Defining Greek Narrative
Published on 24. March 2014
Book
Hardback
392 pages
978-0-7486-8010-8 (ISBN)
Description
The 'Classic' narratology that has been widely applied to classical texts is aimed at a universal taxonomy for describing narratives. More recently, 'new narratologies' have begun linking the formal characteristics of narrative to their historical and ideological contexts. This volume seeks such a rethinking for Greek literature. It has 2 closely related objectives: to define what is characteristically Greek in Greek narratives of different periods and genres, and to see how narrative techniques and concerns develop over time.
The 15 distinguished contributors explore questions such as: how is Homeric epic like and unlike Gilgamesh and the Hebrew Bible? What do Greek historians consistently fail to tell us, having learned from the tradition what to ignore? How does lyric modify narrative techniques from other genres?
This study will appeal to students and scholars of classics as well comparative literature and literary theory
The 15 distinguished contributors explore questions such as: how is Homeric epic like and unlike Gilgamesh and the Hebrew Bible? What do Greek historians consistently fail to tell us, having learned from the tradition what to ignore? How does lyric modify narrative techniques from other genres?
This study will appeal to students and scholars of classics as well comparative literature and literary theory
Reviews / Votes
This collection is unparalleled, whether as individual essays or as a whole. We could of course isolate this or that article according to personal interest, but the whole book is an exceptional opportunity to cross narrative Greek literature in all its genres, from Homer to Heliodorus, from epic to lyricism, to tragedy, to historiography and the novel, and to extend it towards the ancient Orient (Bible, Mesopotamia) and even Japan until modern times. The authors' reflections and arguments are of consistently high quality, and the bibliographic arsenal (especially Anglophone) is well supplied. (Translated from French) -- Francoise Letoublon, University Grenoble Alpes (Emerita) * Agora * This volume offers original and compelling treatments of the 'Greekness' of Greek narrative, and it is a provocative beginning to what promises to be a long and exciting conversation... Tradition and innovation meet in this collection, and most stimulating are those essays that combine methodologies, wedding formal analysis with literary interpretation... This is a valuable book, both for the quality of the individual essays and the scholarship that it is sure to generate. -- Robin J. Greene, Providence College * Bryn Mawr Classical Review * The more Greek literature is viewed against the background of the great West Asian literary traditions, the stranger it looks. This audacious volume, a landmark work in the emerging fields of historical narratology and comparative literary history, probes the roots of that strangeness, and how distinctively Greek ways of telling stories came about. * Nick Lowe, Royal Holloway, University of London *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
With dust jacket
Illustrations
1 black and white illustration, 10 black and white line art
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 33 mm
Weight
839 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7486-8010-8 (9780748680108)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Douglas Cairns | Ruth Scodel
Defining Greek Narrative
E-Book
03/2014
1st Edition
Edinburgh University Press
€0.00
Available for download
Persons
Douglas Cairns (FRSE, FBA, MAE) is Professor of Classics in the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Aidos: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature (1993), Bacchylides: Five Epinician Odes (2010) and Sophocles: Antigone (2016). His most recent edited volumes include A Cultural History of the Emotions in Antiquity (2019), Emotions through Time: From Antiquity to Byzantium (with M. Hinterberger, A. Pizzone and M. Zaccarini, 2022), Contempt, Ancient and Modern (2023), and In the Mind, in the Body, in the World: Emotions in Early China and Ancient Greece (with C. Virag, 2024). Ruth Scodel is D. R. Shackleton Bailey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan. She has written Credible Impossibilities: Conventions and Strategies of Verisimilitude in Homer and Greek Tragedy (1999), Listening to Homer (2002), Epic Facework (2008), (with Anja Bettenworth) Whither Quo Vadis? Sienkiewicz's Novel in Film and Television, and An Introduction to Greek Tragedy (2010).
Content
Preface; Notes on Contributors; 1. Introduction, Ruth Scodel; Section 1: Defining the Greek Tradition; 2. Beyond Auerbach: The Poetics of Visualisation in the Gilgamesh Epic and Homer, Johannes Haubold; 3. Homeric Battle Narrative and the Ancient Near East, Adrian Kelly; 4. Narrative Focus and Elusive Thought in Homer, Ruth Scodel; 5. Structure as Interpretation in the Homeric Odyssey, Erwin Cook; Section 2: the Development of the Greek Tradition; 6. Exemplarity and Narrative in the Greek Tradition, Douglas Cairns; 7. 'Where do I begin?': An Odyssean Narrative Strategy and its Afterlife, Richard Hunter; 8. Greek Scholia on Plot, Rene Nuenlist; 9. Who, Sappho? Alex Purves; 10. Greek Occasions, Greek Sung Narratives, Lucia Athanassaki; 11. Narrative on the Tragic Stage, P. E. Easterling; 12. Stock Situations, Topoi, and the Greekness of Greek Historiography, Lisa Hau; 13. Helidorus the Hellene; J. R. Morgan; Section 3: Beyond Greece; 14. Livy Reading Polybius: Adapting Greek Narrative to Roman History, Dennis Pausch; 15. Pamela and Plato: Ancient and Modern Epistolary Narratives, A. D. Morrison; 16. The Anonymous Traveller: Greek Heritage or Narrative Universal? Irene de Jong.