Reading a View: Poem and Picture in the Greek Anthology

Ramus ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Squire
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Da Vinci ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Leonardo Da Vinci ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Fourth Century Bce ◽  
Sister Arts ◽  
The Relationship

‘A picture is a silent poem, a poem is a speaking picture’ (attr. Simonides)‘A picture is a silent poem, a poem is a blind picture’ (Leonardo da Vinci)How do words represent images? In what ways do visual signs function like (and unlike) verbal ones? And which medium better captures its represented subjects—pictures that are seen, or poems that are heard, written and read?These questions stretch the length and breadth of western literary criticism. Already in the Homeric description of Achilles' shield (Il.18.478-608), we find the respective resources of pictures and poetry pitched against one other, in a passage that plays with the respective visibility of words and the audibility of images. By the late sixth century BCE, the relationship between poetry and painting seems to have been theorised explicitly. Whatever the origins of the maxim attributed to Simonides—‘frequently repeated’, as Plutarch elsewhere describes it—a related sentiment was evidently widespread by the fourth century BCE. When Plato came to theorise the relationship in hisPhaedrus, he has Socrates define words and paintings in closely related terms: ‘the creatures that painting begets stand in front of us as though they were living entities,’ Socrates concludes; ‘ask them a question, however, and they maintain a majestic silence’ (ϰαὶ γὰϱ τὰ ἐϰείνης ἔϰγονα ἕστηϰε μὲν ὡς ζῶντα, ἐὰν δ' ἀνέϱῃ τι, σεμνῶς πάνυ σιγᾷ, Pl.Phdr.275d).Vt pictura poesis—as is painting, so is poetry’: that was how Horace famously summed up the analogy some four centuries later, giving rise to the so-called ‘sister arts’ tradition of conceptualising painting and poetry.

Hesiod and Comedy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Henderson
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Cultural Authority ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Cultural Currency ◽  
Fourth Century Bce

Comic dramas, attested as early as the later sixth century bce in Sicily and from ca. 486 bce in Attica, reflect familiarity with Hesiodic poetry from the time our actual documentation begins in the 470s for Sicily and 430s for Attica and into the mid-fourth century bce. Comic poets engaged with Hesiodic poetry at the level of specific allusion or echo and (more frequently) with Hesiodic stories, thought, themes, ideas, and style, now common cultural currency. They also engaged with the poet and his poetic persona, whether bracketed with Homer as a great cultural authority, distinguished as the anti-Homer in subjects or style, or showcased as an emblematic persona of poet and (didactic) sage. Aristophanes, for one, adopted elements of the Hesiodic persona in fashioning his own.

scholarly journals From the History of the Journal “Severny Vestnik”. Commentary to the Commentary

Literary Fact ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 261-277
Author(s):  
Mikhail V. Stroganov
Keyword(s):  
Essential Role ◽  
Da Vinci ◽  
Leonardo Da Vinci ◽  
Personal Relationship ◽  
Short History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

The history of literary associations, including the history of any journal, is primarily the history of people's relationships with each other. In such a history, personal likes and dislikes play the most essential role. This law of personal sympathies and antipathies manifests itself very expressively in a rather short history of the journal “Severny Vestnik”, published by L.Ya. Gurevich (1891–1898). The article offers significant additions to comments to published texts on the history of the journal. A.L. Volynsky and N.K. Mikhailovsky showed equal harshness and indelicacy in their polemics, but their contemporaries almost unanimously sided with Mikhailovsky as an older and deserved writer. Volynsky acquired a reputation as an unscrupulous person and gossip begins to gather around his name. Volynsky demonstrated unacceptable immodesty towards D.S. Merezhkovsky and Z.N. Gippius and allowed himself to use of someone else's material, bordering on plagiarism. But most importantly, in the plot of the book about Leonardo da Vinci, he depicted his personal relationship with Merezhkovsky and Gippius and his interpretation of the relationship between them. In addition, he expelled Merezhkovsky from the journal “Severny Vestnik”, which closed for him the opportunity to publish his novel about Leonardo da Vinci.

What Philosophos Could Have Meant: A Lexical Account

2019 ◽  
pp. 66-106
Author(s):  
Christopher Moore
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Diodorus Siculus ◽  
Fourth Century Bce

This chapter shows what the term philosophos could have meant at the time for which it is attested, and thus what meaning Pythagoras or his followers would have sought to spin in accepting the term for themselves, had they done so. It pays close attention to the peculiar archaic use of phil-prefixed names, their normative valence, their application, or the contribution of their second element to the overall meaning. The chapter also considers the meaning of that particular second element, soph-, at the end of the sixth century BCE. This chapter thus begins by turning again to Cicero's version of the Pythagoras story. It looks in more detail to a non-Heraclidean but probably still fourth-century BCE version, found in Diodorus Siculus, which in effect dramatizes the thesis of this book: that the word philosophos was formed in reference to sophoi considered as “sages.”

The Christological Debates and the Miracles and Sufferings of Christ

2018 ◽  
pp. 56-88
Author(s):  
Philip Michael Forness
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Cyril Of Alexandria ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter traces the history of the Christological language of the miracles and sufferings of Christ from the fourth through sixth centuries. Armenian, Coptic, Latin, Greek, and Syriac texts pair the miracles of Christ with the sufferings of Christ to express the relationship between his divinity and humanity. This pairing first appeared in Cappadocia in the late fourth century, but it became a source of controversy especially through Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorios of Constantinople’s disagreement. The presence of this phrase in Pope Leo I’s Tome led to further disagreements at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Emperor Zeno used this phrase in an imperial decree issued in 482, known as the Henotikon, and it would later be codified in Roman law through the Emperor Justinian I. Miaphysite leaders, including Jacob of Serugh, debated the proper understanding of Christology in reference to this phrase in the early sixth century.

'Looking' at Conversations

1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 31-51
Author(s):  
Marike Hoekstra
Keyword(s):  
Social Insurance ◽  
Da Vinci ◽  
Leonardo Da Vinci ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Joint Learning ◽  
The Public ◽  
Transnational Exchange ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
Learning Language ◽  
The Relationship

This paper discusses a conversation between six Swedish women who participated in a transnational exchange that formed part of a project in the framework of the EU's Leonardo Da Vinci Program, the aim of which is formulated as: "To develop tools for competence enhancement for organizations active in the field of social insurance ". The project sought to link organizations that are active in the field of social insurance, both in the private and the public sector, from Sweden, Belgium, Ireland and Northern Ireland. The joint 'learning ' that took place as a result of the transnational exchange is illustrated in the first part of this paper with fragments of conversations and recorded episodes, all of which are part of a narrative on cross-cultural personal encounters. The paper reflects on the transnational experience, in the light of the intertwined notions of learning, language and cultural embeddedness. In the second part, the paper discusses the significance of interaction, encounter, mutuality, contrast, and surprise, and further will allude to the relationship between competence and organization.

POETS AND POETRY IN LATER GREEK COMEDY

2013 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 603-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Wright
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Greek Comedy ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
New Comedy

The comic dramatists of the fifth centuryb.c.were notable for their preoccupation with poetics – that is, their frequent references to their own poetry and that of others, their overt interest in the Athenian dramatic festivals and their adjudication, their penchant for parody and pastiche, and their habit of self-conscious reflection on the nature of good and bad poetry. I have already explored these matters at some length, in my study of the relationship between comedy and literary criticism in the period before Plato and Aristotle. This article continues the story into the fourth century and beyond, examining the presence and function of poetical and literary-critical discourse in what is normally called ‘middle’ and ‘new’ comedy.

Practice and Discourse: Ritual Vessels in a Fourth-Century BCE Chinese Tomb

Vessels ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wu Hung
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Philosophy ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
Social Conventions ◽  
Ritual Propriety ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
Fourth Century Bce ◽  
Eastern Zhou ◽  
The Relationship

Supposedly articulated by Confucius himself (ca. 551–ca. 479 BCE), this tightly knit political rhetoric provides a logical context for understanding the intrinsic relationship between qi (vessel, insignia, instrument) and li (ritual, rite, propriety), a central concern of Rujia 儒家—the School of Confucians—in the second half of the Eastern Zhou, from the fifth to third century BCE. The idea that vessels store essential ritual codes is stated more plainly in the Book of Rites: “The round and square food containers fu 簠 and gui 簋, the stand zu 俎, and the tall dish dou 豆, with their regulated forms and decoration, are the vessels (qi) embodying ritual propriety (li).” One of the major intellectual forces at the time, Rujia developed the notion of li on two fronts: as a principal concept in its political, moral, and aesthetic teachings, and as specific rules governing different kinds of ritual performances, including the use of ritual vessels and other ritual paraphernalia on special occasions. Accordingly li is applied to two major aspects of human lives: ceremonies and related practices; and social conventions—primarily those of law, human relations, and morality—that govern the working of society at large. These two aspects overlap. In the idealized society envisioned by Eastern Zhou Confucians, ceremonies and ritual vessels reflect and regulate human relationships and thus determine legal and moral standards. In this sense a bronze or pottery vessel can embody ritual codes and social principles. Whereas the Confucian theory of li has been a central subject in modern scholarship on traditional Chinese philosophy, the Confucian discourse on qi has received much less attention. To those who study Eastern Zhou material and visual culture, this lack is related to another overlooked issue concerning the relationship between discourses and practice: In what way were Confucian ritual writings, especially those on ritual vessels and procedures, connected to actual ritual performance? This question is not general but specific and historical because the predecessors of Rujia arose from ritual specialists, and many of its members carried on this profession in the late Eastern Zhou and even the Han. This is why Confucian ritual texts are often practical guides to conducting ritual affairs. How can we connect these writings to contemporary ritual objects, tombs, and other ritual structures found through archaeological excavations?

Early Greek Ethics

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
International Team ◽  
Philosophical Ethics ◽  
Fourth Century Bce ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
Dissoi Logoi

Early Greek Ethics is devoted to Greek philosophical ethics in its “formative” period. The formative period is the century and a half that extends from the last decades of the sixth century BCE to about the first third of the fourth century BCE. It begins with the inception of Greek philosophical ethics and ends immediately before the composition of Plato’s and Aristotle’s mature ethical works: Republic and Nicomachean Ethics. The ancient contributors include Presocratics such as Heraclitus, Democritus, and figures of the early Pythagorean tradition such as Empedocles and Archytas of Tarentum (who have previously been studied principally for their metaphysical, cosmological, and natural philosophical ideas); Socrates and his lesser known associates such as Antisthenes of Athens and Aristippus of Cyrene; sophists such as Gorgias of Leontini, Antiphon of Athens, and Prodicus of Ceos; and anonymous texts such as the Pythagorean acusmata, Dissoi Logoi, Anonymus Iamblichi, and On Law and Justice. In addition to chapters on these individuals and texts, the volume includes chapters on select fields and topics especially influential to ethical philosophical thought in the formative period and later, such as early Greek medicine, music, friendship, justice and the afterlife, and early Greek ethnography. Consisting of thirty chapters composed by an international team of twenty-eight philosophers and classicists, Early Greek Ethics is the first volume in any language devoted to philosophical ethics in the formative period.

A ‘Whispered Disfazione’: Maurice Blanchot, Leonardo da Vinci and Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit

2013 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Winstanley
Keyword(s):  
Da Vinci ◽  
Leonardo Da Vinci ◽  
Maurice Blanchot ◽  
Literary Critic ◽  
The Relationship

This piece examines the audacious dismissal of Leonardo da Vinci in Samuel Beckett's Three Dialogues with George Dialogue alongside the Parisian re-evaluation of Leonardo's work in the 1940s; a re-evaluation partly prompted by Gallimard's publication of Les carnets de Léonard de Vinci (1942). It argues that B's critique of Leonardo and the Italian masters is imbricated in contemporary debates on the relationship between painting and the impossible that emerged between the Flemish painter and writer, Jean de Boschère, and the French literary critic, Maurice Blanchot; a debate which Beckett himself appears to have encountered in Blanchot's Faux Pas (1943).

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