
Word And Image In Ancient Greece
Edinburgh University Press
Published on 1. November 2000
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-0-7486-1406-6 (ISBN)
Description
In ancient Greek society communication was largely oral and visual. The epic poets sang and recited the legends that served the Greeks as their historical past; lyric and elegiac poets sang songs of love and death and celebrated military and sporting success to the accompaniment of the lyre and pipes; the art of rhetoric was a vital ingredient in speeches in the assembly and the law courts; in tragedies and comedies actors spoke to audiences of thousands. Of equal importance to the Greeks were the images with which they were always surrounded - civic and religious monuments, statuary, architectural decoration, and the scenes of myth, fantasy and everyday life with which their vases and vessels were painted and decorated.This volume of new work by leading scholars explores the ways in which these two central aspects of Greek culture interact, and throws new light on their many and related functions. The subjects include the creation of the Greek myths during the early centuries of the first millennium BC when the technique of writing had been lost; the significance of words and images on painted pottery; the relationship between drama on stage and the illustration of the same stories on pottery; and the ways in which stories portrayed in monumental sculpture on temples were understood by the people who came to look at them. Classical Greece produced the beginnings of the tradition of philosophical reflection on the nature and value of images, notably in the work of Plato and Aristotle: the concept of mimesis, concerned with questions both of representation and expression, is directly addressed by several of the authors, and forms an underlying theme of the volume as a whole.The authors are drawn from the historical, archaeological, literary, philosophical and art historical fields of classical study. The book, which contains 50 illustrations, makes a coherent and important contribution to a subject of great current interest to classicists of all disciplines.
Reviews / Votes
What we have here are the reworked texts of papers delivered at a conference organised in March 1999 to mark the establishment in Edinburgh of a biennial Visiting Research Professorship in Greek funded by the Leventis Foundation. The first holder was B.A. Sparkes. Many of the authors are scholars as distinguished as Sparkes himself. We eagerly await subsequent conferences and their publication in this series." * Ancient East and West * Word and Image has much to offer students of classical art and art history ... its essays raise many interesting ideas. * Classical Review * Essays here address important and highly debatable issues ... each contributor has valid and valuable things to say * Greece and Rome * A stimulating book, of interest to those who deal with the visual as well as to those who deal with the verbal aspects of ancient Greece." * The Classical Bulletin *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 241 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
630 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7486-1406-6 (9780748614066)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Keith Rutter (1939 - 2024) was Honorary Fellow & Professor Emeritus in Classics at the University of Edinburgh. Brian A. Sparkes is Emeritus Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Southampton.
Author
Honorary Fellow & Professor Emeritus in ClassicsUniversity of Edinburgh
Emeritus Professor of Classical ArchaeologyUniversity of Southampton