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Subject Area: Classics
Monahan, Arthur1990 0-88946-830-3 340 pages
A specific attempt to redress the historical imbalance of material available in English dealing with the classic medieval conflict in church/state relations.
Eastman, John R.
1992 0-7734-9623-8 428 pages
This is the first critical edition of the late 13th-century tract on papal abdication which Giles of Rome wrote at the height of the controversy between Boniface VIII and the Colonna cardinals, James and Peter. Besides the critical Latin edition, the accompanying summary of the tract's major arguments is the only comprehensive, in-depth analysis of this work that is available. The richness of this work, the citation of major authors of Western thought, above all Aristotle, Saint Augustine and canon law in creating the constitutional space within which the pope could operate as a free and sovereign individual, has much to offer any serious student of political and constitutional history. Concludes with a twenty-page summary in English.
Greaney, George L.
2005 0-7734-6148-5 128 pages
This new translation of Aeschines' On the Embassy is designed for readers who know little or no Greek but would like to gain a sense of the linguistic and stylistic qualities of the original text. Numerous notes to the text incorporate the analysis of ancient rhetoricians, the work of nineteenth-century scholars, and that of the most recent commentators in English, German, and Italian. At certain points in the notes textual problems and variant interpretations by recent translators and commentators are addressed and, in some cases, new solutions or interpretations are offered. The bibliography is comprehensive, including work in several languages, both recent and from the past, addressing rhetorical issues, as well as legal and historical ones.
Thorburn, John E. Jr.
2001 0-7734-7396-3 252 pages
This translation and commentary aims to make the ancient play accessible not only to Greek scholars, but also to non-specialists. It provides a fuller commentary than those of both Dale and Conacher. The translation follows the line numbering of the Greek text as closely as possible, allowing Greek specialists easy comparison between the translation and original.
Johnson, Diane Ostrom
1997 0-7734-8672-0 260 pages
Claudius Aelianus (c. AD 175 - c. 235), a Roman of Praeneste who chose to write in the archaizing Greek of the authors of the Second Sophistic, earned the epithet "honey tongue" because of the sweetness of his style. In the Varia Historia, a miscellany of anecdotes, lists, apophthegms, biographical sketches, and descriptions of natural wonders, Aelian compiled from various sources data which he felt spoke to the interests and needs of his contemporaries. Scholars have for a long time quarried Aelian's miscellany for information, often untrustworthy, about earlier centuries. But Aelian did not compile his data with the scientific aims of the modern scholar; consequently, he has been scorned for not providing material which in fact he did not set out to present. The present volume presents Aelian in such a way that his program for selection and compilation of information becomes apparent. Considering the range of data, and the voices in which he writes, Aelian's moral focus becomes clear, as does his agenda. Aelian sought to create in the Varia Historia a paedeutic collection of information, material which he felt provided models for the correct response to the Classical literary heritage.
Lucillius
2004 0-7734-6488-3 302 pages
This volume offers for the first time facing-page translations into contemporary English of the entire body of Lucillius’ work, 140 epigrams. Classicists have established beyond question his significant influence on the development of the ancient epigram, such as his influence on Martial.
Arkins, Brian
1999 0-7734-7890-6 148 pages
This study is a full introduction to the poetry of Catullus for students and general readers, establishing a number of crucial contexts – personal, social, literary – within which Catullus functioned. It sets out four way in which Catullus can be seen as a modern poet: emphasis on art, on sexual themes, on the individual voice, and on a brief, clear style. “Brian Arkins allows us to appreciate more precisely this ‘modernity’ of Catullus in his introductory chapter. . . . A particular feature is the sensitive introduction to the longer poems which are often put to one side as an expression of the more forbidding and ‘learned’ side of Catullus. . . . Especially fascinating, in what we commonly regard as a totally masculine world, is the way in which Catullus often compares his own feelings and ideals in relationships with those of women such as Laodamia. This book will make us pick up our Catullus again to explore with new insights an age and a poet whom we thought we knew so well.” – Andrew Smith
Barrell, Rex A.
2000 0-7734-7748-9 288 pages
Based on the lecture notes of a brilliant classical scholar who possessed the unique ability of bringing to vibrant life the thoughts and aspirations of Greek writers of man eons ago, this book will fill a need not only for scholars and educated laymen but for advanced students in the classics for whom no really adequate introduction to Greek mythology now exists. Topics include myth and religion, purpose in the creation myth, human origins, death and deliverance, wildness and civilization, nature and culture amongst the gods, the nature of the Hero, the place of the family in the community, the Hero in the family and the polis, and the search for self-knowledge. Includes notes, bibliography, glossary of Greek names and terms, index.
O'Neal, William J.
2005 0-7734-5962-6 180 pages
Of the 9,896 lines of poetry in Vergil’s Aeneid, some four hundred of them fall under the heading of comparatio or, loosely translated, simile. In order to define this figure of speech, this work reviews the classical authors Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian. It also reviews modern scholarship on Vergilian similes. The primary focus of this work deals with the forms Vergil used in the Aeneid when he employed this rhetorical symbol. This work should appeal to all scholars and students of epic poetry – to see the mind of Vergil at work – one who has imitated Homer but one who has made the “comparisons” his own in content, in emphasis, and in form.
Jones, Marvin D.
2007 0-7734-5644-9 240 pages
This primary intent of this book is to examine the Contra Arianos and determine that Athanasius does address the functional subordination of the Son to the Father as being an eternal relationship. The secondary intent is to re-examine and evaluate the Athanasian approach to the Arian controversy and review his hermeneutic of the biblical texts he presents as the orthodox teaching of the Scriptures as found in the Athanasian work, Contra Arianos.
Burchett, Kenneth E.
2005 0-7734-6041-1 416 pages
This book has three parts. Part One outlines historical trends in the study and use of color from antiquity to the present, with emphasis on color harmony and color in art. The history of color harmony meaning is traced from Aristotle through Kandinsky, to Modern and Postmodern ideas. Discussed are the important contributions to color theory of Alberti, da Vinci, Rubens, Descartes, LeBlon, Hogarth, and Delacoioix, to name a few. Chapters are included on the systematic color analyses of Newton, Goethe, and Chevreul, as well as those of Schopenhauer, Young, Brewster, and Runge; the groundbreaking color-vision research of Helmholtz and the notable scientific studies of Fechner and Rood; the influence of scientific color on such artists as Seurat; and the color organization theories of Moses Harris, Munsell, and Ostwald. Coverage is given to the psychology of affective response, including, among others, Wundt, Allesch, Kirschman, Birkoff, Katz, Arnheim, and Ehrenzweig. Color education is explored through such 20th century teachers as Itten, Katz, Albers, Pope, Sargent, Henri, and many more. Histories, anthologies, and bibliographies introduce Gage, Indergrand, Birren, and other late 20th century literary resources on color. Described is the role that color handbooks and quick-study references play in color harmony. An overview of the inconsistencies in the language of color is presented, and some of the current research attitudes toward the enigmatic subject of color harmony today are sampled.
Part Two covers the landmark color publications of Goethe, Chevreul, Helmholtz, Kandinsky, Katz, Judd, Albers, Wright, Itten, Arnheim, Munsell, and Pope. Bibliographic summaries are provided of the various editions of their books. Included are biographies and bibliographies of each author.
Part Three includes a bibliography of 100 books on color ranked in order of importance in the study and use of color through time. Contributors to the list include Rudolf Arnheim, Faber Birren, Frans Gerritsen, David Lewis MacAdam, and Siegfried Rösch, and others. The method used to construct the bibliography is described. The text includes references, general bibliography, a special retrospective bibliography on color harmony and color use in art, subject lists arranged by dates of publication for cross-referencing, and indexes.
Horton, Fred L. Jr.
1990 0-88946-377-8
A report based largely on ceramic materials recovered from Vault I during the Joint Expedition to Caesarea Maritima, which began in 1971. By Jeffrey Blakeley, with contributions by Marvin E. Bennett, Robert J. Bennett, Robert Brinkmann, Robert J. Bull, Glenn Hartelius, and Peter Lampinen. Oversize edition.
Clark, Elizabeth
1977 0-88946-984-9 182 pages
Jackson, Donald F.
2007 0-7734-5516-7 128 pages
This work is a new critical text of The Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, written in the fourth century B.C. by Xenophon of Athens, based upon collations of the two best manuscript witnesses presently extant. Each page of Greek text is faced with an idiomatic English translation, and the author provides as a testamonia a collation of the text of excerpts made by the Byzantine scholar Joannes Stobaeus, and a new translation of Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, which serves as a helpful commentary to Xenophon’s work. Unlike earlier critical editions of the The Constitution of the Lacedaemonians of Xenophon, which have been established upon an imperfect understanding of relationships between extant manuscript witnesses, resulting in the adoption of unworthy text readings and an overly stocked critical apparatus, this present edition seeks to present a text based upon Vaticanus gr. 1335 and Marcianus gr. 511, keeping as close as possible to the text offered in these codices and ignoring many of the changes offered by modern scholars who suspect more deterioration of the transmitted text than seems likely.
Spencer, Richard A.
1997 0-7734-8549-X 182 pages
This is the first study which attempts a thorough analysis of the definition, nature, scope, functions and effects of the contrasts which Ovid employs. The study examines six stories from the Metamorphoses for all types of contrast, ranging from occasional and immediate, rhetorical figures to farther-reaching contrasts of them, character, tone, and style. Spencer examines intertextual contrast, which are oriented toward the poet's sources, and intratextual contrasts. It is the most thorough analysis available of how Ovid uses contrast on many levels and for a wide range of effects.
Lazzarelli, Ludovico
1997 0-7734-8579-1 144 pages
This poem by Ludovico Lazzarelli (1450-1500) well illustrates the long tradition of post-classical authors picturing and Christianizing the gods of antiquity. It demonstrates how the gods were integrated into Renaissance life as elements of the Christian universe, and also demonstrates how the artists of the Renaissance secured patronage in order to pursue their disciplines. Until now, the poem existed only in manuscript, two in the Vatican Library, one in Florence. This volume contains an Introduction, text of the poem, and translation.
Donalson, Malcolm Drew
2002 0-7734-6894-3 280 pages
This first half of this study examines the chief characteristics of the Isis cult - the goddess herself, her mythology, variegated attributes, appeal, initiation and cultic practices, priests and priestesses, and calendrical observances. Part Two is an historical survey of the cult's progress and setbacks from the cult's introduction into Italy through the reign of Commodus in the late second century C. E. An epilogue takes the story up to its suppression by the Christianizing state. This will be useful work for scholars of religion in the classical world and comparative religion, as well as for those in Roman history and civilization.
Cult of the Matronae in the Roman Rhineland: An Historical Evaluation of the Archaeological Evidence
Garman, Alex Gustav2008 0-7734-5224-9 196 pages
This book examines the cult of the Matronae as it occurred in the Roman Rhineland and explains the symbolism and inscriptions found on the altars. The work reviews previous scholarship on the subject, investigates ideas of Romanization, and concepts of bias and cultural exchange. This book contains six black and white photographs.
Merriam, Carol U.
2001 0-7734-7532-X 196 pages
The epyllion as a genre was developed in the Hellenistic period (and continued into Roman times) in order to show what else was happening while traditional heroic stories were happening, as if the authors of epyllia were committed to giving their readers a glimpses through the back doors of the palaces in which traditional characters lived and enjoyed their adventures. Traditional heroic stories were always narrated in epics with particular conventions. The epyllion challenges these conventions in ways which make it a genre in its own right. The existence of the epyllion in antiquity is not universally acknowledged by literary scholars, and there have been few published works studying the genre as such. The present study examines its development through the Hellenistic and Roman periods, focusing on the use of unheroic and female characters.
Parker, Jan
2001 0-7734-7401-3 268 pages
This book opens up a new way of reading classical literary texts, appropriate both to the needs and competencies of today’s university students and also, it is argued, to the classic texts themselves. The texts’ rich linguistic fabric is constructed out of the play of issues and character, of action and of evaluation; a play that is quickly lost in translation. The solution offered is not the traditional one of ever more intensive language teaching. Rather, the book argues for the provision of texts glossed with key words to enable students to create engaged, critical readings for themselves: to read through rather than in translation.
Copp, John Dixon
2007 0-7734-6278-3 324 pages
This is an appreciative analysis of the works of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite and the influence he has had on the philosophical, theological, and mystical thought of Europe for fifteen hundred years. The author is also interested in demonstrating Dionysius' influence on a wide range of twentieth-century thinkers. Those who are already familiar with the research on and actual writings of Pseudo-Dionysius will find new insights into the ordering and emphases of the mystic’s works. Those who will encounter the thoughts of this influential and unknown individual for the first time will discover, it is hoped, one reason why the philosophical and theological and mystical thought of Europe took the shape it did during and after the Middle Ages. In modern times, the influence of this unknown mystical theologian has not ceased.
Anderson, Graham
2007 0-7734-5376-8 408 pages
This volume offers for the first time a comprehensive collection of all the ancient Greek and Latin sources needed to deal with figures answering to names like Arktouros, Ardus, and Artorius, where the bearers seem to have some kind of ‘Arthurian’ character. It challenges proponents of later British Arthurs to explain or explain away various Classical antecedents to the Arthurian tradition. This collection includes text and translation of over one hundred short texts concerning Arthur-figures, enabling Medieval scholars to examine for themselves the basis for claims of ‘Arthurship’ before the age of the historical Gildas. A detailed commentary is provided to introduce classicists to the Medieval tradition and vice-versa. The new texts raise as many questions as they answer; but for that very reason serious students of Arthurian origins cannot afford to ignore them.
Stiller, Nikki
1990 0-88946-397-2 194 pages
Traces this controversial figure characterized by sexual allure and treachery from its Homeric beginnings in the minor characters of Chryseis and Briseis through its period of greatest popularity, the sixth through sixteenth centuries, to its reappearance in modern form today.
Kilinski, Karl II
2002 0-7734-7052-2 608 pages
Anderson, Graham
2007 0-7734-5372-5 280 pages
For over a century, research in Ancient Fiction has concentrated on the literary aspects of the texts available to us. Ancient novels had their roots traced to a number of literary genres, including Epic, Euripidean Romantic drama, and New Comedy. The studies collected in this work look instead at the relationship between formal fiction and popular storytelling. Connections between these two forms of literature were prevalent in various cultures in antiquity, and also reemerged in the significant quantities of folk- and fairy-tales from the Renaissance onwards.
Arkins, Brian
1999 0-7734-8035-8 208 pages
This volume begins with a brief analysis of the meaning of the Classical Tradition; deals with how Joyce acquired knowledge of Greek and Roman material; and then devotes chapters to analysing Joyce's appropriation of Greek philosophy, of the Odyssey of Homer, and of Greek and Latin language. "Brian Arkins' book is one that leaves every scholar in his debt. He brings in much more than Homer that is relevant from the Greek and his discussion of Joyce's use of the Latin Mass allows for a serious, many-sided discussion of this much misunderstood topic. And the author never loses sight of his audience, adopting a lucid, frequently witty and always accessible style to convey his learned insights." – Dr. Anthony Roche
Parker, Hugh C.
1997 0-7734-8589-9 192 pages
This monograph deals with Ovid's treatments of the gods in the poem, and in particular with gods who emigrate from Greece to Italy and become part of Roman religion as the poem progresses. It offers a new reading of the Fasti which focuses on four figures from Greek mythology (Saturn, Ino, Faunus, and Hercules). In the course of the poem each of them comes to Italy, and Ovid shows how each one sheds his or her Greek past to become a figure of genuine religious significance to the Roman people. These transformations suggest that the Fasti is meant to be read as an encomium of Roman religion.
Cronin, Patrick
2010 0-7734-3657-X 436 pages
This book, the only one of its kind in the English language, examines the attempts of the Greeks to predict weather change by means of naked-eye observation of celestial phenomena, unaided by scientific meteorology.
Xenophon
2003 0-7734-6693-2 132 pages
Since classical antiquity, Hiero has been the most popular of Xenophon’s minor works. This new critical edition clears up manuscript errors from the Marchant edition of 1920, and is a contemporary facing-paged translation which makes the language much more accessible to the current reader. Hiero is a dialogue in which the poet Simonides questions the tyrant Hiero about the pleasures of the tyrant’s life. It is a study of the form of government called tyranny, and an ethical treatise as well.
Bandy, Anastasius
2012 0-7734-4528-5 304 pages
This edition is textual and translational in nature. Since the works of Lydus are replete with Latin vocabulary, this book serves to bring it into English. The translation is faithful to the original and accurate so as to express Lydus’ intended thoughts. His repetitious use of certain linguistic expressions, although sometimes awkward to render to English, have been retained in order to capture his peculiar linguistic style.
Coffta, David Joseph
2002 0-7734-7247-9 206 pages
This study investigates the literary program of Horace’s Odes as part of the Callimachean tradition’s emphasis on brevity, novelty, and refinement, as well as a familiarity with a critical vocabulary, formulated at Rome and mirroring the programmatic imagery and terminology pioneered at Alexandria. It begins with a preliminary analysis of the Satires, and discusses the ‘meta-literary’ aspects of both the Satires and the Odes.
Younger, Kelly
2001 0-7734-7466-8 332 pages
In the 20th century alone, over twenty Irish authors have adapted more than twenty versions of ancient Greek tragedies, or plays based on Greek themes. Through a comparative analysis of Irish dramas (from playwrights Yeats, MacNeice, Kennelly, Heaney, Mahon, and McGuinness) and the original Greek Tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, this volume explores the theatrical relationship between the political and the personal, the Classical and the contemporary, the Irish and the Greek.
Keaveney, Arthur Peter
2003 0-7734-6809-9 192 pages
In ancient Greece, Themistocles was universally acknowledged as the architecture of the Greek victory in the great Persian invasion. Some years later, political opinion turned against him in Athens and he was obliged to flee into exile and eventually wound up in the court of the king of Persia. This book examines the quite considerable body of evidence which survives about Themistocles’ journey and his life as a refugee in Persia, in order to disentangle fact from the abundant fiction.
Moisl, Hermann
1999 0-7734-8151-6 224 pages
This book develops an hypothesis about the interaction of lordship and tradition - and about how such tradition was generated and propagated - among the peoples of barbarian Europe. It shows how orally transmitted tribal and dynastic historical tradition was crucial to the legitimization of political authority. It contributes to literary historical scholarship by showing how pre-Christian oral tradition was politically significant to early medieval aristocracies, thereby elucidating the social context in which texts like Beowulf originated and within which they must be interpreted. This first large-scale study of the subject draws on an extensive range of evidence relating to a variety of early Germanic and Celtic peoples.
Mythic Hero's Appearance in the Twelve Seasons of Nature: His Dramatic Action in Literature and Film
Eriksson, Edward2012 0-7734-4082-8 172 pages
The hero in literature and film is an expression of seasonal occurrence. His behavior exhibits, symbolically, the relationship of the sun to the earth in twelve phases. It begins at the March equinox and proceeds through the natural year. He assumes, then, twelve distinct characterizations. His conflicts and successes reflect the natural conditions of Early Spring, Mid-Spring, Late Spring, and so on. It creates an aesthetic development that primarily converts traditional mythic dynamics (based in agriculture) into story lines. His character in a given season suggests the dynamism of that season in a modern cultural context. As all works of literature and film either indicate or suggest a seasonal moment, all heroes as will be shown by reference to over a hundred novels, plays, short stories, and films, are characterized by the force of aesthetic sublimation in sympathy with their seasonal set.
Cheney, Liana
2002 0-7734-6985-0 296 pages
This collection of essays explores the scope of the important relationships between the philosophical system of Neoplatonism and the arts in Italy. It was a pervasive way of thinking from 300 A. D. to 1700 A. D., and while antithetical to Christianity in the beginning, its ideas were quickly adopted by Christian theology, and Neoplatonism became a philosophical tool of the Catholic Church. The art and architecture produced in the service of the church is infused with Neoplatonic ideas. Part one of this study addresses cosmological and theoretical notions on Platonism and Neoplatonism. Part two focuses on the spiritual impact of Neoplatonism in Christian imagery depicted in paintings and manifested in religious structures. Part three probes the assimilation of Neoplatonic allegories in art, literature, and music. With illustrations.
Kawashima, Shigenari
2014 0-7734-0057-5 204 pages
This unique and fresh interpretation of an enigmatic classic provides a better understanding of the play’s religious and political undertones with an innovative and focused examination which proposes an earlier recognition than previously assumed of the whole truth by Jocasta. This will become an indispensable reference book for Classical scholars in this first ever English translation.
Wilcox, Joel
1994 0-7734-9122-8 192 pages
This study contributes to scholarship in five ways. It provides a unified framework within which to view the development of Presocratic thought; it points out three aspects of Xenophanes' skepticism, and shows that (and how) Heraclitus responded to each; it summarizes key issues concerning psyche and logos, and attempts to settle certain long-standing debates concerning them; it argues that Heraclitus' concepts of psyche and logos resulted from his need to construct an epistemological theory in order to counter Xenophanean skepticism; and it make use of various traditional Greek assumptions such as the principles of "like-to-like," the analogy of microcosm and macrocosm, and the concepts of balance and measure as exemplified in the ideal of sophrosune.
Kutbay, Bonnie Lea
1998 0-7734-8244-X 212 pages
This study goes beyond the results of earlier scholarship by presenting synthetic examination of the architectural material, clarifying the nature of palaces and large residences in the Hellenistic world, identifying architectural forms most commonly found and examining their sources. With illustrations.
Shestakov, Vyacheslav P.
1996 0-7734-8872-3 120 pages
This interdisciplinary study deals with the interaction between philosophy and the visual arts. It presents the long tradition of the theory of love and its interpretation in European art. The special focus is on the Neoplatonic school and its influence on Renaissance art, but the book also provides a view of the whole history of European art. This study, based on the synthesis of history and theory, involves a critical approach to contemporary theories of love and sexuality, including Herbert Marcuse, Julia Kristeva, and Michel Foucault. The book contains a number of illustrations.
Hart, Richard E.
1997 0-7734-8628-3 280 pages
The essays in this volume were specially planned and solicited because of their various contributions to a dialogical reading of the Platonic dialogues. Emphasis on the dialogical is a way of advocating an approach that appreciates the dialogues in their witty humorousness, their irony, their literary richness and historical allusiveness. The work also deals ultimately with the question of the compatibility, or incompatibility of the dogmatic or doctrinal approach to the dialogues.
Zellner, Harold
2010 0-7734-3626-X 148 pages
This book argues that Sappho’s style is characteristically playful, and that this is probably the best explanation for some problematic features of her text.
Xenophon
2003 0-7734-6695-9 112 pages
In Poroi, Xenophon examines the meaning of prosperity and its relationship to employment, consumption, and expenditure in a way that now one else would until John Maynard Keynes wrote The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. The observations of Xenophon and Keynes agree on many points. This study strives to clarify Xenophon’s importance as an economic thinker and the originator of the study of macroeconomics. Because the only readily available English translation of Poroi is Marchant’s Loeb edition, it provides a contemporary and accessible rendering of the Greek into English. This critical edition also incorporates recent scholarship and remedies some difficulties in the critical apparatuses of earlier editions. Facing page translations.
Coyne, Patricia
1991 0-7734-9772-2 236 pages
Explores both the comparatively neglected genre of imperial Latin panegyric and an important piece of evidence for the reign of the Emperor Anastasius, under whom the eastern and western halves of the Mediterranean world became increasingly separate and distinct cultures.
Oberhelman, Steven M.
2003 0-7734-6667-3 312 pages
This study provides a comprehensive assessment of the ancient and modern evidence on Latin prose rhythm in a single volume. Any student of ancient rhythmical style will find very useful the extended excursuses on the theories of Greek and Roman rhetoricians and literary critics, and will be well served by the detailed discussions and explanations of the complex methodologies crafted by German, French, Russian, Italian, British, and American scholars since 1881 to analyze prose rhythm.
Byre, Calvin S.
2002 0-7734-7116-2 192 pages
Passaro, Maria C. Pastore
2005 0-7734-6293-7 232 pages
Explores the discussion of the idealization of women in Medieval and Renaissance texts. Book's goals are: to show textual connections between literary masterpieces (and thus, delineate a literary history from within the texts) in order to show how authors consciously or unconsciously interact with one another regardless of time and boundaries; to present biographical and autobiographical heroines, their work and legacy; and finally to grasp man's imaginary world of women.
Biberman, Matthew
2011 0-7734-3730-4 328 pages
This work assembles a composite picture of Shakespeare’s afterlives in media and cultural imagination. Each essay in this collection provides new insight about how our understanding of Shakespeare has changed after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Brooks, Douglas A.
2011 0-7734-3730-4 328 pages
This work assembles a composite picture of Shakespeare’s afterlives in media and cultural imagination. Each essay in this collection provides new insight about how our understanding of Shakespeare has changed after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
MacEwen, Sally
2006 0-7734-5776-3 576 pages
“A hero is someone who looks like a hero,” says film critic Robert Warshow, but in fact, we do not know who looks heroic to viewers other than ourselves. This study uses theories of affect and spectatorship to show how dramatic productions arouse pre-cognitive responses, such as pity and fear. These responses are tied to ideological frameworks: viewers root for Spiderman, but not for his arch-nemesis, the Green Goblin. In that case, affects arise from the value constructs of their cultures, and a comparison of heroes, modern films from Shane to Spiderman with stories of ancient Greek superheroes such as Antigone and Achilles, shows that each culture maintains a stereotype within which a range of responses to heroes can be defined. An ancient spectator, therefore, would not be concerned about whether Spiderman could save every innocent victim, for example, while a modern spectator does not admire Achilles when he demands respect before he saves his community. This study examines primary texts like the Iliad and Cryopaedia to set the viewing parameters of Athenian ideology, then considers how heroes, for example, like Oedipus and Iphigenia, might “look like heroes” to their original audience. This “affective hero,” unlike the structuralist hero, reflects the audience’s self-image back at itself and reveals surprising insights into culture.
Jackson, Donald F.
2014 0-7734-4350-9 140 pages
This work is a critical text of The Symposium, written by Xenophon of Athens in the fourth century B.C. Each page of Greek text is faced with a contemporary English translation which richly embodies the original meaning of the author.
Siler, Dennis James
2010 0-7734-3610-3 168 pages
This study explains that Shakespeare's use of Ovidian text as source material produces an intrinsic theme when viewed through the scope of a writer whose primary aim was to provide his audience with a "uniquely English" dramatic product.
Inbody, Joel
2022 1-4955-0974-5 256 pages
From the Introduction (pg. 9):
"In this book I have made an effort to reconstruct what inequality looked like in three ancient agricultural societies: the kingdoms of Mesopotamia, China, and Egypt. The inequality I consider in these societies was not defined in terms of gold, silver, or property, but in terms of a person's diet and command of excess food and drink. In simple terms, I will argue that elites in these agricultural societies enjoyed an upper-class lifestyle because they served food and drink offerings to gods. Those offerings were produced primarily by non-elites, who believed gods dined on them But the truth is that elites divided food and drink offerings among themselves. Religion disguised the fact that feasting rituals for gods amounted to a redistribution of resources."
Cheney, Liana
1993 0-88946-399-9 428 pages
Original research on the symbolism of vanitas as seen in the Danse of Death, the treatment of hair, the use of mirrors, and the depiction of skulls. With illustrations.
Alexopoulou, Marigo
2009 0-7734-4720-2 172 pages
This book is about nostos, the return home of a hero. Although the importance of this topic has long been recognized by scholars, this is the first full length book on nostos both across a range of tragedies and in the light of the diverse cultural background of the motif. It shows how the elements of Homer’s narrative were to be developed by later Greek poets, and particularly the fifth-century tragedians and the Hellenistic poets.
Nunes, Pedro
2004 0-7734-6506-5 336 pages
This two-volume book contains an introduction to the rhetorical theories put forward by the most important ancient Greek rhetoricians, followed by a modern English translation of the Latin version of their commentaries in Hermogenes’ seminal work on stasis-theory, the basis for writing any sort of speech for a law-court or for public use. Rhetoric today is extremely important in public life, as any politician’s speech-writer knows, and the work by Syrianus, Sopater and Marcellinus translated in this book remain the foundations on which all theories of public speaking are built. When Pedro Nunes translated the original texts, no doubt from the recently published Aldine text, he was lecturing to the brightest young law students in Lisbon in the 16th century. It is unique in that in Europe at that time all other works on rhetoric were based on Cicero and Quintilian. The modern English translation will be of great use for students, as it will give them access to the basic theories of speech-writing, well exemplified with plenty of apposite quotations from leading Greek orators, especially Demosthenes, and from major events in Greek history. This version contains the original Latin as well as the English translation.
Doty, Ralph E.
2001 0-7734-7578-8 204 pages
The Cynegeticus, probably written in the first half of the fourth century C.E., is a manual for hunters. Its author, Xenophon, was a disciple of Socrates, the able general who led ten thousand Greeks on a successful forced march from Mesopotamia to the Black Sea, as well as an historian and practical philosopher. In his book, he aims to acquaint the novice with not only the techniques but also the values of the hunter. The first chapter lauds the famous hunters of legend, the last two chapters discuss the moral value of hunting, and the middle books examine the techniques. He arranges his material to begin with the smallest game animal, the hare, proceeding through progressively larger prey, to end with a description of hunting as a preparation for war, in which one hunts the most dangerous game of all. This new edition of the Cynegeticus is an attempt to incorporate recent scholarship and at the same time provide a contemporary English rendering of Xenophon’s Greek in facing-page translation.