A Rhetorical Trojan War: Philostratus’ Heroicus, the Power of Language and the Construction of the Truth

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentin Decloquement
Keyword(s):  
Trojan War ◽  
Power Of Language

Ulysses and the Devils: The Unity of Book 2

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Quint
Keyword(s):  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Trojan War

This chapter focuses on book 2 of Paradise Lost. In book 2, Milton continues the story of the demilitarization of the fallen angels and of his epic more generally when he bases all of its action around the figure of Ulysses, the hero of eloquence and fraud, whose own epic comes in the aftermath of the Trojan War. The chapter demonstrates that the Odyssey, imitated and parodied in Satan's voyage through Chaos to God's newly created universe in the book's last section, is just one of the classical stories about the career of Ulysses that Milton evokes as models for its different episodes. The various parts of book 2 are held together by this pattern of allusion, as well as by the Odyssean figures of Scylla and Charybdis, the emblem of bad choices, or of loss of choice itself.

The Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte- Maure: A Translation. Translated by Glyn S. Burgess, Douglas Kelly. Woodbridge, UK, and Rochester, NY: D. S. Brewer, 2017. Gallica, 41. 486 pp.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 394-396
Author(s):  
Raymond J. Cormier
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
British History ◽  
Geoffrey Of Monmouth ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
Trojan War ◽  
Roman De Troie ◽  
History Of ◽  
Extensive Introduction ◽  
Roman De Brut ◽  
Roman De Thebes

In his Roman de Brut (1155), the Norman Robert Wace of Caen recounts the founding of Britain by Brutus of Troy to the end of legendary British history, while adapting freely the History of the Kings of Britain (1136) by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Wace’s Brut inaugurated a new genre, at least in part, commonly known as the “romances of antiquity” (romans d'antiquité). The Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure, dating to around 1165, is, along with the Roman de Thèbes and the Roman d’Énéas, one of the three such romances dealing with themes from antiquity. These creations initiated the subjects, plots and structures of the genre, which subsequently flowered under authors such as Chrétien de Troyes. As an account of the Trojan War, Benoît’s version of necessity deals with war and its causes, how it was fought and what its ultimate consequences were for the combatants. How to explain its success? The author chose the standard and successful poetic form of the era—octosyllabic rhyming couplets; he was fond of extended descriptions; he could easily recount the intensity of personal struggles; and, above all he was fascinated by the trials and tribulations of love, a passion that affects several prominent warriors (among them Paris and his love for Helen, and Troilus and his affection for Briseida). All these elements combined to contour this romance in which events from the High Middle Ages were presented as a likeness of the poet’s own feudal and courtly spheres. This long-awaited new translation, the first into English, is accompanied by an extensive introduction and six-page outline of the work; two appendices (on common words, and a list of known Troie manuscripts); nearly twenty pages of bibliography; plus exhaustive indices of personal and geographical names and notes. As the two senior scholars assert (p. 3), By translating Benoît’s entire poem we seek to contribute to a greater appreciation of its composition and subject-matter, and thus to make available to a modern audience what medieval readers and audiences knew and appreciated.

Rhodes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Hornblower
Keyword(s):  
South Italy ◽  
Trojan War

Rhodes in Lykophron is a puzzle. The poet believes that Rhodians from the east Aegean tried to settle in the Croton region of south Italy after the Trojan war, and implies that they failed. But there is little or no evidence from archaeology, inscriptions or coins for a Rhodian presence in Italy as opposed to Sicily. An explanation is offered for this anomalous tradition. The Romans did successfully colonize Croton in 194 BC, at a time when they were friends of the Rhodians. They were symbolically retrieving a mythical Rhodian failure.

The Power of Language in Worship

1987 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 546-551
Author(s):  
Robert A. Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Power Of Language

Peace by Piece: The Freeing Power of Language and Literacy through the Arts

2000 ◽  
Vol 89 (5) ◽  
pp. 55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary F. Wright ◽  
Sandra Kowalczyk
Keyword(s):  
Language And Literacy ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Power Of Language

The line of reason: Hugh Blair, spatiality and the progressive structure of language

2011 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Eddy
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Graphic Representation ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Hugh Blair ◽  
Early Humans ◽  
Power Of Language ◽  
The Relationship

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, words were seen as artefacts that afforded insights into the mental capacities of the early humans. In this article I address the late Enlightenment foundations of this model by focusing on Professor Hugh Blair, a leading voice on the relationship between language, progressivism and culture. Whereas the writings of grammarians and educators such as Blair have received little attention in histories of nascent palaeoarchaeology and palaeoanthropology, I show that he addressed a number of conceptual themes that were of central relevance to the ‘primitive’, ‘ancient’ and ‘modern’ typology that guided the construction of ‘prehistoric minds’ during the early decades of the Victorian era. Although I address the referential power of language to a certain extent, my main point is that the rectilinear spatiality afforded by Western forms of graphic representation created an implicitly progressivist framework of disordered, ordered and reordered minds.

Eye Witnesses

2019 ◽  
pp. 194-208
Author(s):  
M. David Litwa
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Fourth Gospel ◽  
Trojan War ◽  
Literary Convention ◽  
Literary Device

This chapter introduces the idea of an eyewitness as a literary device of authentication. It compares the use of such an eyewitness in the fourth gospel and other contemporary literature (namely the Life of Apollonius by Philostratus and the Diary of the Trojan War by Dictys of Crete). It is argued that the literary convention of presenting a fictional eyewitness authority is a well-attested device of authentication, and satisfactorily explains why and how the author of John employed it.

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