Latin Literature

2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-129
Author(s):  
Rebecca Langlands
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Human Perception ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Cultural Worldview ◽  
Pliny The Younger ◽  
Latin Language ◽  
The World ◽  
Gender Categories ◽  
Gender Boundaries

Among a wealth of excellent studies and translations of individual Latin authors (Plautus, Catullus, Lucretius, Cicero, Ovid, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Martial, Juvenal, and Statius), I was delighted also to find packed into my crate of review books the latest work by Anthony Corbeill, Sexing the World. With the innovative sociological-cum-philological approach familiar from his previous works, which belongs to cultural history as much as to literary and linguistic studies, Corbeill here tackles the question of how grammatical gender in ancient Latin language maps on to, and influences, a Roman cultural worldview that is binary and ‘heterosexual’, where grammatical gender is identified with biological gender. His study argues for the material implications of apparently ‘innocent’ grammatical categories. As a case study focusing on the Latin language and its relation to Roman culture and thought, it also makes a contribution to wider debates about how language shapes human perception of the world. Corbeill's main focus is on the Romans’ own narratives about the origins of their binary gender categories in a time of primordial fluidity, a ‘mystical lost time’ (134), that is reflected in the story told in each chapter, where transgressing gender boundaries is a source of power for gods and poets alike. In Chapter 1 the narrative in question is formed by the etymologizing accounts of the very grammatical term genus as fundamentally associated with procreation, and in Chapter 2 by Latin explanations for non-standard gender of nouns, with Chapter 3 being a demonstration of how Latin poets tap into the supposedly fluid origins of grammatical gender, to access their mystical power. In Chapter 4 the story is of how the androgynous gods of old became more rigidly assigned to one gender or another over time, while in Chapter 5 the shift is from the numinous duality of intersex people to the more mundane concern that they should be categorized in legal terms as either male or female. Each chapter, as Corbeill says, represents a self-contained treatment of a particular aspect of Latin gender categories; in sequence each can also be seen to trace a similar trajectory, from flux to binary certainty. In every case, it seems, early gender fluidity is represented by the Romans as gradually hardening into a clear binary differentiation between male and female. Corbeill is less interested in the reality of these narratives than in what they themselves tells us about Roman attitudes towards sex and gender, with their essentializing message about a heterosexual gender framework. With its wide-ranging erudition, clear and compelling prose, and fascinating insights of broad relevance, this is a thought-provoking study, even though it leaves many questions unanswered, especially in relation to the role of the neuter (‘neither’) gender and its interplay with the compound ‘both-ness’ of hermaphrodites.

Antaios: a mythical and symbolic Hermeneutics

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-139
Author(s):  
Luca Siniscalco
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
German Journal ◽  
Human Perception ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
Ontological Pluralism ◽  
The Core ◽  
Symbolic Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
Levels Of Reality

The aim of my research is to define the Religious Hermeneutics that can be identified as the specific core of Antaios (1959-1971), the German journal directed by the historian of religions Mircea Eliade and the writer and philosopher Ernst Jünger. We’ll focus on the philosophical-religious interpretation of Antaios contents: the so called “mythical-symbolic hermeneutics” is probably the most interesting theoretical theme connected to the Weltanschauung of Antaios. This cultural journal could embodies a counter-philosophical perspective that is at the same time intrinsic to Western speculation. This position has been repeatedly emerged in many phases of our cultural history. I am referring to a mythical-symbolic thought, characterized by an analogical interpretation of the world, whose structure is considered as a stratification of truth levels, that are complementary ontological levels of reality. This tradition sees reality as a specific kind of totality that allows human perception to take place through the structures of myth and symbols. The theoretical unity of the project is rooted in the mythical-symbolic tradition that, starting from the religious and esoteric pre-philosophical meditations, crosses the Platonic thought, the various neoplatonisms, passes through medieval mysticism and alchemy, reappears in Romanticism and is revealed in the twentieth century by the reflections of the “thinkers of Tradition”. With this paper I would like to communicate the main topics that from this Hermeneutics can be identified: speculations about symbol, myth, coincidentia oppositorum (coincidence of opposites), archetypes, ontological pluralism are at the core of this paradigm.

Roman Scholars on Grammatical Gender and Biological Sex

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Corbeill
Keyword(s):  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Scholarly Activity ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Biological Sex ◽  
The World ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
Greek Tradition ◽  
And Gender

This chapter considers how the Romans imagined that the earliest Latin speakers employed grammatical gender. From as early as Varro, scholars and grammarians occupied themselves with cataloguing the peculiarities of grammatical gender—instances, for example, when gender assignment seems counterintuitive, or where one noun can vary between masculine, feminine, and neuter. This scholarly activity, with little extant precedent in Greek tradition, finds Latin grammarians consistently placing great importance upon the identification of grammatical gender with biological sex. The chapter explains this fascination with “sex and gender” by analyzing the reasons posited for the fluid gender of nouns as well as the commonest practitioners of grammatical gender bending (in particular Vergil). It shows that by dividing the world into discrete sexual categories, Latin vocabulary works to encourage the pervasive heterosexualization of Roman culture.

Introduction

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Corbeill
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Latin Literature ◽  
Biological Sex ◽  
Linguistic Convention ◽  
Latin Language ◽  
The World ◽  
Sexual Characteristics ◽  
Sex And Sexuality

This book presents some evidence from ancient Rome to dispute the notion that the grammatical gender of inanimate objects is a convenient linguistic convention, having no correspondence with any sort of imagined sexual characteristics of those objects in the real world. It argues that in the world of Latin grammatical gender, the sex and sexuality behind a given gender was always available for exploitation by the learned speaker. The book provides a historical perspective to the ongoing debate over the extent to which the structure of language affects perception of the world. Using the stable data of the Latin language and Latin literature, it examines the consistent overlap, and even occasional identification, of grammatical gender with biological sex by speakers in ancient Rome, and shows that this overlap finds an analogue in the Latin nouns commonly used to denote “gender” and “sex.”

On the Semantic Content of Grammatical Gender and Its Impact on the Representation of Human Referents

2010 ◽  
Vol 57 (5) ◽  
pp. 367-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Irmen ◽  
Julia Kurovskaja
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Differential Effects ◽  
Gender Information ◽  
Masculine Role ◽  
Feminine Role ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender Categories ◽  
Open Question

Grammatical gender has been shown to provide natural gender information about human referents. However, due to formal and conceptual differences between masculine and feminine forms, it remains an open question whether these gender categories influence the processing of person information to the same degree. Experiment 1 compared the semantic content of masculine and feminine grammatical gender by combining masculine and feminine role names with either gender congruent or incongruent referents (e.g., Dieser Lehrer [masc.]/Diese Lehrerin [fem.] ist mein Mann/meine Frau; This teacher is my husband/my wife). Participants rated sentences in terms of correctness and customariness. In Experiment 2, in addition to ratings reading times were recorded to assess processing more directly. Both experiments were run in German. Sentences with grammatically feminine role names and gender incongruent referents were rated as less correct and less customary than those with masculine forms and incongruent referents. Combining a masculine role name with an incongruent referent slowed down reading to a greater extent than combining a feminine role name with an incongruent referent. Results thus specify the differential effects of masculine and feminine grammatical gender in denoting human referents.

Everyday Catastrophes: Gender, Labour and Power in Beckett's Theatre

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-34
Author(s):  
Trish McTighe
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Entertainment Industry ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The World ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
Gender Boundaries ◽  
The Invisible ◽  
Making Art

In an era of public consciousness about gendered inequalities in the world of work, as well as recent revelations of sexual harassment and abuse in theatre and film production, Beckett's Catastrophe (1982) bears striking resonances. This article will suggest that, through the figure of its Assistant, the play stages the gendered nature of the labour of making art, and, in her actions, shows the kind of complicit disgust familiar to many who work in the entertainment industry, especially women. In unpacking this idea, I conceptualise the distinction between the everyday and ‘the event’, as in, between modes of quotidian labour and the attention-grabbing moment of art, between the invisible foundations of representation and the spectacle of that representation. It is my thesis that this play stages exactly this tension and that deploying a discourse of maintenance art allows the play to be read in the context of the labour of theatre-making. Highlighting the Assistant's labour becomes a way of making visible the structures of authority that are invested in maintaining gender boundaries and showing how art is too often complicit in the maintenance of social hierarchies.

The Demonolexis in Yu. Andrukhovych’s Long Short Story “Recreatsii” (“Recreations”)

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (27) ◽  
pp. 53-60
Author(s):  
Nina Bosak
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Human Perception ◽  
Semantic Group ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
The World

The demonolexis in Yu. Andrukhovych’s long short story “Recreatsii” (“Recreations”) has been analyzed in the article. In the course of the research there have been outlined the following lexical-semantic groups of demonomens: toponymic and onomastic names, modified lexemes, names of the rituals, genuine Ukrainian demonomens, obscene words and expressions, demonomens of Biblical origin, names from the world mythology and general demonolexis. The special lexical-semantic group has been formed by non personificated demonomens, which serve to convey the peculiarities of the contemporary Ukrainian writers’ mentality, their habits through speech. Such nomens help to reveal the protagonist’s soul, show the positive and negative sides of his personal ego, demonstrate the duality of the human perception of the world, indicate the causes of phobias, emotions, sensations. Key words: demonolexis, demonomen, lexical-semantic group, non personificated demonomen.

Puccini's La Bohème

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Music Drama ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
La Boheme ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Many ◽  
The City

La bohème is one of the most frequently performed operas in the world. But how did it come to be so adored? Drawing on an extremely broad range of sources, Alexandra Wilson traces the opera’s rise to global fame. Although the work has been subjected to many hostile critiques, it swiftly achieved popular success through stage performances, recordings, and filmed versions. Wilson demonstrates how La bohème acquired even greater cultural influence as its music and dramatic themes began to be incorporated into pop songs, film soundtracks, musicals, and more. In this cultural history of Puccini’s opera, Wilson offers a fresh reading of a familiar work. La bohème was strikingly modern for the 1890s, she argues, in its approach to musical and dramatic realism and in flouting many of the conventions of the Italian operatic tradition. Considering the work within the context of the aesthetic, social, and political debates of its time, Wilson explores Puccini’s treatment of themes including gender, poverty, and nostalgia. She pays particular attention to La bohème’s representation of Paris, arguing that the opera was not only influenced by romantic mythologies surrounding the city but also helped shape them. Wilson concludes with a consideration of the many and varied approaches directors have taken to the staging of Puccini’s opera, including some that have reinvented the opera for a new age. This book is essential reading for anyone who has seen La bohème and wants to know more about its music, drama, and cultural contexts.

A Cultural History Of Color in the Renaissance

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Material World ◽  
Color Terms ◽  
Global Circulation ◽  
The World ◽  
Color Technology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Psychology Literature

A Cultural History of Color in the Renaissance covers the period 1400 to 1650, a time of change, conflict, and transformation. Innovations in color production transformed the material world of the Renaissance, especially in ceramics, cloth, and paint. Collectors across Europe prized colorful objects such as feathers and gemstones as material illustrations of foreign lands. The advances in technology and the increasing global circulation of colors led to new color terms enriching language. Color shapes an individual’s experience of the world and also how society gives particular spaces, objects, and moments meaning. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Color examines how color has been created, traded, used, and interpreted over the last 5000 years. The themes covered in each volume are color philosophy and science; color technology and trade; power and identity; religion and ritual; body and clothing; language and psychology; literature and the performing arts; art; architecture and interiors; and artefacts. Volume 3 in the Cultural History of Color set. General Editors: Carole P. Biggam and Kirsten Wolf

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