A Companion to Greek Literature (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World)
Language: English
Pages: 575
ISBN: 2:00310648
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A Companion to Greek Literature presents a comprehensive introduction to the wide range of texts and literary forms produced in the Greek language over the course of a millennium beginning from the 6th century BCE up to the early years of the Byzantine Empire.
• Features contributions from a wide range of established experts and emerging scholars of Greek literature
• Offers comprehensive coverage of the many genres and literary forms produced by the ancient Greeks--including epic and lyric poetry, oratory, historiography, biography, philosophy, the novel, and technical literature
• Includes readings that address the production and transmission of ancient Greek texts, historic reception, individual authors, and much more
• Explores the subject of ancient Greek literature in innovative ways
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(26–8) and the poet’s statement at the start of Works and Days that his purpose is to tell his brother Perses the truth (10) set these epics apart from the heroic epics. Given the lack of elaboration, it is impossible to say with any certainty what the poet meant by truth. It is clear, though, from both poems that he considered myth and fable, and the imaginative descriptions of how they unfolded, within its realm. But the distinction neatly fits the difference between the heroic epic, where
“multitext” of Homer, focused on the most controversial book of the Iliad from the editorial perspective. Gurd 2005 gives a provocative examination of textual philology centered on a vexed text of Euripides. Textual Criticism Cerquiglini 1999 is a good introduction to a medievalist’s view of how textual variation can be seen beyond “corruption” of the text. Jeffreys 2008 offers a short but pugnacious introduction to textual criticism from the Byzantinist’s perspective. Eisenstein 1993 is a
foregrounded, oral performance still played an indispensable role. Thus epigrams (cf. Höschele ch. 12) inscribed on dedicatory and sepulchral monuments were meant to be read aloud by members of the public. In other words, the inscribed texts were scripts for perpetual “live” reperformance, which was integral to the communicative and commemorative function of the poetry (Day 2010, 14–17; cf. Svenbro 1993, 8–63). 2. Rhapsody and Citharody Alongside the lyric genres flourished rhapsody and
criticism concentrating above all on texts in the sense of belles lettres, and to the compilation of a culture’s entire written production (including, e.g., graffiti Introduction 3 and so‐called functional texts) being viewed as the task of cultural studies (cf. Bal 2002). Notwithstanding the focus on texts belonging to “high literature,” the dichotomy has never applied with the same strictness in Classical studies. For good reason: the strict separation of literary and technical texts in
Apollonius’ Hellenizing inclinations are also apparent here: on the one hand native Libyan gods welcome and aid Greek heroes; on the other, Zeus is angered by the murder of a non‐Greek prince (although Apsyrtus does have some standing as the grandson of the god Helius). Apollonius represents the Argonauts, the mythical antecedents of his own (Greco‐Macedonian, Alexandrian, royal) audience, as though they have no desire to rule other lands, and he goes so far as to map conquest and imperial pride