lord Byron (who died in Greece during the war) were intrigued by these works and began to reinterpret and analyse them to locate universals truths relating to philosophy, ecology, psychology, natural sciences, etc in them.Ever since Renaissance (when Shakespeare made abundant use of Greek Myths in his plays) the craze and interest in Greek mythology has not slowed down. From Homer to John Milton to John Keats to Thomas Hardy, all old and contemporary writers have looked towards Greek Myths for substance for their writing and have used them in all possible genres of literature. This paper attempts to trace the influence of Greek Mythology on English literature and contemporary culture, to point towards the literary works of various centuries which intensively used Greek myths and those English films which depict the same. An effort has been made at finding out the reason behind this continuing popularity of ancient myths and to analyse such a tremendously powerful phenomenon.
Intro -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Contents -- About the Author -- Chapter 1: Introduction: Discovering an Ancient Virtue -- 1.1 Courage and the Common Sense -- 1.2 Moderns and the 'Species' of Courage -- 1.3 Between Homer and Aristotle -- 1.4 Methodology and the Plan of the Book -- References -- Chapter 2: Archaic Greece: Courageous Hero in the Homeric Epics -- 2.1 Introduction and Terminology -- 2.2 The Role of Thumos in Homeric Courage -- 2.3 Courage as an Aristocratic Duty -- 2.4 Shame and Glory as Two Fundamental Concerns -- 2.5 Courage and the Gender Issue -- 2.6 The Signs of Courage and Cowardice -- 2.7 Courage and Recklessness -- 2.8 Summary and Conclusions -- References -- Chapter 3: Martial Valor in Post-Homeric Poetry -- 3.1 Admirers and Dissenters: A Brief Overview -- 3.2 The Faithful Followers: Tyrtaeus and Callinus -- 3.3 The Postmortem Rewards of Courage: Why Should We Fight? -- 3.4 Close Range Fighting and Endurance -- 3.5 The Survivor's Benefits -- 3.6 The Beauty of Death on the Battlefield -- 3.7 The Question of Loyalties in Homer and the Poets -- 3.8 Simonides on the Heroes of the Persian Wars -- 3.9 Concluding Remarks -- References -- Chapter 4: The Bold Challengers: Cowardice, Irony, and Mockery -- 4.1 Dethroning Homer: The Early Attempts -- 4.2 The Lost Shield and the Love of Life: The Case of Archilochus -- 4.3 More Shields Lost: Alcaeus and Anacreon -- 4.4 Courage and Hedonism -- 4.5 War and Peace in Aristophanes and the Danger of Courage -- 4.6 A Courageous Playwright: Beyond the Traditional Limits -- References -- Chapter 5: Courage in Real-Life: The Historians' Approach -- 5.1 Fiction and Reality in Greek Historians -- 5.2 Herodotus and His Method -- 5.3 A Rare Virtue -- 5.4 The Value of Choice: Forced and Voluntary Courage -- 5.5 The Epitome of Martial Valor: The Battle at Thermopylae.
Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: Rethinking love Through Arendtian Eyes -- 1 Feeling, Reading, Thinking, Writing Love -- 2 Portraits of Moments in BiosHistory Entanglements -- 3 Archival Agonism, Resistibility and Memory Work -- 4 Amor Mundi, or the Reality of Utopian Love -- 5 Epistolary Waves: Politics, Memory and the Force of Love -- 6 Nobody Knows What Love can Do -- 7 Even Workers Fall in Love: Eros in the Labour Movement -- Conclusion: Epistolary Poethics and Agonistic Politics -- Index.
This dissertation contends that we must account for the values we have inherited from the Greco-Roman tradition, and for the (anti-)colonial histories of the Americas, when we practice and teach reading in the United States today. This comparative study of ancient Greek literature from the Second Sophistic (c. 60-230 CE) and post-1960s U.S. Latina/o literature examines the intersection of ethics, reading, and language politics to reconsider our own conceptions of literacy, literary reading, and education in the present. Both literary traditions exhibit a heightened attention to the educational models and language hierarchies that shape readers into social and political subjects. In the Second Sophistic, Greek writers actively produced a "classical" heritage, as well as their own sociopolitical identities, through literary and linguistic training in an elite Greek dialect; this cultural education was entangled with legacies of Greek and Roman imperialism and conquest. Similarly, contemporary U.S. Latina/o writers grapple with the colonial and the revolutionary legacies of alphabetic literacy in the Americas, especially the relationship between literate education (in a dominant, colonial language) and sociopolitical belonging. Latina/o writers contest the equation of (proper) English with U.S. sociopolitical inclusion to summon a more inclusive, multilingual reading public. Beginning with the second- or third-century CE work of Athenaeus, and moving to the work of Julia Alvarez in the early twenty-first century, the first two chapters argue for the ethical significance of reading practices that diverge from normative educational models of linguistic and literary mastery. The final two chapters emphasize how the embodied dimensions of reading intersect with language politics. The literary production of Lucian in the second century and of Norma Elia Cantú in the late twentieth century highlight the material dimensions of language and literacy instruction, such as forms of bodily discipline that train readers' gestures and tongues. Ultimately, this study argues that how we conceive of, practice, and teach reading are of ethical importance; it seeks an inclusive understanding of reading that accounts for a plurality of perspectives, multiple literacies and linguistic heritages, and the diverse embodied practices of readers.
Scholars have long been divided over whether the Amazons of Greek legend actually existed. 'Postcolonial Amazons' offers a ground-breaking re-evaluation of the place of martial women in antiquity, bridging the gap between myth and reality by expanding our conception of the Amazon archetype to include the real female warriors of the ancient world.
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Scholars have long been divided over whether the Amazons of Greek legend actually existed. 'Postcolonial Amazons' offers a ground-breaking re-evaluation of the place of martial women in antiquity, bridging the gap between myth and reality by expanding our conception of the Amazon archetype to include the real female warriors of the ancient world
"Greek Historiography, Roman Society, Christian Empire: the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea" addresses a major shift in Roman social, political, and religious history at the pivotal turn of the fourth century AD. When Christianity was legalized in 313, the Christian church of the eastern Roman Empire, where the pagan Licinius ruled as emperor until the Christian Constantine defeated him in 324, remained in an insecure position. The Greek-speaking eastern Roman elite of this period only admitted outsiders to their circles who displayed a civilized manner of life inculcated in the elite Greek educational curriculum (paideia), the kind of life embodied by Greek philosophers. It was, I argue, to depict this newly legalized Christianity as the models of the philosophical life that Eusebius of Caesarea wrote the first history of the church in the 310s AD. Whereas Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History is usually studied for its intra-Christian discourse, this study considers the History as a Greek text aimed at Roman elites. I demonstrate that the History's reconfiguration of Greek historiographical genres constructed Christianity as a civilized and educated institution whose leaders were worthy to educate and advise the Roman ruling classes.The first three chapters present a reading of the Ecclesiastical History within the rich variety of Greek historiographical genres. The first chapter applies genre theory to show that Eusebius' History was a combination of the Greek genres of national history and philosophical biography. This combination of genres presented the church as a nation of philosophers ready to assume the standard role of philosophers in the Roman Empire, of teaching Roman elites a civilized manner of life and of advising Roman emperors. The second chapter scrutinizes the character of Eusebius' Christianity by studying eighty mini-biographies embedded into the History that echo Diogenes Laertius', Philostratus', and Porphyry's philosophical biographies. By highlighting Christians' homogeneous and universal intellectual prowess, these profiles represent the church as reliable educators and advisors. The third chapter argues that, in a riposte to the grand genre of Greek war history that valorized other nations' pasts, Eusebius transformed persecution and martyrdom from an orderly legal procedure into a violent struggle told in the manner of the great Greek historian Thucydides. As the church's enemy in the struggle martyrdom was Satan and not the Roman persecutors of Christianity, Eusebius could call martyrdoms "wars contested for peace in the soul," critiquing Greek war history with Greek philosophical discourse. His church emerges victorious by remaining steadfastly loyal to God, surpasses the warriors in Greek literature by its virtuous conduct of the wars, and, by scapegoating the demons, absolves the Roman Empire of any systemic flaw that would discourage Christians from supporting it.The next three chapters complement my analysis of the Ecclesiastical History's genres by locating Eusebius' Christianity in the social structures of the early fourth-century Roman Empire. The fourth chapter introduces Eusebius' experience of living under Rome through a thick description of the archaeological remains of his home city, Caesarea Maritima. Caesarea was unmistakably a Roman creation, as the governor of Palestine resided there and the city's topography featured numerous monuments to Roman power, including monuments to philosophers who were respected in the city. The peaceful, prosperous and well-connected life that a wealthy man such as Eusebius could live there solidified Eusebius' loyalty to the Roman Empire. The fifth chapter shows how Eusebius integrated the church into the Empire: he delineated networks of bishops and intellectuals that stretched across the Empire from Mesopotamia to Gaul and Carthage. The geographically diffused church displays a variety of mechanisms for maintaining long-distance cohesion, and the cohesive and homogeneous philosophical church bound together by these ties attracts favor from Roman leaders throughout the History. Through these encounters Eusebius patterned the church's relationship with the Empire after that of Greek philosophers: philosophers typically stayed in contact with emperors and governors while maintaining a critical distance from imperial power, so as to provide impartial advice for imperial officials. Eusebius placed Christians into the beneficial imagined relationship that philosophers had held with the Empire, from which they would strengthen imperial governance. The sixth chapter contextualizes the History in Eusebius' larger literary oeuvre. He published the History when he was writing his long magnum opus, the Gospel Preparation and Gospel Demonstration, a comprehensive exposition and defense of Christian doctrine. Eusebius' simultaneous publication of the Preparation-Demonstration with the History emulated the combination of expository works with biographical narratives in Greek philosophical curricula. Eusebius' forging of a comprehensive program for training Christians to think and act as philosophers positioned the church to displace Greek philosophical schools as the premier intellectual institution of the Empire. From this position, the church could then reinforce the Empire's mission to civilize the inhabited world.The History articulated a central role for Eusebius' church in Rome's imperial regime. Where the most prominent role of Greek philosophers was to educate imperial elites and advise Roman emperors, Eusebius' assertion of Christians' intellectual prowess claimed the church's superiority as a philosophical institution. Eusebius published his vision at a fortuitous moment, for when the Christian emperor Constantine conquered the eastern Roman Empire in 324, the History had already advertised church leaders' competence in the philosophical profession. By telling the church's history within the Greek historiographical tradition stretching back to Herodotus and Thucydides, therefore, Eusebius' History became a catalyst for the church's integration into the power structures of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.
Abstract The List as Treasury in the Greek Worldby Athena E. KirkDoctor of Philosophy in Classics University of California, Berkeley Professor Leslie V. Kurke, Chair Some of the earliest written records in the greater ancient world are lists of objects: we find catalogues of gods, kings, jewels, archaic vocabulary items, and exotic birds in Sumerian, Egyptian, Akkadian and Hittite, and many scholars surmise that a penchant for this kind of record-keeping fueled the very invention of writing. The Greeks, however, have long been considered distinct from other literate peoples both for their innovations with regard to the writing system they borrowed from the Phoenicians and for their application of that system, as they (a) were the first to denote vowels with stand-alone symbols, and (b) seem to used the alphabet to record poetry, not archival information, before anything else. In fact, it is not until several hundred years after these first `literary' texts that the alphabetic Greeks begin to produce the government inventories, war memorials, or tribute lists akin to those of their Near Eastern and Mycenean predecessors. In this project, I study these kinds of official epigraphic written lists alongside lists from Archaic and Classical Greek literature in an effort to reorient the discourse surrounding the Greeks' literacy and use of writing, and its purported uniqueness. I work specifically with those lists that enumerate physical objects, beginning from the assertion that we can trace a tradition of listing objects in the Greek world that exists independent of the literacy versus orality binary invoked by most scholarship for the last several decades. By looking at, e.g., a catalogue of gifts in the Iliad alongside an inventory of dedications from an Athenian sanctuary, I suggest that lists themselves are the salient phenomenon to be identified and analyzed, rather than the medium (written or oral) in which we find them. My central thesis is that Greek object-lists in their disparate contexts--oral poetry, narrated prose history, publicly displayed records, performed drama--all share a common function vis-à-vis the objects they represent, namely, that when they are presented to their various audiences, they serve as surrogates for the objects in question and in many cases take on an authority beyond that of any physical collection, which ultimately perishes. In their role as extant text-monuments, I argue, they embody and preserve the details of remote times and spaces. I present four case studies of texts that contain lists from the archaic through the classical period, and one later example of the same tradition. The chronological progression emphasizes how the Greek literary and documentary traditions build upon and interact with one another, and by attending to the two together, I begin to build a more comprehensive portrait of the listmaking meme.