Myth, Truth, and Narrative in Herodotus

Myth, Truth, and Narrative in Herodotus
Author: , Emily Baragwanath
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2012-09-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199693978

Download Myth, Truth, and Narrative in Herodotus Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This volume brings together 13 original articles which review, re-establish, and rehabilitate the origins, forms, and functions of the mythological elements that are found in the narratives of Herodotus' Histories.

Herodotus: A Very Short Introduction

Herodotus: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Jennifer T. Roberts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2011-06-23
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0199575991

Download Herodotus: A Very Short Introduction Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Jennifer Roberts introduces the background and writing of the 5th century Greek thinker and researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who invented the genre of historical investigation. She discusses all aspects of his work, including his fascination with his origins; his travels; his interest in seeing the world; and the recurring themes of his work.

Herodotus - narrator, scientist, historian

Herodotus - narrator, scientist, historian
Author: Ewen Bowie
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2018-03-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3110582104

Download Herodotus - narrator, scientist, historian Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Recently the importance for Herodotus' work of contemporary medical and sophistic thought and techniques of argument has been widely recognised, as long had been his dependence on and difference from earlier geographical and ethnographic writing. This volume focuses on the place of these interests in his investigatory techniques and sets them alongside his many narrative skills, from superficially traditonal battle narrative and reworking of Greek or non-Greek traditions that border on myth to the structuring of narrative by highlighting the life of objects, and addresses such fundamental issues as how he chooses between competing explanations and how far he valued truth. The book tackles many of the basic issues that confront any attempt to understand Herodotus' work.

Time and Narrative in Ancient Historiography

Time and Narrative in Ancient Historiography
Author: Jonas Grethlein
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2012-04-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107378214

Download Time and Narrative in Ancient Historiography Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Historians often refer to past events which took place prior to their narrative's proper past - that is, they refer to a 'plupast'. This past embedded in the past can be evoked by characters as well as by the historian in his own voice. It can bring into play other texts, but can also draw on lieux de mémoire or on material objects. The articles assembled in this volume explore the manifold forms of the plupast in Greek and Roman historians from Herodotus to Appian. The authors demonstrate that the plupast is a powerful tool for the creation of historical meaning. Moreover, the acts of memory embedded in the historical narrative parallel to some degree the historian's activity of recording the past. The plupast thereby allows Greek and Roman historians to reflect on how (not) to write history and gains metahistorical significance. In shedding new light on the temporal complexity and the subtle forms of self-conscious reflection in the works of ancient historians, Time and Narrative in Ancient Historiography significantly enhances our understanding of their narrative art.

A Guide to Reading Herodotus' Histories

A Guide to Reading Herodotus' Histories
Author: Sean Sheehan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2018-04-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1474292682

Download A Guide to Reading Herodotus' Histories Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Modern scholarship judges Herodotus to be a more complex writer than his past readers supposed. His Histories is now being read in ways that are seemingly incompatible if not contradictory. This volume interrogates the various ways the text of the Histories has been and can be read by scholars: as the seminal text of our Ur-historian, as ethnology, literary art and fable. Our readings can bring out various guises of Herodotus himself: an author with the eye of a travel writer and the mind of an investigative journalist; a globalist, enlightened but superstitious; a rambling storyteller but a prose stylist; the so-called 'father of history' but in antiquity also labelled the 'father of lies'; both geographer and gossipmonger; both entertainer and an author whom social and cultural historians read and admire. Guiding students chapter-by-chapter through approaches as fascinating and often surprising as the original itself, Sean Sheehan goes beyond conventional Herodotus introductions and instead looks at the various interpretations of the work, which themselves shed light on the original. With text boxes highlighting key topics and indices of passages, this volume is an essential guide for students whether reading Herodotus for the first time, or returning to revisit this crucial text for later research.

Homer’s Iliad and the Trojan War

Homer’s Iliad and the Trojan War
Author: Jan Haywood
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2018-03-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1350012696

Download Homer’s Iliad and the Trojan War Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

In this new volume, Jan Haywood and Naoíse Mac Sweeney investigate the position of Homer's Iliad within the wider Trojan War tradition through a series of detailed case studies. From ancient Mesopotamia to twenty-first century America, these examples are drawn from a range of historical and cultural contexts; and from Athenian pot paintings to twelfth-century German scholarship, they engage with a range of different media and genres. Inspired by the dialogues inherent in the process of reception, the book adopts a dialogic structure. In each chapter, paired essays by Haywood and Mac Sweeney offer contrasting authorial voices addressing a single theme, thereby drawing out connections and dissonances between a diverse suite of classical and post-classical Iliadic receptions. The resulting book offers new insights, both into individual instances of Iliadic reception in particular historical contexts, but also into the workings of a complex story tradition. The centrality of the Iliad within the wider Trojan War tradition is shown to be a function of conscious engagement not only with Iliadic content, but also with Iliadic status and the iconic idea of the Homeric.

Handbook of Diachronic Narratology

Handbook of Diachronic Narratology
Author: Peter Hühn
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 914
Release: 2023-07-24
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 311061748X

Download Handbook of Diachronic Narratology Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This handbook brings together 42 contributions by leading narratologists devoted to the study of narrative devices in European literatures from antiquity to the present. Each entry examines the use of a specific narrative device in one or two national literatures across the ages, whether in successive or distant periods of time. Through the analysis of representative texts in a range of European languages, the authors compellingly trace the continuities and evolution of storytelling devices, as well as their culture-specific manifestations. In response to Monika Fludernik’s 2003 call for a "diachronization of narratology," this new handbook complements existing synchronic approaches that tend to be ahistorical in their outlook, and departs from postclassical narratologies that often prioritize thematic and ideological concerns. A new direction in narrative theory, diachronic narratology explores previously overlooked questions, from the evolution of free indirect speech from the Middle Ages to the present, to how changes in narrative sequence encoded the shift from a sacred to a secular worldview in early modern Romance literatures. An invaluable new resource for literary theorists, historians, comparatists, discourse analysts, and linguists.

Ancient Memory

Ancient Memory
Author: Katharine Mawford
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2021-07-05
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3110728796

Download Ancient Memory Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Although the recent ‘memory boom’ has led to increasing interdisciplinary interest, there is a significant gap relating to the examination of this topic in Classics. In particular, there is need for a systematic exploration of ancient memory and its use as a critical and methodological tool for delving into ancient literature. The present volume provides just such an approach, theorising the use and role of memory in Graeco-Roman thought and literature, and building on the background of memory studies. The volume’s contributors apply theoretical models such as memoryscapes, civic and cultural memory, and memory loss to a range of authors, from Homeric epic to Senecan drama, and from historiography to Cicero’s recollections of performances. The chapters are divided into four sections according to the main perspective taken. These are: 1) the Mechanics of Memory, 2) Collective memory, 3) Female Memory, and 4) Oblivion. This modern approach to ancient memory will be useful for scholars working across the range of Greek and Roman literature, as well as for students, and a broader interdisciplinary audience interested in the intersection of memory studies and Classics.

Classical Rationalism and the Politics of Europe

Classical Rationalism and the Politics of Europe
Author: Ann Ward
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2018-01-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 152750686X

Download Classical Rationalism and the Politics of Europe Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Dramatic changes have occurred in Europe in the past quarter century. The fall of communism and the expansion of liberal democracy, together with the desire to project a new “Europa” that is united, peaceful and prosperous into the future, illustrate that political philosophy is what grounds European political discourse and identity. Thus, an understanding of Europe’s political past and potential future directs us to the question: What is political philosophy? An exploration of the question of political philosophy points us back to Socrates, widely regarded as the first political philosopher, or the first philosopher to make human beings central to philosophic inquiry. Scholars such as Thomas Pangle suggest that a revival of the study of Socratic political philosophy will revive serious consideration of the questions of justice or how one ought to live, and demonstrate that classical rationalism is the essential dialectical partner and interrogator of the political theology of Scripture/scripture(s). Classical rationalism in this context is understood as a necessary alternative to modern liberalism, inadequate to the task of taking questions of justice seriously as it insists on regarding all religious claims and understandings of virtue as private preferences rather than definitive of the public sphere, and contemporary postmodernism, which has abandoned rationalism altogether by rejecting any truth claims not understood as relative. This volume explores Socratic rationalism, the major alternatives to it in the history of political philosophy, the potential impact of returning to it in contemporary times, and related themes. It takes a multifaceted approach with contributions from scholars in the fields of philosophy and political science.

Pausanias in the World of Greek Myth

Pausanias in the World of Greek Myth
Author: Greta Hawes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2021
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198832559

Download Pausanias in the World of Greek Myth Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The author uses Pausanias's Periegesis to illuminate the spatial dynamics of Greek myth, showing how apparently conflicting local versions belonged to a unifying cultural expression.