(T.G.J.) Whitmarsh Ancient Greek Literature. (Cultural History of Literature, 2). Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004. Pp. viii + 284. £55/$59.99 (hbk); £15.99/$25.95 (pbk). 0745627919 (hbk); 0745627927 (pbk).

2005 ◽  
Vol 125 ◽  
pp. 168-169
Author(s):  
Ranja Knöbl
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancient Greek Literature ◽  
History Of Literature

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

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-128
Author(s):  
Irene J.F. de Jong
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
European Literature ◽  
Literary Historiography ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancient Greek Literature

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.

From Learning to Read Ancient Greek to Understanding Ancient Greek Literature

2020 ◽  
pp. 162-181
Author(s):  
Mónica Durán Mañas
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancient Greek Literature

This chapter is a didactic proposal for the teaching of Ancient Greek language and literature under an innovative and interdisciplinary approach. The history of teaching Ancient Greek shows different language acquisition methods that respond to the demands of their times, each of them with its advantages and disadvantages. The author combines diverse approaches to offer a new method for beginners in which students get involved in a stimulating practice that enables them to progress at the rhythm of their choice. The teaching materials are focused on real texts of Ancient Greek literature that work as starting point for an innovative and challenging language teaching for specific purposes approach. The final goal is to achieve student learning of Ancient Greek language through contextualized literary texts in order to get a better understanding of what Ancient Greek culture meant and why it has survived until today.

Status in Classical Athens

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Kamen
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Complex Spectrum ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Legal Evidence ◽  
Naturalized Citizens ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Democratic Ideology ◽  
Ancient Greek Literature ◽  
The Relationship

Ancient Greek literature, Athenian civic ideology, and modern classical scholarship have all worked together to reinforce the idea that there were three neatly defined status groups in classical Athens—citizens, slaves, and resident foreigners. But this book—the first comprehensive account of status in ancient democratic Athens—clearly lays out the evidence for a much broader and more complex spectrum of statuses, one that has important implications for understanding Greek social and cultural history. By revealing a social and legal reality otherwise masked by Athenian ideology, the book illuminates the complexity of Athenian social structure, uncovers tensions between democratic ideology and practice, and contributes to larger questions about the relationship between citizenship and democracy. Each chapter is devoted to one of ten distinct status groups in classical Athens (451/0–323 BCE): chattel slaves, privileged chattel slaves, conditionally freed slaves, resident foreigners (metics), illegitimate children, privileged metics, disenfranchised citizens, naturalized citizens, female citizens, and male citizens. Examining a wide range of literary, epigraphic, and legal evidence, as well as factors not generally considered together, such as property ownership, corporal inviolability, and religious rights, the book demonstrates the important legal and social distinctions that were drawn between various groups of individuals in Athens. At the same time, it reveals that the boundaries between these groups were less fixed and more permeable than Athenians themselves acknowledged. The book concludes by trying to explain why ancient Greek literature maintains the fiction of three status groups despite a far more complex reality.

scholarly journals Complexes of Emotions in Joseph and Aseneth

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-155
Author(s):  
Tyler Smith
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Emotional Aspect ◽  
Complex Emotions ◽  
Jewish Text ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Literature ◽  
Joseph And Aseneth ◽  
Greek Novel

The ancient Greek novel introduced to the history of literature a new topos: the “complex of emotions.” This became a staple of storytelling and remains widely in use across a variety of genres to the present day. The Hellenistic Jewish text Joseph and Aseneth employs this topos in at least three passages, where it draws attention to the cognitive-emotional aspect of the heroine’s conversion. This is interesting for what it contributes to our understanding of the genre of Aseneth, but it also has social-historical implications. In particular, it supports the idea that Aseneth reflects concerns about Gentile partners in Jewish-Gentile marriages, that Gentile partners might convert out of expedience or that they might be less than fully committed to abandoning “idolatrous” attachments. The representations of deep, grievous, and complex emotions in Aseneth’s transformational turn from idolatry to monolatry, then, might play a psychagogic role for the Gentile reader interested in marrying a Jewish person.

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