scholarly journals The messiness of victory and heroism: A brief response to Carl Schmitt

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 662-673
Author(s):  
Petar Bojanic ◽  
Edward Djordjevic
Keyword(s):  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Epic Poem

The article focuses on a passage from Carl Schmitt?s Ex Captivitate Salus - a book famously written in a Nurnberg prison in 1946 - in which he draws, from memory, on a story derived from Serbian epic poetry, to justify his understanding of historiography, victory, and the figure of the hero. Analyzing the entire Serbian epic poem from which Schmitt extracts the vignette in question, we show how the text of the poem presents a significantly more complicated and messy picture of the figures of victor, victory, and hero, heroism. The anonymous Serbian poet, addressing himself to his contemporary audience, with which he is intimately familiar, really subverts simplistic expectations regarding the heroism and victory of the Serbian hero, Marko Kraljevic. Finally, the article contrasts these complex and at times paradoxical figures of victory and the hero in the poem with their presentation in Carl Schmitt?s writing.

Epic Poetry into Contemporary Choreography

2018 ◽  
pp. 194-208
Author(s):  
Tom Sapsford
Keyword(s):  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Site Specific ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
A Site

This chapter considers two recent dance adaptations of the Odyssey: New Movement Collective’s 2013 work Nest and Cathy Marston’s ‘Choreographing the Katabasis’, a project undertaken in 2015 at the APGRD, Oxford. The chapter analyses how both these works engage with the epic poem in ways that have historically been of interest to classical scholars. As a site-specific and multi-authored work, Nest emphasized the sense of multiplicity that has been noted both of the Odyssey’s mode of creation and its narration process. In developing her adaption from the Homeric text with the expertise of Oxford scholars, Cathy Marston produced a dance version of Odysseus’ encounter with the shade of his mother, Anticlea, which closely engaged with the formulaic aspects of the hexameter text in order to explore the interplay of rhythm and representation in both verbal and non-verbal languages.

Neulateinische Epik zum Dreißigjährigen Krieg, oder: Wer ist der Feind?

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 245-256
Author(s):  
Florian Schaffenrath
Keyword(s):  
Epic Poetry ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Latin Epic

Abstract In contrast to the literary production in certain vernacular languages like French or German, the period of the Thirty Years’ War was a very productive period for Neo-Latin epic poetry. Two examples discussed in this article elucidate the different purposes of these poems: With his Turcias (Paris 1625) Francois Le Clerc Du Tremblay tried to unite the European Christian rulers and to convince them of a common and united war against the Turks. On the other hand, the Jesuit Jacques d’Amiens published in Douai in 1648 his Bellum Germanicum, the first (and only) part of an epic poem that supports the Catholic part in the Thirty Years’ War. A comparison of the depiction of the enemies in particular in these two poems makes the differences visible.

scholarly journals Appropriate Transgression: An Intertextual Approach to Problems of Genre and Heroism in Statius' Achilleid

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Hanna Z. C. Mason
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Foster Child ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Epic Poem

<p><b>Statius’ second epic poem, the Achilleid, deals with a subject matter that is particularly problematic: Achilles’ early life, in which he is raised by a centaur in the wilderness and then disguises himself as a woman in order to rape the princess of Scyros. Recent scholarship has also pointed to other problematic elements, such as Achilles’ troublesome relationship with his mother or the epic’s intertextual engagement with elegiac and ‘un-epic’ poetry. This thesis extends such scholarship by analysing Statius’ use of transgression in particular. It focuses primarily upon the heroic character of Achilles and the generic program of the Achilleid as a whole.</b></p> <p>The first chapter focuses upon Achilles’ childhood and early youth as a foster child and student of the centaur Chiron. It demonstrates that the hero’s upbringing is used to emphasise his ambiguous nature in line with the Homeric Iliad, as a hero who is capable of acting appropriately, but chooses not to. Achilles’ wild and bestial nature is emphasised by its difference to the half-human character of Chiron, who might be expected to be act like an animal, but instead becomes an example of civilisation overcoming innate savagery, an example of what Achilles could have been. The second chapter discusses the ambiguities inherent in a study of transgression, in the light of Achilles’ transvestite episode on Scyros. Numerous intertextual allusions construct various sets of expected behaviours for the transvestite youth, but his failure to live up to any of them portrays him as a truly transgressive hero. In this way, he is similar to Hercules or Bacchus, whose heroism is constructed partly upon their transgressive natures and inability to conform to societal custom. In the final chapter, the study of transgression is extended to Statius’ generic program, associating the epic with elegy. Statius employs many elegiac tropes, and makes numerous allusions to the poetry of elegists such as Ovid and Propertius. In particular, elegiac poetry’s peculiar trope of constructing and emphasising boundaries in order that they may be crossed (thus making the poetry feel more transgressive) is mirrored in the Achilleid. In this way, the Achilleid’s engagement with transgression is considered to be, in part, a method for presenting an innately problematic hero to Statius’ Flavian audience in an accessible and interesting manner.</p>

scholarly journals Appropriate Transgression: An Intertextual Approach to Problems of Genre and Heroism in Statius' Achilleid

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Hanna Z. C. Mason
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Foster Child ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Epic Poem

<p><b>Statius’ second epic poem, the Achilleid, deals with a subject matter that is particularly problematic: Achilles’ early life, in which he is raised by a centaur in the wilderness and then disguises himself as a woman in order to rape the princess of Scyros. Recent scholarship has also pointed to other problematic elements, such as Achilles’ troublesome relationship with his mother or the epic’s intertextual engagement with elegiac and ‘un-epic’ poetry. This thesis extends such scholarship by analysing Statius’ use of transgression in particular. It focuses primarily upon the heroic character of Achilles and the generic program of the Achilleid as a whole.</b></p> <p>The first chapter focuses upon Achilles’ childhood and early youth as a foster child and student of the centaur Chiron. It demonstrates that the hero’s upbringing is used to emphasise his ambiguous nature in line with the Homeric Iliad, as a hero who is capable of acting appropriately, but chooses not to. Achilles’ wild and bestial nature is emphasised by its difference to the half-human character of Chiron, who might be expected to be act like an animal, but instead becomes an example of civilisation overcoming innate savagery, an example of what Achilles could have been. The second chapter discusses the ambiguities inherent in a study of transgression, in the light of Achilles’ transvestite episode on Scyros. Numerous intertextual allusions construct various sets of expected behaviours for the transvestite youth, but his failure to live up to any of them portrays him as a truly transgressive hero. In this way, he is similar to Hercules or Bacchus, whose heroism is constructed partly upon their transgressive natures and inability to conform to societal custom. In the final chapter, the study of transgression is extended to Statius’ generic program, associating the epic with elegy. Statius employs many elegiac tropes, and makes numerous allusions to the poetry of elegists such as Ovid and Propertius. In particular, elegiac poetry’s peculiar trope of constructing and emphasising boundaries in order that they may be crossed (thus making the poetry feel more transgressive) is mirrored in the Achilleid. In this way, the Achilleid’s engagement with transgression is considered to be, in part, a method for presenting an innately problematic hero to Statius’ Flavian audience in an accessible and interesting manner.</p>

Victorious Virgin: Early Modern Mary Epics between Theological-Didactical and Epic Poetry (Virgo Victrix: Frühneuzeitliche Marienepik zwischen theologischem Lehrgedicht und Epos)

Daphnis ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 30-64
Author(s):  
Bernd Roling
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Latin Poetry ◽  
Biblical Poetry ◽  
German Scholar ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Intellectual Skills ◽  
Epic Poems

This paper deals with a neglected subgenre of biblical poetry, namely with epic poems on the life of the Blessed Virgin. After an introduction into the poetic treatment of Mary in early modern latin poetry in general, one single epic poem is discussed in detail, the Mariados libri tres of the Italian-German scholar Giulio Cesare Delfini. As it will be demonstrated, Delfini’s poem included long explanations of medico-theological problems, like the digestion of the Divine Virgin or her intellectual skills, which the poet treated in addition in separate glosses. As result the poem presents itself as hybrid between didactic and epic poetry. In addition the study contains as an Appendix a list of (approximately) all accessible Latin poems, written between 1550 and 1650, on the incarnation and birth of Christ.

Virgil

Classics ◽  
2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Fantham ◽  
Emily Fairey
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Western Literature ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Latin Language ◽  
Roman Civil War

Many regard Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro, 70–19 bce; also spelled Vergil in English) as the greatest of the Roman poets. His epic poem, the Aeneid, has been of continuing importance to Western literature. On its own merits, it is a masterpiece of epic poetry and the Latin language. Products of the chaos of the Roman civil war years, Virgil’s works show a longing for a more peaceful ordering of society. His major works, the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid, emphasize different aspects of this desire. Virgil’s importance to world literature is difficult to underestimate. Later poets and writers, including Dante and Milton, have venerated and imitated him.

Nonnus

Classics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianfranco Agosti
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Near East ◽  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Greek Poetry ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Greek Epic ◽  
John's Gospel

Nonnus of Panopolis (approximately 400–460/470 ce) is the undisputed protagonist of the flourishing of Greek poetry in Late Antiquity. He composed the Dionysiaca, the longest extant Greek epic poem on the life of Dionysus, his war and triumph over the Indians, his progress from the Near East to Thebes, and his eventual apotheosis (more than twenty-one thousand verses, in forty-eight books, the sum of the Iliad and the Odyssey). The poem begins with the abduction of Europa and a long section about Cadmus, and then describes the birth and youth of Dionysus (Books 1–12). Books 13–24 are devoted to the first part of the war against Indians, with the catalogues of the troops and the first battles. After a second prologue, the conclusion of the war against Indians is narrated, with the final battle and the death of the Indian king Deriades (Books 25–40). This section “rewrites” the Iliad in a very innovative way. In Books 40–48 the poet deals with Dionysus’ return to Phrygia, his visits to Tyre and Beirut, and also Thebes, Naxos, and Phrygia again, and his apotheosis. Nonnus is also the author of a long metrical Paraphrase of St John’s Gospel, where he displays a deep theological knowledge (around 3,700 hexameters). Recent research demonstrated that the coexistence of a mythological and a Christian poem was perfectly acceptable. Nonnus was a Christian, addressing the cultivated mixed elites of Alexandria. He introduced into the tradition of epic poetry a new style, based on manneristic exuberance and imaginative language, as well as a reform of the hexameter based on regularity and stress accents. Nonnus was very popular in Late Antiquity. His style was followed by several poets of the 5th and 6th century ce, who recognized in him a new classic to imitate. Among these followers, there are Pamprepius of Panopolis, Musaeus, Colluthus of Lycopolis, Christodorus of Coptos, John of Gaza, Agathias, Paul the Silentiary and the “minor” epigrammatists of Agathias’s Cycle, as well as several metrical inscriptions and fragmentary poems transmitted by papyri. In the subsequent centuries, some Byzantine literates found it appealing and profited from its exuberant vocabulary. From the Renaissance onward Nonnus had his admirers (especially during the Baroque age). After a period of classicizing prejudice, in scholarship there is now a growing interest for his works.

Music, Craft, and Technology in the Similes in Vergil’s Aeneid

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
Deborah Beck
Keyword(s):  
Group Identity ◽  
World View ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Musical Performance ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modes Of Presentation ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
The World

Abstract Human beings in epic similes often rely on forms of specialized expertise to make new things and to create order in the world around them. The ways that the similes in a given epic poem represent craft and technology convey fundamental points about the larger world view of that poem in relation to human beings and the contours of epic poetry. A simile featuring a singer or poet in particular invites the audience of a poem to draw parallels between the musical simile and the epic poem in which it appears. The single musical simile in the Aeneid, 7.699-702, creates a portrait of the limits of human agency, the nature of group identity and musical performance, and the qualities of the Aeneid as an epic poem. The themes and modes of presentation in this simile are characteristic of the ‘song’ that Vergil has created with his own Aeneid.

scholarly journals Other space in the Yakut heroic epic poetry (based on Olonkho of Vilyuysky tradition)

2021 ◽  
pp. 9-18
Author(s):  
Aitalina Akhmetovna Kuzmina
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Systemic Analysis ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Folklore Studies ◽  
Heroic Epic ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Difference

The subject of this research is the semantics, structure and plotline of other space in the Yakut heroic epic poetry. The object is the texts of the Yakut heroic epic poetry, namely Olonkho of Vilyuysky tradition. The goal lies in comprehensive analysis of the category of other space in the Yakut heroic epic poetry, particularly Olonkho of Vilyuysky tradition. The article employs the systemic analysis of Olonkho poetics, structural-semantic analysis, and comparative method. Special attention is given to construction of mythopoetic model of the world and correlation between space and plot of the epic poem. The acquired results can be implemented in folklore studies. The novelty of this research consists in the analysis of other space in Olonkho from the perspective of its semantics, structure, and narrative role. This article is first to describe the peculiarities of other space in the texts of Vilyuysky epic tradition. It is determined that other space in the Yakut heroic epic poetry Olonkho is depicted in form of the Lower and Upper worlds, &ldquo;foreign country&rdquo; in the Middle world, intermediate zones that hold an important place within the epic worldview and course of events in the plot of Olonkho. The author notes that the texts of Vilyuysky Olonkho preserve the traditional techniques depicting the three worlds; and the difference lies in emergence of the image of shaman dwelling in the intermediate zone, prevalence of the entry into the Lower world without demarcation of its boundaries.

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