Early Greek Literature Research Articles

Gods and people in literature and philosophy. God by the picture of human or human by the picture of god? Homeric vision of reality versus Heraclitus’ vision of reality

The article deals with the theological issues of Homer and Heraclitus. The analysis of the works of Homer and the philosophical thought of Heraclitus serves to compare and contrast them extracting significant differences regarding the image of god and man. The author develops both literary and philosophical understanding of gods. She compares the man-god relationship in early Greek literature and philosophy. There is an interesting intrinsic tension in the literary tropes that can only be understood if the religious function of this literature is taken into account. The author tries to describe the vision of the world and the place of human beings in it in both sources: literature and philosophy. In philosophical writings, there can be seen a movement in the vision of the world structure: the gods become more inaccessible to humans, but humans gain the opportunity to become godlier if they follow a proper set of thoughts and actions proposed by philosophy. Religious poets were speaking of the past when the gods were approachable to people. Their fantasies were often mixed with old beliefs so that the divine-human world has as much wonder and eccentricity as dread. Philosophy conquers not only minds but also hearts, to convey them towards the ideal, bearing in mind the unattainable model of a virtuous man. While religion describes gods similar to humans, philosophy forges a new god-resemblant human figure.

A Defense of “Blood-Price” in Pindar Fr. 133 (Maehler): Ποινη in Homer, Aeschylus, the Orphic Fragments, and Pindar

This paper argues that Pindar fr. 133 (Maehler) is best interpreted as referring to the Orphic myth of the murder of Dionysus. The author traces the use of the word ποινή “blood-price” in early Greek literature to show that the word is typically associated with familial violence and reciprocity for murder.

Potent kings and antisocial heroes: lion symbolism and elite masculinity in ancient Mesopotamia and Greece

Abstract In the great kingdoms of ancient Mesopotamia, the king’s power was often evoked by means of lion symbolism. This has led scholars to conclude that lion motifs, and especially that of the lion-slaying hero, in early Greek art and literature were cultural borrowings from the more populous and urbanised civilisations to the east. Yet it is also notable that the Greek tradition, at least from the time of the Homeric poems, tended to problematise the ethics of the leonine man. This article explores the function of lion imagery in narratives of elite masculinity in western Asia and early Greece respectively. It will argue that Greek myth and epic reflect on and problematise any potential equation between lions and kingly prestige, power and masculinity, instead drawing attention to the savagery and social isolation of the lion-like man-of-power, and his difficulty in conforming to the expectations of civilised society.

After Auerbach: Ancient Greek Literature as a Test Case of European Literary Historiography

In the first chapter of his celebratedMimesis(1946) Auerbach discussed a specimen of Ancient Greek literature (Homer) both as the starting point of a European literary history of realism and as a comparandum to biblical storytelling. Both lines of approach have recently been given new impetuses. On the one hand there is Martin West'sThe East Face of Helicon,1which does not merely compare early Greek literature and Near Eastern literature but describes the former as largely a product of the latter. On the other hand there is the series Studies in ancient Greek narrative, edited by Irene J.F. de Jong, which describes the early development of – what will become quintessential – European storytelling devices in Ancient Greek literature. Both scholarly projects, independently, have put the same urgent question on the agenda: how exactly are we to evaluate resemblances between ancient Greek literature and contemporary Near Eastern literature and later European literature. Can we speak of some form of historical connection, i.e. one literature taking over devices and motifs from another literature, or should we rather think in terms of typological resemblances, i.e. of the same narrative universals being employed at different places and at different times? Or is there some middle way to be found in the recent cognitive turn of comparative literature? Despite the methodological problems involved, investigating the history of European literature is an extremely rewarding task. The project of Europe as an economical and political unity has at the moment reached a critical phase. Literary scholars can contribute to this issue by showing the cultural unity of Europe, a mission that is just as urgent as it was in 1946, when Auerbach published hisMimesis.

The Ethics of Retaliatory Violence in Athenian Tragedy

AbstractThis article focuses on the presentation of retaliatory violence in Athenian tragedy. It suggests that such tit-for-tat violence is characterized as problematic from the earliest Greek literature onwards, but also stresses the continuing importance of anger, honour, and revenge in classical Athenian attitudes to punishment and justice. With these continuities in mind, it analyses the new process by which punishment and justice were achieved in Athens, and argues that the Athenians’ emphasis on the authority of their laws is central to understanding tragedy’s portrayal of personalized vengeance and the chaos that ensues from it. Though (for reasons of space) it focuses on only a selection of plays in detail (A.Eu., S.El., E.El.,Or.), the article adduces further examples to show that the same socio-historical developments are central to the portrayal of retaliatory violence throughout the genre, and ends by considering how tragedy, in depicting revenge as problematic, offers a more positive alternative to such violence which does justice to the emotional and social needs of its audience.

Elegijne nastroje: wczesna elegia grecka i nie tylko

This article explores the relationships and correlations between early Greek elegy (7th—5th c. BC) and the elegiac mood of a poem understood today as a nostalgic and melancholic attitude of the subject evoked in a poem. The known surviving ancient texts prove the thematic heterogeneity of the elegiac genre at its early stage of development, while this elegiac emotionality is by no means a distinctive feature of this particular poetical category within the archaic parental context even though it does occur in some works composed in distichs that are traditionally labeled as elegiac (e.g. works of Archilochus and Mimnermus). Elegiac attitude, within modern understanding of the term, is also to be fundin the melic poetry of early Greek poets (such as Sappho, Anacreon and Simonides of Ceos) which were, in fact, considered by ancient theoreticians as non elegiac as far as their genre was concerned. The attribution of the elegiac character, not linked genetically with any of genres, to one poetical category is thus a result of multilayered processes of cultural interaction and the reception of the early Greek literature rather than the substance of the genre.

Number and Numeracy in Early Greek Literature

The issue of Greek numeracy before c. 550 BC has been neglected, though an understanding of it is necessary to appreciate the intellectual history of Greece in the archaic period. After the Bronze Age, Greeks developed their numerical sophistication in a largely native context, and research in linguistics, anthropology, and cognitive studies suggests how this process may have taken place. The evidence of epic and “lyric” demonstrates that prior to the sixth century, Greek facility and mastery of number and its operations was severely restricted; Greek numeracy remained limited until the middle of the sixth century.

‘Sugaring the Pill’: Gregory of Nazianzus' Advice to Olympias (Carm. 2.2.6)

Advice on marriage and the proper deportment for wives begins with the earliest Greek literature. While Homer's Andromache and Penelope provide practical role models, Hesiod (Works and Days 695-705, Theogony 568-612), followed (in iambics) by Semonides (frr. 6, 7), forcefully articulates male concerns about evil wives and women's wicked wiles. Hesiod's imperatival infinitives as well as his viewpoint reverberate more than a millennium later in a poem of advice composed, probably in the early 380s, by the Christian Gregory of Nazianzus for the marriage (νῦν μὲν σοὶ τόδ' ἔδωκα γαμήλιον, ‘now I have given you this wedding gift’, 2.2.6.108) of Olympias, elder daughter of Vitalian, a local Nazianzene worthy. This paper seeks to contribute to recent revaluations of Gregory's poetry—and hence of his place in the larger development of later Greek hexameter poetry—by illustrating how reading of the Olympias poem is enriched by exploration of its literary allusions and intertexts and its poetic craftsmanship. My title adopts Gregory's own image of ‘sugaring the pill’ of instruction for the young by writing in verse, but I extend the expression to include the pleasure that any reader may obtain in recognising Gregory's literary artistry, even when unpalatable prescriptions for female married life are the theme. Since the corpus is not well known, I begin by locating the poem within the context of Gregory's verse.

DIRCE AT THEBES

In Boeotian Thebes, the simplest thirst for topographical detail will turn up a reference to Dirce. Whether depicted as a nymph, a spring, a river, or simply as flowing water, the name represents an integral, perhaps indispensable, part of the Theban landscape. But of course it is more than that. A narrative surrounds this watery place, telling of Theban kings and queens, of founding twins, and of odd and cruel tortures and torments. It is my goal in this article to understand these varying traditions surrounding Dirce by means of an examination of the interplay between mythic narratives and Theban topography. Narratives of Dirce grow and develop in relation to the physical landscape of the city, but this relationship is seldom reducible to a one-to-one correlation of story and place. The early Greek tradition has much to say about Dirce, some of it contradictory. But superficial contradiction is the norm in this realm, and some sense can be made of what we have with careful attention to the changing contexts surrounding appearances of Dirce as they are expressed and understood in early Greek literature, and to the changing ways the city of Thebes is described in the Greek mythic tradition.

Writing and the origins of Greek literature

List of figures Preface Acknowledgements 1. Introduction: building models like a wigwam 2. Text 3. Orality and genre 4. Myth 5. Literacy 6. Tradition 7. Memorization 8. M. L. West and the Eastern origins of Greek tradition 9. Cultural transmission by literate means in the Near East 10. Writing: general 11. Writing: semasiography and logosyllabography 12. Writing: the Chinese enigma 13. Oral and written in the land between the rivers 14. Oral and written in the Valley of the Nile 15. The West Semitic revolution 16. The invention of the Greek alphabet and the end of multiliteralism 17. Where does Homer fit in the alphabetic revolution? 18. The aoidos in context 19. Aoidic innovation in myth: stories from pots 20. Summary and conclusions: early Greek literature in context Bibliography Index.

Le rôle du livre imprimé dans la formation et le développement de la littérature en grec vulgaire (XVIe-XVIIe siècles)

This article, attempts to examine various problems which are linked with the history of the Greek printed book from 1509 (editio princeps of the Apokopos of Bergadis, the first modern Greek work to appear in print) to 1713 (first edition of the Erotokritos of Kornaros). It seeks to show that, during these two centuries, the printing industry was an organic and creative element in the intellectual and literary life of the Latin occupied Greek Levant and that printing influenced not only the reception but also the development of early modern Greek literature.

The orientalizing revolution: Near Eastern influence on Greek culture in the early archaic age

Preface Introduction 1. Who Are Public Workers: The Migrant Historical Background Oriental Products in Greece Writing and Literature in the Eighth Century The Problem of Loan-Words 2. A Seer or a Healer: Magic and Medicine Craftsmen of the Sacred: Mobility and Family Structure Hepatoscopy Foundation Deposits Purification Spirits of the Dead and Black Magic Substitute Sacrifice Asclepius and Asgelatas Ecstatic Divination Lamashtu, Lamia, and Gorgo 3. Or Also a Godly Singer: Akkadian and Early Greek Literature From Atrahasis to the Deception of Zeus Complaint in Heaven: Ishtar and Aphrodite The Overpopulated Earth Seven against Thebes Common Style and Stance in Oriental and Greek Epic Fables Magic and Cosmogony Conclusion Abbreviations Bibliography Notes Index of Greek Words General Index

India in Early Greek Literature

India in Early Greek Literature

India in Early Greek Literature

India in Early Greek Literature

De kuise Jozef. De receptie van een bijbels model1Onderhavige bijdrage is ontstaan in het kader van het promotieonderzoek van de auteur naar de Wirkungsgeschichte van het thema ‘Jozef in Egypte’. Deze studie wordt verricht door G. Teugels, aspirante N.F.W.O., aan de Faculteit der Godgeleerdheid van de K.U. Leuven in het raam van een onderzoeksproject, geleid door prof. dr. M. Vervenne.

This article focuses on the reception in Jewish tradition of the story of Joseph’s temptation by Potiphar’s wife (Gen. 39:1-20). Firstly, the meanings of the Hebrew term tsaddiq and its Greek equivalents are analysed. Secondly, the author offers various examples of midrashic interpretations of Joseph stories from early Jewish Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek literature. It is obvious that Joseph is characterized as tsaddiq/sofron in the sense of being a chaste man. Joseph thus became the model par excellence of the ideal of chastity.

Psyche and Logos in the Fragments of Heraclitus

Former students of Francis MacDonald Cornford report that the distinguished Cambridge historian was fond of what he called his parable of the coins. The point of the parable's instruction was that words, especially philosophers' words, are like coins in that they retain their or visual appearance over decades and even centuries while their or meaning may be shifting drastically. The image of a coin with an enduring shape but a varying purchasing power is especially appropriate for the semantic career of one of the most important of Gr?pk philosophical words, psyche, traditionally rendered Visually, psyche retained its shape from the earliest Greek literature known to us, which is of course Homer, down to the age of the koine spoken in the time of Christ and later used to record the gospels. That was a period of a thou sand years of varied and often intense philosophical and religious explora tion and development; in those centuries, the meaning of psyche, unlike its shape, was far from static. Among scholars there is at present a widely held view, perhaps ap proaching consensus, that Socrates played a role in that development which was decisive, epoch marking if not epoch making, so that the last quarter of the fifth century becomes a crucial period1 in the developmental history of Greek ideas concerning soul. Less widely recognized is the fact that for the centuries preceding Socrates, the first significant changes in usage and meaning for the word psyche are to be found in the text of the philosopher Heraclitus who, in a radical break from popular and Homeric belief, claims that the psyche of a living person has a logos which is deep (B45) and self-augmenting (B115) and that its discovery requires extensive explora tion on the part of the individual (B45). Moreover, this is a cognitive and linguistic task (B107 supported by B87, 114, passim), an effort of intellect, which is accomplished only as an individual becomes awake or com prehending (Bl, 2, 34, 72, 73, passim)2 of the cosmos around him as well as in him, and only when that individual learns to listen to, and understand, a proper language or discourse, a logos (Bl, 2, 50, passim). It is the failure of anthropoi, most contemporary Hellenes, to listen to this logos, and conse quently their inability to participate cognitively and linguistically at a level of discourse demanded by the philosopher, which so many of the sayings, perhaps a majority, so elegantly castigate.3 If the argument offered in this paper proves correct, Heraclitus' statements about the logos of psyche are

Characterization of Sound in Early Greek Literature

Characterization of Sound in Early Greek Literature

From Mycenae to Homer. A Study in Early Greek Literature and Art. By T. B. L. Webster.

<i>From Mycenae to Homer. A Study in Early Greek Literature and Art</i>. By T. B. L. Webster.

From Mycenae to Homer. A Study in Early Greek Literature and Art

From Mycenae to Homer. A Study in Early Greek Literature and Art

The Michael Ventris Memorial Fund

MichaelVentris died at the age of 34 last September in a motor accident. His discovery that the Linear B texts of Knossos, Pylos, Mycenae, and other sites were Greek ranks as one of the most brilliant achievements of scholarship, and has been internationally acclaimed a feat of the same order as that of Champollion in deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphs. The brilliance of this discovery is matched by its importance; it will take years to work out the consequences of the new knowledge, which proves that Mycenaean civilization was Greek-speaking, gives us texts contemporary and comparable with texts from the adjoining civilizations of Egypt and the Near East, and shows us the state of the Greek language half a millennium before our earliest Greek literature.