The Development of Commentary from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Age of Information August 7-10, 2018 Sponsored and hosted by the Center for Hellenic Studies Organized by Joel P. Christensen (Brandeis University) and Jacqueline Vayntrub (Brandeis University) Commentary on the written word is nearly as old as writing itself and has developed alongside scholarship, literature and the writing cultures in critical and influential ways. As an activity,… Read more
Editors: Elizabeth Gipson, Angelia Hanhardt (2016–2021), and Keith DeStone Web producer: Noel Spencer Consultant for images: Jill Curry Robbins Jump to: Iliad Rhapsody 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22,… Read more
[[A preliminary version, originally published in Classical Inquiries 2015.10.01, of a chapter published in 2019: Lyric Genre, ed. Leslie Kurke, Margaret Foster, Naomi Weiss.]] Introduction §1. This essay is the third part of a tripartite project. The first part, “Genre and Occasion,” was published in ΜΗΤΙΣ (1994), and the second part, “Transmission of Archaic Greek Sympotic Songs: From Lesbos to Alexandria,” was published ten years later in Critical Inquiry… Read more
Translated by Ioanna Papadopoulou [This article was originally published in French as “L’adjectif grec ἄσμενος : étymologie et histoire du mot,” in Hommage à Jacqueline de Romilly. L’empreinte de son oeuvre, eds. Marc Fumaroli, Jacques Jouanna, Monique Trédé, and Michel Zink. Actes de colloque (Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres). Paris, 2014. The English translation is made available by permission of the author.] 1. Traditional thesis: ἄσμενος ‘happy, pleased’ cognate with… Read more
I.Introduction The many facets of the Ariadne-figure have long been the subject of classical scholarship. The peculiar cultic customs surrounding the goddess have been assiduously interpreted, in part successfully and in part unsuccessfully. Her relation to the figure of Dionysus has been explored in hopes of proving the Mycenaean origins of the god; as for her own Minoan origins, identification with the early nature goddess of the Aegean area is… Read more
Second, online edition of a thesis presented to the Committee on Degrees in Folklore and Mythology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors, Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 27 March 1970. Read more
Παρατηρήσεις σχετικά με τις ελληνικές διαλέκτους στα τέλη της δεύτερης χιλιετίας π.Χ. Gregory Nagy [1] Μετάφραση από την Christina Lafi Κατά την πρώτη χιλιετία π.Χ., η οποία αποτελεί την εποχή στην οποία αναπτύχθηκε η αλφαβητική γραφή από τους Ελληνόφωνους λαούς από τον όγδοο αιώνα π.Χ., υπάρχουν μαρτυρίες για ένα ευρύ φάσμα διαλέκτων οι οποίες μπορούν να χωρισθούν χονδρικά σε τέσσερις ομάδες: (1) στην Άρκαδο-Κυπριακή, (2)… Read more
[This text is the English-language version of a lecture I delivered 2011.04.06 on the occasion of my induction as a corresponding member of the Academy of Athens. The lecture was then published in the Proceedings of the Academy of Athens in 2011, Volume 86 Second Issue (2011) pages 81–96. It is republished here with the permission of the Academy. The original pagination of the article will be indicated in this… Read more
Problems and method The lament for the dead is essentially functional. It is only one part of a complex tradition of ritual customs and beliefs. To understand the nature of its development in Greek tradition, and to determine the extent of its continuity from ancient to modern times, it must therefore be studied not in isolation but as an integral part of the ritual to which it belongs. This raises… Read more
Margaret Alexiou’s The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, first published in 1974, has long since been established as a classic in several fields. This is the only generic and diachronic study of learned and popular lament and its socio-cultural contexts throughout Greek tradition in which a great diversity of sources are integrated to offer a comprehensive and penetrating synthesis. Its interdisciplinary orientation and broad scope have rendered The Ritual Lament in Greek… Read more
