The Center for Hellenic Studies

Archive

Book Chapter

Chapter 5. The Death of Sarpedon and the Question of Homeric Uniqueness, pp. 122–142

Chapter 5. The Death of Sarpedon and the Question of Homeric Uniqueness It has been argued often, and in many ways, that the poetry of Homer is unique, transcending his poetic heritage. The point of departure for this presentation is a confrontation with one such argument, concerning the meaning of the Homeric expression kléos áphthiton ‘fame…imperishable’ at Iliad IX 413, cognate with the Indic expression… Read more

Book Chapter

Chapter 6. The King and the Hearth: Six Studies of Sacral Vocabulary Relating to the Fireplace, pp. 143–180

Chapter 6. The King and the Hearth: Six Studies of Sacral Vocabulary Relating to the Fireplace In the Electra, of Sophocles, Clytemnestra dreams that Agamemnon has come back from the dead to the realm of light (417-419; ἐς φῶς 419). The king seizes the skêptron ‘scepter’ (σκῆπτρον 420) that had once been wielded by him, but which is now held by the usurper Aegisthus (420-421),… Read more

Book Chapter

Chapter 7. Thunder and the Birth of Humankind, pp. 181–201

Chapter 7. Thunder and the Birth of Humankind In the myth making traditions of a wide variety of societies, there is a convergent pattern of thought concerning the origin of fire: that a stroke of thunder can deposit fire into trees or rocks and that this fire of thunder is extracted whenever friction is applied to these materials. [1] Oftentimes… Read more

Book Chapter

Chapter 8. Sêma and Nóēsis: The Hero’s Tomb and the “Reading” of Symbols in Homer and Hesiod, pp. 202–222

Chapter 8. Sêma and Nóēsis: The Hero’s Tomb and the “Reading” of Symbols in Homer and Hesiod The word semiotic—and se mantic, for that matter—may be perceived in a new light if we look again at its Greek origins. The basic form in Greek is sêma ‘sign’, a neuter action-noun built on a root-verb that is no longer attested in the language. There is… Read more

Book Chapter

4. Euripides’ Hippolytos

Chapter 4. Euripides’ Hippolytos Many of the metaphors of illegitimacy we have already seen, along with the social forces and structures that inform them, come together in Euripides’ Hippolytos, a drama that confronts in turn a woman’s sexual desire and a young man’s transition to adulthood. But Hippolytos is not any young man, for his father is one of the primary heroes and “forefathers” of the fifth-century… Read more

Book Chapter

Conclusion

Conclusion Many of the concerns associated with illegitimacy cut across the narratives we have examined. The connection between legitimacy and reining in female desire is present not only in Euripides’ portrayal of Phaedra but also in the narratives about Danaë. [1] Both narratives in turn imply an ideology of marriage as a cultural control of the “natural” desires of women. As we… Read more

Book Chapter

Bibliography

Bibliography Barrett, W. S. 1964. Euripides’ Hippolytos. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Betts, J. H. 1977. Review of Corpus der Minoischen und Mykenischen Siegel, Journal of Hellenic Studies 97:228-229. Black, Max. 1962. Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Blundell, Sue. 1998. “Marriage and the Maiden: Narratives on the Parthenon,”… Read more

Book Chapter

About the Author

About the Author Mary Ebbott is Assistant Professor of Classics at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. She holds an A.B. degree from Bryn Mawr College and earned both the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard University. Her previous publications have focused on Homer’s Iliad and the Persians of Aeschylus. … Read more

Book Chapter

Preface

Preface for the Online Edition The printed edition of Poetry as Performance, originally published in 1996 by Cambridge University Press, is now in 2009 published online here by the Center for Hellenic Studies, with the permission of the Press. The original page-numbers are indicated within braces (for example, “{1|2}” indicates the break between pages 1 and 2). And I add here to the Preface of 1996… Read more