Greek Poems Research Articles

EXTENTION OF THE SEMANTIC FIELD OF MYTHONIM “ODYSSEY” IN THE ADVERTISING DISCOURSE OF ITALY 2000-2021

The object of this article is mythonyms that move into another class of proper names - pragmatonyms or verbal trademarks. The subject of the article was chosen mythonyms from the ancient Greek poem “The Odyssey” by Homer, which are widely used in modern advertising and commercial practice in Italy to name various products: furniture, interior items, clothing, jewelry, food, technical and medical equipment. The purpose of the article is to refute the generally accepted idea that the meaning of an onym (in our case, a mythonym) is impoverished during transonymization into a verbal trademark. The article identified mythonyms from the Odyssey that most often become pragmatonyms - Odysseus, Penelope, Polyphemus. As a result of their analysis, it was demonstrated that peripheral semes of meaning that are not relevant in the mythonym are actualized in the Italian advertising discourse of 2000-2021. Thus, the semantic field of the mythonym, functioning as a trade name, expands and enriches, and not vice versa. The article highlighted the following updated components of meaning: Odysseus - masculinity and freedom, Penelope - thriftiness and beauty, Polyphemus - creative force in the service of man. In the last mythonym, the core meaning of “the destructive power of the savage” completely changed the meaning to “civilizational power of creation”, and the vector of assessment changed. In this case, advertising discourse reflects the linguistic and cultural tendency that exists in Southern Italy to master and appropriate the symbolic space of Mediterranean culture not so much through the figure of Odysseus, but through the Sicilian Polyphemus. The study used a two-stage corpus analysis method: a continuous sample of product names to identify mythonyms from the Odyssey (68 product names) and a representative sample of products with the names Odysseus, Penelope, Polyphemus.

Forging lesbians: Sappho and The Songs of Bilitis

Abstract In Les Chansons de Bilitis (‘The Songs of Bilitis’, 1894), Pierre Louÿs purports to have translated into French for the first time the long-lost Greek poems of Bilitis, a contemporary of Sappho. Classicists have often heralded Bilitis as a watershed moment for reclaiming the lesbian Sappho from the clutches of homophobic, misogynist philologists. This paper complicates this narrative by reframing Bilitis as an object that participates in a broader cultural — and potentially queer — history of forgery. Rather than categorizing Bilitis as a forgery per se, I use forgery (and related textual practices) as a lens for illuminating how Louÿs ‘plays’ the forger and how this performance relates to readers’ divergent desires and reactions. This lens also brings into focus the queer dynamics and effects of this text in relation to Sappho’s corpus. At the same time, following Kadji Amin’s cue to ‘deidealize queerness’ (2017), I show how such queer dynamics are inextricable from colonialist and patriarchal relations of power, in particular an Orientalizing tradition of forgeries by white European and American men. This framework illuminates the affective and political ramifications of forging queer narratives and identifications through the medium of this curious artefact.

Greek “Lament” by Vyacheslav Ivanov

This article publishes a Greek poem composed by the Russian symbolist Vyacheslav Ivanov in Rome on September 2, 1893. The author’s signature below contains an indication of the genre (“threnos”, i. e. “lament”): the combination of iambic trimeter with the author’s title “threnos” can be found in the Carmina de se ipso by Gregory Nazianzin. Despite the Greek meter, language, and vocabulary borrowed partly from epic poetry, Ivanov is oriented toward the Russian Romantic tradition in choosing as a key theme the longing for the “sweet north” contrasted with the south, a representation of an earthly paradise. Other Romantic motifs include exile and envy of free birds. References to ancient mythology are expressed in the images of the garden of the Hesperides and the country of the Hyperboreans: whereas the garden of the Hesperides, conceptually linked in Ivanov’s poetry with the South, is an idyllic space metaphorically referring to Italy, Hyperborea is traditionally associated with Russia. The white-winged birds aspiring to the Hyperborean home are swans, and thus here appears implicitly the metapoetic theme developed by Ivanov with the Hyperborean myth in later poems. The genre and theme of exile point to the influence of Ovid’s Tristia: a year earlier, Ivanov had written an elegiac epistle to A. M. Dmitrievsky entitled Laeta, in which he recognizes Rome as his new home, and instead of homesickness, there is a motif of longing for a friend.

Villerías’ Latin Translation of Alessandra Scala’s Greek Epigram to Poliziano and the Translation Wars in Mexico

The Reserved Collection of the National Library of Mexico holds a previously unpublished manuscript (Ms 1594) that contains the Latin and Greek works of a New Spanish poet, José de Villerías y Roelas (1695-1728). It is undoubtedly the most important document known to us, written in Greek and produced in New Spain during the colonial period. To date, no other New Spanish materials containing original compositions in Greek have been located or studied; nor are we aware of any collection of Greek poems anthologised by a New Spanish Hellenist. Hence the manuscript stands as a kind of codex unicus for New Spanish Hellenism. In this paper, I publish and analyse one of the poems, the longest of Villerías' collection of Greek poetry, and his Latin translation. In the manuscript, the epigram in question is attributed to the distinguished and renowned humanist of the Italian Quattrocento, Alessandra Scala, who composed it in response to one of Angelo Poliziano’s poems dedicated to her. Before analysing Villerías’ text and translation, I trace Poliziano's reception in New Spain and explore Villerías’ possible engagement with Poliziano's Liber Epigrammatum Graecorum. Finally, I discuss the various approaches to the translation of Greek texts in Mexico from the colonial period to the present day. The aim is to stimulate debates about classical reception in post-colonial and peripheral contexts and to present the politics in which classicism became institutionalised in contemporary Mexico.

Der Rahmen von Ps 45 (V. 1–2; 17–18)

Abstract While the core of Ps 45 (vv. 3–16) clearly bears the stamp of a Phoenician royal court, the beginning and end highlight features that elucidate the psalm’s main body. V. 1 f. present an author who has assumed an Aramaic title (סוֹפֵר מׇהִיר): he reflects on his works, puts his poetry indirectly on a par with a Greek poem by adopting the Greek concept of ποίημα (= מַעֲשֶׂה), and through the superscription »a love song« secondarily reads this idea into the psalm, even though love is nowhere mentioned. V. 17 f. link up organically with the psalm’s main body, but no longer deal with the king alone; the focus is now on his dynasty, whose impact is international, unbounded by time or place.

Z Wielkopolski na Helikon. Rozważania o życiu i twórczości Bonawentury Czesława Graszyńskiego (1859–1922) w stulecie śmierci polsko-greckiego poety

The aim of my paper is to present the life and poetical works of Bonawentura Czesław Graszyński (1859–1922), a Polish classical philologist, who wrote a number of tragedies and lyrical poems in Ancient Greek. He was born in Murowana Goślina (Greater Poland). After graduating from the high school in Leszno (Greater Poland), he studied medicine and classical philology from 1879 to 1887 at the University of Greifswald. In 1908 he received awards from the Academy of Athens, as well as George I of Greece. It can be said that Graszyński conquered Mount Helicon as a symbol of poetical mastery in Polish-Greek literature.

The Alcaic Odes of Horace and Greek Poems of the Early 20th Century

SummaryThis article is concerned with shedding light on two examples of influence between Horace and the Greek poets, both ancient and modern. The aim of this paper is to shed light on several parallel aspects between two of the Alcaic odes of Horace and two modern Greek lyric poems by Constantine Cavafy and Angelos Sikelianos, respectively. Subsequently, I show, within the wider framework of inter-textuality, a subtle example of the utilization and re-utilization of lyric elements that are originally ancient Greek in nature by the Latin and modern Greek poets. In my argumentation, I will rely on textual similarities, as well as on the views expressed by scholars in non-comparative contexts The paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, I compare Horace’s carm. 2. 3 with Cavafy’s Ithaka. The most important points of comparison in this section are three common features: instructive tone, the epicurean tendency and the melancholic end. In the second, I compare Horace’s carm. 1. 37 with Sikelianos’ Dithyramb. The most important points of comparison in this section are three common features, namely, the connection of the Bacchic ecstasy to political issues, the connection of the Dionysiac spirit to the struggle against the national enemy and the association of Bacchic frenzy with hunting and chase.

Powell, Barry B., Greek Poems from the Gods: Hymns from Homer to Proclus

Powell, Barry B., Greek Poems from the Gods: Hymns from Homer to Proclus

Filozoficzny rodowód Pana Cogito (cz. 3)

The third part of the article is focused on the interpretation of a well-known poem by Zbigniew Herbert, “The Message of Mr. Cogito”. The rhetorical figure, the golden fleece of nothingness, has been interpreted in the context of Meister Eckhart’s apophatic theology, as well as the phenomenology of Bertrand Welte. Since nothingness has been described by the predicate of the golden fleece, it paradoxically comes across as something that is. The golden fleece, in turn, alludes to the ancient Greek poem by Apollonius of Rhodes, in which it became a reward for the Argonauts’ virtue of courage in their fight against evil. In the ancient myths of Hellas, the golden fleece is also a symbol of divine providence and protection. Therefore nothingness, described in the poem by the predicate of the golden fleece, does not have to mean non-existence, or mere nothing, but it can point to reality which transcends the limits of human language and as such, it can be described merely in the terms of apophatic theology. For B. Welte, on the other hand, nothingness exists in the consciousness of Dasein as the inevitability of death and its ontological status is ambiguous. This is because nothingness exists as something that is. Since Dasein intends to endow his/her being-here with meaning by following the rules of ethics, the only guarantee of their rightfulness is nothingness understood as the mystery of transcendence.

Correct and Translate Poetry: The Case of Parisinus Suppl. Gr. 388

The present work focuses on the peculiarity of the codex Parisinus Suppl. Gr. 388. This manuscript is marked by a 12th-century Latin translation, running above some Greek verses of Theognis’ Elegies and entirely above the poems by Pseudo-Phocylides’ Sentences and by Dionysius Periegetes’ Description of the Known World. Moreover, the translator reviewed the Greek poems too. Hence, in this study I will focus on the correction and translation of Theognis’ Elegies and Pseudo-Phocylides’ Sentences. Firstly, I will carry out a palaeographic analysis of the scholar’s writing. Secondly, I will scrutinize the Latin translation. Finally, I will analyse the corrections on Greek texts.

General

Structures of Epic Poetry is a monumental, four-volume compendium which aims to classify, analyse, and compare epic structures across Greek and Latin epic poems (and beyond) in a systematic and overarching way. While the individual Bauformen (‘structural elements’) have been the focus of the study of epic for decades, a comprehensive analysis providing a systematic overview of all structural elements in the totality of ancient epic is obviously not a one-person job. The editors, Christiane Reitz and Simone Finkmann, gathered an international group of experts for this herculean task. The compendium provides a set of broad cross-sectional papers on the individual epic structural elements, using a consistent terminology. It has to be said that the editors’ understanding of what constitutes an epic structural element is very broad: it includes the ‘type-scenes’, but also the narrative patterns such as catalogue and ecphrasis, and stylistic hallmarks such as similes; in fact, structural elements as understood by the editors come closest to genre markers.

The Tragic Fate of the Epic Helmsman

In various Greek and Latin epic poems examples can be found of one character in particular who meets his end remarkably often: the helmsman. This article shows that the ‘death of the helmsman’ can be considered an epic motif from Homer on (where quite a few instances can be found), with imitations by Apollonius Rhodius and subsequently by the Roman epic poets (Vergil, Lucan, Silius Italicus). A parody from Greek prose by Lucian corroborates this notion. Although some of the early instances seem to have cultic origins, and can be explained through aetiology, Homer’s imitators appear to have used the motif knowingly, and to have played with it. Based on the accumulation of examples, and the nature of imitation within the epic genre, it can be argued that, to many epic poets, the death of the pilot was considered a narrative topos.

St. Petersburg Mythology in an Ancient Greek Poem by F. B. Graefe on the 100-year Jubilee of the Imperial Academy of Sciences (1826)

This article deals with a poem by academician F. B. Graefe (1780–1851) written in ancient Greek elegiacs (424 lines) with authorized German poetic translation en regard (1826). The poem was dedicated to the 100-year jubilee of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and printed in a small number of exemplars (für Wenige). The poem has never been republished until now. The article provides the Introduction (54 lines), the Epilogue, and selected passages in Greek and German, with Russian translation and commentaries. The Introduction describes the foundation of St. Petersburg and the Academy by Peter the First. Graefe’s stock images (the marshes on which St. Petersburg appeared; a poor Finnish fisherman with his old net; a tsar demiurge on the bank of the river; etc.), motifs (nature and civilization) and formulas (before — now; one hundred years later; etc.) reflect the official, cosmological St. Petersburg mythology. Three other selected passages of the poem describe the paleontological and Egyptian collections of the Academy museums. The author discusses Graefe’s possible sources, the historical context of his poem, and responces to it in Germany. Graefe’s poem in ancient Greek is a testimony of the Neuhumanismus in Russia.

Indo-Iranian Lullabies

Abstract The following paper is concerned with a comparison between the Vedic hymn RV VII 55 and the Vīdēvdād chapter XVIII 16. It is argued that little lullaby-themes, aimed at quieting men as well as animals, have come to be included into sacral and religious texts from popular sources (e.g. magical charms to be performed on sleepless babies), revealing Proto-Indo-European formulae and stylistic patterns that can be reconstructed. A Hittite text and some fragments of Greek poems by Simonides and Alcman are also included in the list of the passages to be compared.

Vyach. Ivanov’s Greek poem to G. A. Rachinsky

Vyach. Ivanov’s Greek poem to G. A. Rachinsky

Jacob Baldes Batrachomyomachia Homeri Tuba Romana cantata (1637) und der Dreißigjährige Krieg

Abstract One of the most extensive texts of the neolatin poet and Jesuit Jacob Balde is his ›Battle of the Frogs and Mice‹, a Latin version of the Batrachomyomachia, an ancient Greek epic, which for a long time was seen as a work of the founder of European literature, Homer. The pseudo-Homeric Batrachomyomachia was read as a humorous travesty of the Iliad. By assigning the comic text to Homer, scholars implied the appealing, yet wrongful idea that the author of the greatest mythical war was mocking his own work, thereby parodying the respectable genre of heroic epics. With Balde’s creation of a new version of this Greek poem during the Thirty Years’ War, the question arises as to whether his text is no more than an intertextual play on a famous literary genre, or whether it reacts to the recent historical events in early modern Europe - or both.

Boccaccio’s Demogorgon and Renaissance Platonism

ABSTRACTThe shadowy deity Demogorgon, whom Giovanni Boccaccio identifies as the uncreated progenitor of the pagan pantheon, enjoyed an illustrious literary afterlife. The information about Demogorgon that Boccaccio presents in the Genealogie deorum gentilium libri [Genealogy of the Pagan Gods] (and which Boccaccio claims derives indirectly from a lost, extremely ancient Greek poem) captured the interest of thinkers connected with the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century revival of Platonism and syncretism, as this essay will demonstrate by examining Demogorgon’s presence in the works of three Renaissance authors: Ugolino Verino, Marsilio Ficino, and Leone Ebreo.

Do Good Work…

I don't usually write about industry mergers, but this one is different—it has a personal impact. At the end of last year, on Dec. 15, 2017, CH2M merged with Jacobs. Both are outstanding firms that now have the goal of being stronger together. But one of them, CH2M, is where my water utility career began. And for reasons I cannot fully explain, I have a sense of personal remorse about this merger. Perhaps it is because I believe what I do today began when I started working at CH2M Hill (as it was called in those days). I was 25 when I started in CH2M Hill's Portland, Ore., office. On my first day there was no office for me—only a desk in the hallway across from my boss's office. In those days a computer on your desk was uncommon and my desk was no exception; most work got done by phone, fax, and FedEx. I remember that first day like it was yesterday. I had no idea what I was doing. My boss—Dr. Kees Corssmit—came out to my desk and handed me a blue-covered paperback book, a manual actually, with simple instructions: “Read this.” As he tried to return to his office, I asked him why I should read it. He said, “You should read it because it will explain how we do the work we do,” and then he left me—problem solved—if I read this manual, I would know what I was doing. I looked down at the manual and read the title: Water Rates, by the American Water Works Association. That was the first time I encountered AWWA, and all I knew at that moment was that the American Water Works Association held the key and provided the guidance for my new employer's work. So, I read it, then I read it again, and then a third time. At the end of my first day, I leaned back in my chair and realized that I did not understand a single word—it reminded me of when I was in college and I had to read The Iliad by Homer. I read all the words but had no idea about the meaning of the ancient Greek poem, just like this AWWA manual. Eventually, thank goodness, Kees and others helped me understand the manual's guidance and importance. Working at CH2M Hill was special. In those days the firm was teetering between its origins as a small practice started by an Oregon State University professor (Merryfield) and three of his students (C, H, and H) and the mega-international firm that many of us know today. The logo was a simple design of four horizontal blue bars, stacked on top of each other with the words Engineers, Planners, Economists, and Scientists lined up next to each bar. I was working with the economists. One day Jim Howland, the past president of the firm and the first “H” in the firm's name, came to the office. Jim was known to all for his kind demeanor and leadership wisdom. His catch phrase, “Do good work. Make a profit. Enjoy life.” was central to the culture at that time. On that day, Jim was taking the time to provide us with his pearls of wisdom. He read from his Little Yellow Book, so named because, well, it was little and yellow. The book captured Howland's thoughts on myriad timeless business issues, including ethics, organizational culture, bonuses, and how to treat people. We all received a copy of the book and, if asked, he personally signed each one. I still have my autographed copy and it continues to provide me with wisdom in times of need. It also has remained a cornerstone of CH2M's corporate culture. Later in my career, I became very involved in AWWA and, ironically, I eventually became the chair of the Rates and Charges Committee—the committee that writes Water Rates—the manual I read three times on my first day at CH2M Hill.

Loyal Protestants and Dangerous Papists: Maryland and the Politics of Religion in the English Atlantic, 1630–1690

In his Experiment in Criticism (1961), C. S. Lewis wrote: In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here … I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do. Antoinette Sutto's first book does something very similar for the history of Maryland. In her admirably slim, engagingly written, and fascinating study, she breaks with the tradition of most histories of colonial Maryland and places this small, unique colony into a much wider world, which highlights not only its “uniqueness” but also its greater comprehensibility. Maryland considered in isolation presents a colony apart, Catholic in a Protestant empire, officially religiously tolerant when toleration was often considered treasonous, essentially ruled by a “proprietor.” But, viewed through the transatlantic lens provided by Sutto, Maryland comes into broader focus. Despite being on the edge of the “known world,” seventeenth-century Maryland was not isolated, but intimately intertwined with religio-political worlds geographically far removed from the colony.

Uusklassikaline luuletraditsioon varauusaja Tallinnas ja Tartus / Humanist Greek and Neo-Latin poetry in Early Modern Tallinn and Tartu

Uusklassikaline luuletraditsioon varauusaja Tallinnas ja Tartus / Humanist Greek and Neo-Latin poetry in Early Modern Tallinn and Tartu