The Center for Hellenic Studies

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Gregory Nagy, Παρατηρήσεις σχετικά με τις ελληνικές διαλέκτους στα τέλη της δεύτερης χιλιετίας π.Χ.

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

Curated Articles

Observations on Greek dialects in the late second millennium BCE

[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

PUBLICATIONS

Part I. Lament and ritual

Problems and method

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

Curated Books

The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition

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

Curated Articles

Diachronic Homer and a Cretan Odyssey

2017.06.10 [The online version of this presentation as published here on the website of the Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS), http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Diachronic_Homer_and_a_Cretan_Odyssey.2017, replicates the contents of another online version as published in Oral Tradition 31/1 (2017) 3–50. The proper URL citation for that version is  http://journal.oraltradition.org/issues/31i/nagy. I am most grateful to the Editor of Oral Tradition for giving permission to the CHS to publish a replicated version. The differences… Read more

Curated Articles

The idea of an archetype in texts stemming from the empire founded by Cyrus

[This article was originally published as Chapter 14 of The Archaeology of Greece and Rome: Studies in Honour of Anthony Snodgrass, edited by John Bintliff and Keith Rutter, 337–357, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016. It appears here 6 months after the print publication by agreement with University of Edinburgh Press.] In this on-line version, the page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{69|70}”… Read more

The Poetics of Immanence in the American Mountain Märchen

Carl Lindahl Most who pause to commemorate the first half-century of The Singer of Tales will remember, vividly, how they first made its acquaintance. Fifty years since The Singer of Tales marks forty-four since I was introduced to Albert Lord, from the distance of the back row of a Harvard lecture hall where he orchestrated the appearances of other great scholars—Theodore Andersson, David Bynum, Charles W. Dunn, Einar Haugan, Thorkild… Read more

Curated Books

Heat and Lust: Hesiod’s Midsummer Festival Scene Revisited

J.C.B. Petropoulos examines the description of midsummer in Hesiod’s Works and Days, explores modern Greek agrarian practices and relevant folk beliefs, proverbs, symbols, and songs, and cautiously attempts a ‘backward extrapolation’. With the help of comparative ethnographic models, readers will not only better appreciate the seasonal settings of Hesiod’s harvest and its midsummer aftermath, but also will obtain a provocative sidelight into the local song traditions and general lore that… Read more