Chapter 3. Allegorical Modulations Soubtiles couvertures de belles matieres soubzfictions delitables et morales. Christine de Pizan, Avision Better chastity, the invisible flowerthat rocks atop the stalks of silence,the difficult diamond of the holy saintsthat filters desires, satiates time,the marriage of quietude and motion,solitude sings within its corolla,every hour is a petal of crystal,the world… Read more
Chapter 4. Comic Modulations … But com thou Goddes fair and free,In Heav’n yclept Euphrosyne,And by men, heart-easing Mirth,Whom lovely Venus at a birthWith two sisters Graces moreTo Ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;Or whether (as som Sager sing)The frolick Wind that breathes the Spring,Zephir with Aurora playing,As he met her once a-Maying,There on Beds of Violets blew,And… Read more
Final Thoughts Through their multilayered responses to the past and their present, the Komnenian novels mediate first between antiquity and the Middle Ages and, second, between the Middle Ages and modernity. Due to its inherent discursive plasticity, the genre of the novel offered the Komnenian writers a dynamic literary medium for the exploration of a number of ideological and conceptual tensions ensuing from originally antithetical but often… Read more
Bibliography I. Editions of Greek Novels 1. Ancient Greek Novels Colonna, A. 1938. Heliodori Aethiopica. Rome. Molinié, M. 1979. De Chaerea et Callirrhoe. Paris. Papanikolaou, A. D. 1973. Xenophontis Ephesii Ephesiacorum libri V: De amoribus Anthiae et Abrocomae. Leipzig. Reeve, M. D. 1994. Daphnis et Chloe. Stuttgart. Vilborg, E. Read more
To my teachers, who taught me the pleasures and privileges as well as the methods and responsibilities of scholarship. Acknowledgements It is a great pleasure to acknowledge the assistance of many people who shaped this book during its maturation, and who encouraged me during my work on it in less obvious ways. Homeric Conversation began as a doctoral dissertation, and my first and deepest thanks go… Read more
Introduction [In this on-line version, the page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{69|70}” indicates where p. 69 of the printed version ends and p. 70 begins. These indications will be useful to readers who need to look up references made elsewhere to the printed version of this book.] “And what is the use of a book,”… Read more
Chapter 27. Transformations of Myth: The Poet, Society, and the Sacred This survey ends with Rome, since in Rome we have entered history, for the most part. All of our Roman poets are certainly historical. Much of the Greek material, on the other hand, is clearly legendary or mythical. [1] Greece and Rome allow us to see a number of stages in… Read more
Epilogue The process leading from “myth” to “history”—though such terms cannot be strictly distinguished at all times, as history can function on a sacral level, and myth is always perceived by believers as history—can be seen as a process of secularization. The poet is an omniscient god; then a superhuman hero tied closely, in both a positive and negative way, to the same god; [1]… Read more
Appendix A: Poetry, Aggression, Ritual Walter Burkert has pioneered an analysis of ancient Greek ritual that sees its roots in aggression, in biological impulses than can be observed in animals—Konrad Lorenz was especially fascinated by geese. [1] In the survey of poets in previous chapters, themes and poetic phenomena that related to ritualized aggression have formed a background for archaic poetry (in… Read more
Appendix B: Aggression and the Defensive Topos; Archilochus, Callimachus, Horace Thus far, I have focused on the lives of the poets, with only occasional supportive reference to the poet’s poetry. The subject of this chapter will be a theme that has been considered in passing, aggression and the defensive stance as an apologetic for satirical attack, [1] as it is reflected in… Read more
