Archive

Book Chapter

1. The Epic Identity of the Iliad and Odyssey: Pindar and Herodotus’ Lofty Legacy

1. The Epic Identity of the Iliad and Odyssey: Pindar and Herodotus’ Lofty Legacy The Homeric and Hindu epics appeal to their audiences as religious instructors by dint of addressing important existential issues in entertaining manners. Each pair of poems offers a couple of complementary solutions to a particularly pressing human problem. Because these solutions are found in the accounts that the epics place in the mouths… Read more

Book Chapter

2. The Epic Metaphor of the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata: Ānandavardhana and Rājaśekhara’s Expedient Influence

2. The Epic Metaphor of the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata: Ānandavardhana and Rājaśekhara’s Expedient Influence Like the Iliad and Odyssey, the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata are now considered to be epics. Yet this label does not suit the Sanskrit poems as well as it does the Greek works, for Sanskrit, unlike Greek, has no etymon for the word “epic.” Even so, the application of this term to… Read more

Book Chapter

3. Listening to Achilles and to Odysseus: Poetic Kings on the Ideal of Kléos in the Homeric Epics

3. Listening to Achilles and to Odysseus: Poetic Kings on the Ideal of Kléos in the Homeric Epics The contrasting construals of kléos in the Iliad and the Odyssey are embodied by the poems’ bickering protagonists, Achilles and Odysseus, in the first song that Demodocus sings in Odyssey 8.72–82. In this performance, the singer does not specify the heroes’ quarrel’s source, but rather leaves it open to… Read more

Book Chapter

4. Hearkening to Kuśa and Lava and to Nala: Poetic Monarchs on the Ideal of Dharma in the Hindu Epics

4. Hearkening to Kuśa and Lava and to Nala: Poetic Monarchs on the Ideal of Dharma in the Hindu Epics The Hindu epics differ further from their Homeric counterparts by featuring rulers who are not merely similar to poets, but actually are poets. Yet these figures are not the heroes of the Hindu epics, despite resembling these leading men in their displacement from their sovereignties. In fact,… Read more

Book Chapter

Conclusion. Affirmative and Interrogative Epics

Conclusion. Affirmative and Interrogative Epics So far, I have discussed the Greek and Sanskrit epics largely separately. In Chapters 1 and 2, I examined the ways in which the Greek poems and their Sanskrit counterparts classified themselves, and I considered the effects that the reclassification of each pair of poems, as epics, had on their subsequent interpretation. In Chapters 3 and 4, I showed that each epic’s… Read more

Book Chapter

Chapter 2. Erato

Chapter 2. Erato To Erato, the cicadas report those who have honored her in the affairs of love Phaedrus 259d “Athens, N.M. 1260. RF hydria. From Vari. Group of Polygnotos. 440–430 (Beazley). Third quarter fifth. SUBJECT: in the center, a seated woman reading from a book roll; on the left, a companion holds out a wreath; on the… Read more

Book Chapter

Chapter 3. Calliope and Ourania

Chapter 3. Calliope and Ourania … and to Calliope, the eldest, and to Ourania who comes after her (τῇ μετ᾿ αὐτῇ), the cicadas report those who spend their time in philosophy and honor the music that belongs to them—who most of the all the Muses have as their sphere the heaven (οὐρανόν) and the logoi, both divine and human, and utter the most beautiful voice… Read more

Book Chapter

Chapter 4. The Muses and the Tree

Chapter 4. The Muses and the Tree Having returned to Athens, Plato lived in the Academy, which is a gymnasium outside the walls, in a grove named after a certain hero, Hecademus, as is stated by Eupolis in his play entitled Shirkers “In the shady walks of the divine Hecademus.” Moreover, there are verses of Timon which refer to Plato “Amongst all of them Plato… Read more

Book Chapter

Conclusion

Conclusion In the Introduction, I searched Plato’s corpus for what I called his “self-disclosures”: Plato consistently, albeit implicitly, refers to his dialogues as a form of mousikê, as opposed to other forms of discourse. The book’s four chapters focus on the Phaedrus with such a purpose in mind, and from a number of different perspectives suggested by Socrates’ meaningful mention of four Muses in the cicada myth. Read more

Book Chapter

Appendix. Plato’s Self-Disclosures

Appendix. Plato’s Self-Disclosures A Discussion of Gaiser’s Interpretation The present Appendix is designed to integrate my discussion of Plato’s self-referential statements and their references to Gaiser’s work, which my general Introduction builds upon. It is also intended as a tribute to what I regard as a milestone in Platonic studies. Four Self-Disclosures The sequence in which Gaiser (1984) examines Plato’s self-disclosures, i.e. those passages… Read more