scholarly journals Spectators and Spectacle in Quintus’ Posthomerica

Mnemosyne ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-57
Author(s):  
Irene J.F. de Jong
Keyword(s):  
Late Antique ◽  
Visual Aesthetics ◽  
Narrative Device ◽  
Literary Reputation ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Ubiquitous Presence ◽  
As If

Abstract Quintus’ literary reputation is on the rise, in the wake of a general reappreciation of late antique literature. In my article I discuss Quintus’ use of embedded focalization: when we look at events through the eyes of one of the characters. Quintus uses this narrative device both in the same way as Homer, but also in original new ways. One such new way is the serial use of embedded focalization at the moment of arrival of a champion. The ample use of embedded focalization can be added to the list of stylistic features which contribute to the well-known visual aesthetics of late antique poetry, such as ekphrasis, miniaturization, enumeration, and the juxtaposition of episodic scenes. But I also argue that Quintus through the ubiquitous presence of spectators frames the action of his story as a spectacle, a race or gladiatorial show, which gods and characters and hence his narratees, watch as if sitting in an amphitheatre or circus.

Jumping to conclusions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peggy D. Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Social Skills ◽  
Professional Relationships ◽  
Loved One ◽  
Jumping To Conclusions ◽  
Good Morning ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Missed Opportunity ◽  
As If

He walks down the hall toward you. You are the only two in the hallway. You look at him, ready to smile and offer a cheery “Good morning!” With eyes downcast, he walks by you as if you are not there. What is your reaction? • Indignation. “Who does he think he is, not bothering to even look at me?” • Irritation. “Why can’t he make the effort to say a simple hello?” • Superiority. “With such poor social skills, he shouldn’t even be a teacher.” • Meanness. Silently you smirk at his indifference, eager to tell co- workers about this perceived slight. • Affirmation. “I knew he didn’t like me, and since no one is around, he doesn’t even pretend!” • Anger. “How dare he act so superior!” It may be a challenge to interpret this scene as anything but snob­bery or poor manners. Yet the same curiosity and compassion that help us determine what our students need in order to learn can serve us well with other adults. The illusion in this scenario is our belief that we know the reason for another’s behaviors. The pitfall of this conclusion is the missed opportunity to wonder with good intentions. The risk to professional relationships is the narrow labeling of another’s behaviors and personalizing their intent. Asking ourselves “What else could it be?” implies that we have the power and presence of mind to press the pause button to offer a broader palette of possibilities. • Is he preoccupied with an upcoming meeting? • Is he concerned about a loved one? • Is he mentally preparing for his first class? • Is he an introvert who is much more comfortable keeping to himself than offering easy banter or automatic greetings? Why not be your best by offering a warm greeting to him with no expectation for receiving one in return? When faced with puzzling behaviors, we can avoid jumping to conclusions. We can take a moment, have a second thought. This opening of possibility offers a moment of grace to ourselves and our co- workers. We choose to suspend judgment for the good of the moment and for nourishing goodwill in schools.

scholarly journals Cosmopolitan Sophistry: Grounding Politics in Disorder and Uncertainty

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-223
Author(s):  
Jon Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Chaos Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Ecology ◽  
The State ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
The West ◽  
Social Death ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Moment ◽  
As If

Conceptions of the State, Nation and politics, which are actually in play in ‘the West’, usually descend from totalitarian models which are primarily Platonic and monotheistic in origin. They aim for unity, harmony, wholeness, legitimate authority and the rejection of conflict, however much they claim to represent multiplicity. By expressing a vision of order, such models drive an idea of planning by prophecy as opposed to divination, as if the future was certain within limits and the trajectory was smooth. Chaos theory and evolutionary ecology shows us that this conception of both society and the future is inaccurate. I will argue that it is useful to look at the pre-socratic philosophers, in particular the so-called sophists Gorgias and Protagoras and Heraclitus with their sense of ongoing flux, the truth of the moment, and the necessary power of rhetoric in the leading forth of temporary functional consensus within the flux. This ongoing oscillation of conflict provides social movement and life rather than social death.

scholarly journals II.—On the Possibility of Changes in the Latitudes of Places on the Earth's Surface; being an Appeal to Physicists

1878 ◽  
Vol 5 (7) ◽  
pp. 291-297
Author(s):  
O. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Volcanic Activity ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Warm Climate ◽  
Arctic Circle ◽  
Axis Of Rotation ◽  
Original Length ◽  
Ubiquitous Presence ◽  
As If

Mr. Hill's paper in the June Number of the Magazine has incited me to recur to the great question possibility of changes in the earth's axis of rotation within itself. Mr. Hill is well known to be an accomplished geologist; but he writes as if he were simply a physicist, without sympathies for the difficulties of his brethren of the hammer. Yet we feel certain that such is not the case. We know that he has studied in the field the tremendous movements which the strata have undergone, being often compressed into a small part of their original length: that he has appreciated the almost ubiquitous presence, either in past or present time, of volcanic activity: that he must feel how unsatisfactory all explanations short of a change in latitude are to account for the flora of a warm climate within the arctic circle. We therefore appeal to him, and to others similarly qualified, to look at this subject from both sides.

THE ROMAN KINGS IN OROSIUS’HISTORIAE ADVERSVM PAGANOS

2017 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 617-630
Author(s):  
Mattias Gassman
Keyword(s):  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Advanced Education ◽  
Broad Array ◽  
Peace And War ◽  
As If

We are ruled by judges whom we know, we enjoy the benefits | Of peace and war, as if the warrior Quirinus, | As if peaceful Numa were governing (Claud.IV Cons. Hon.491–3).With these words the poet Claudian lauds the Emperor Honorius on the occasion of his fourth consulship in 398 by comparing him to Rome's deified founder, Romulus-Quirinus, and to Numa Pompilius, its second king, who was proverbial for wisdom and piety. Claudian's panegyric stands in a long literary tradition in which the legendary Roman kings were depicted as models of statesmanship. This exemplary tradition left its mark on a broad array of late antique works, including historical compendia such as the pseudo-AurelianDe uiris illustribus, which narrates the kings’ deeds as soldiers and statesmen, and the writings of antiquarians such as Macrobius and Servius, who collected information on the kings’ invention of cults and calendars. Servius’ interest in the kings implies that they featured in the teaching provided by other late antiquegrammaticias well, and thus that most literate Latin-speakers would have had some knowledge of their deeds. Advanced education in rhetoric likewise drew on Virgil and other school texts for historicalexemplaincluding Romulus and Numa, who appear in panegyrics and in brief histories, such as Eutropius’Breviary, that probably served as reference texts for the political elite. The kings thus loomed large in Roman perceptions of the founding of their empire, which began with the heroic Romulus, was strengthened by Numa's establishment of the Roman cultic system, and was secured by the later kings’ political and military successes.

Occasional Notes

1902 ◽  
Vol 48 (202) ◽  
pp. 533-536
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Medical Science ◽  
Physical Basis ◽  
Toxic Effects ◽  
Boer War ◽  
Spring Meeting ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Remarkable Advance ◽  
As If

The Scottish Division entered upon an important discussion at their spring meeting. It has been evident for some time that the trend of opinion in the advanced school of pathology has been towards a theory of toxic causation of insanity. Indeed, it is inevitable that the extension of such a theory, pushed to its furthest limits, should permeate all departments of medicine and find enthusiastic supporters in our own specialty. Toxic causes, established in such diseases as diphtheria and tuberculosis, have eluded observation in cancerous affections, although the search has been skilful and prolonged. A poisoning of the system, which we now call toxæmia, has been recognised in the domain of psychiatry for many years. Schroeder van der Kolk was so assured of his opinion that he based his treatment of insanity upon the theory of a common causation in the overloaded, disordered condition of the great intestine; and, even at the dawn of medical science, the toxic effects of black bile were denominated melancholia, and described at interminable length. At any rate, these theoretical ideas were useful in drawing attention to the physical basis of mind, and in offering indications for the treatment of its disorders. Of late years, however, there has been a remarkable advance in the strictly scientific knowledge of the physiology and pathology of living organisms. The science of biology has been rapidly evolved, and it is a real struggle to keep pace with the more important conclusions formulated by the great army of workers. In our own particular sphere of interest, we could not but expect the moment when the toxæmic stalking-horse should be advanced to occupy territory hitherto held strongly by the old guard of a less materialistic psychology. Therefore the battle-field at Glasgow could occasion no surprise—it was as inevitable as the great Boer war. Not that the Old Guard were inactive in defending the positions in which they have been so long entrenched, or that they have entirely lost their scalps in the fray. It would rather seem as if they were ready to establish a zone of neutral territory—ground common to both, which may yet be extended by diligent sapping and mining on the part of the aggressors. So the day ended.

Plotinus: Charms and Countercharms

2009 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 215-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen R. L. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Bowel Cancer ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Simone Weil ◽  
The Moment

For the last few years, thanks to the Leverhulme Trust, I've been largely absent from my department, working on the late antique philosopher Plotinus. To speak personally – it's been a difficult few years, since my youngest daughter has been afflicted with anorexia during this period, and my own bowel cancer was discovered, serendipitously, and removed, at the end of 2005. Since then I've had ample occasion to consider the importance – and the difficulty – of the practice of detachment, and also to worry about the moral some have drawn from Plotinian and similar philosophies, namely that the things of this world really do not matter much, and that we should withdraw ourselves from them. Maybe it is true, as Plotinus says, that ‘some troubles are profitable to the sufferers themselves, poverty and sickness for example’. But this is not an altogether helpful message for those afflicted by the bundle of disorders that lead to anorexia. It's difficult not to suspect, for example, that Simone Weil would have lived longer but for her Neo-Platonism. It has also been made obvious to me that we are (or at any rate, I am) much less in control of our own mental and emotional states even than I had thought before. None of this, of course, should have been any surprise: I have frequently pointed out – to myself and others – the importance of distinguishing between one's self and the states one finds oneself in, and the extreme difficulty of controlling the thoughts we say are ours (but which, by that very fact, reveal themselves as very far from ours). Any delusion that my knowledge of these facts is of itself enough to render me immune to them has been – at least for the moment – thoroughly debunked – though the facts themselves are such that this disillusionment, so to call it, is probably both temporary and almost entirely insincere!

scholarly journals Henry Maudsley, M.D., F.R.C.P.Lond., Ll.D.Edin. (Hon.)

1918 ◽  
Vol 64 (265) ◽  
pp. 116-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. H. Savage
Keyword(s):  
Frequent Use ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Obituary Notice ◽  
As If

In my endeavour to provide a suitable obituary notice of Dr. Henry Maudsley, I shall make frequent use of his own words. and thus I begin with an extract from his obituary of his father-in-law, Dr. Conolly: “The history of the man is his character. When a man dies who has occupied a conspicuous place in the world's eye, there is a great noise of lamentation heard. At the moment it seems as if nothing ever could compensate for the mighty bereavement. But Nature's serene features, fixed in their majestic and unchanging calm, reveal no sympathy with the sorrows of her children. The individual loss is her gain, death is the new condition of life, and the funeral dirge the song of joy for the new Conception.”

scholarly journals Past the Post?: Screening Progress and Fascism's Return

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-81
Author(s):  
David A Gerstner
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Satisfactory Response ◽  
The World ◽  
Current Events ◽  
Physical Response ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Pretty Picture ◽  
As If

The 2016 presidential election triggers many unanticipated responses. Emotions run high. Political activists discover newfound energy. One’s place in the world has been unfixed, troubled, and unsettled. Philosophers and artists, stunned, rethink the terms for their critical positions and the formal aesthetics that shape their work. The moment is thus rife with anxiety in search of a response. As a film scholar, I find myself driven to script a response. Ironically, as I write I feel paused in time and space. My unfixedness in the shadow of the election put in motion what can best be described as quivering stasis. From my troubled place, an intellectual processing unfolded. I conjured ideas and images that invariably failed to yield a satisfactory response to what had come to pass. What had I seen? Felt? My psychical and physical response to current events might be likened to what Adorno refers to as “the capacity to shudder, as if goose bumps were the first aesthetic image” (437). It’s not a pretty picture. But we’ve known this all along.

Chapter VIII

Sybil ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Disraeli
Keyword(s):  
The Moment ◽  
As If

We left Sybil and Egremont just at the moment that Gerard arrived at the very threshold which they had themselves reached. ‘Ah! my father,’ exclaimed Sybil, and then with a faint blush of which she was perhaps unconscious, she added, as if apprehensive Gerard would...

scholarly journals SADOU : REPRESENTASI KERAMAHTAMAHAN ASIA TIMUR

KIRYOKU ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Sri Wahyu Istana Trahutami
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Buddhist Monk ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Tea Ceremony ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
As If ◽  
The Way

(Title: Sadou: Representation Of East Asia Hospitality) Sadou is a Japanese traditional etiquette of preparing and drinking tea and was originally developed from China. Sadou brought to Japan by  Buddhist monk from China. Although the main purpose is to enjoy tea however the manner, performance, tea equipment, tea room, and the decoration of the tea room are also important and performed as part of the composite arts. Ichi go ichi e is a concept connected to the way of tea (sadou) is expresses the ideal of the way of tea. The phrase means ‘one time one meeting’ or ‘one encounter one opportunity’. In sadou we should respect the host and the others in the tea room and honor the moment as if it were a once in a lifetime gathering. That is we should cherish every meeting for it will never happen again. ichi go ichi e is the reminder that each tea ceremony is unique even though the elements are familiar.

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