Les formules et la métrique d’Homère
Originally published in 1928, for Société d’éditions “Les belles lettres” (Paris). Published here under a Creative Commons License 3.0. Read more
Curated Books
Michael Psellos. On Symeon the Metaphrast and On the Miracle at Blachernae: Annotated Translations with Introductions
The reader of this slender volume will encounter a figure of immense intellectual stature. Michael Psellos (1018–after 1077) combined the roles of scholar and court dignitary in Byzantium at the time of the Byzantine empire’s greatest territorial extent and political influence in the eastern Mediterranean world. The two essays presented here in translation have each attracted close scholarly attention because of their relevance to particular topics. The Discourse on the Miracle That… Read more
The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry
Despite widespread interest in the Greek hero as a cult figure, little was written about the relationship between the cult practices and the portrayals of the hero in poetry. The first edition of The Best of the Achaeans bridged that gap, raising new questions about what could be known or conjectured about Greek heroes. In this revised edition, which features a new preface by the author, Gregory Nagy reconsiders his conclusions in… Read more
Greek Public Monuments of the Persian Wars
The purpose of this study is to recover, as far as possible, knowledge of the public monuments of the Persian Wars set up by the Greeks of the fifth century. A survey of the evidence is proposed. It will take the form of a catalogue; the evidence has been collected from inscriptions, scattered literary references, and archaeological research. The classification of monuments as public means that they were put up… Read more
Fighting Words and Feuding Words: Anger and the Homeric Poems
Anger is central to the Homeric epic, but few scholarly interventions have probed Homer’s language beyond the study of the Iliad’s first word: menis. Yet Homer uses over a dozen words for anger. Fighting Words and Feuding Words engages the powerful tools of Homeric poetic analysis and the anthropological study of emotion in an analysis of two anger terms highlighted in the Iliad by the Achaean prophet Calchas. Walsh argues that kotos and kholos locate two focal points for the study… Read more
Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past
Nagy challenges the widely held view that the development of lyric poetry in Greece represents the rise of individual innovation over collective tradition. Arguing that Greek lyric represents a tradition in its own right, Nagy shows how the form of Greek epic is in fact a differentiation of forms found in Greek lyric. Throughout, he progressively broadens the definition of lyric to the point where it becomes the basis for… Read more
Cretan Lie and Historical Truth: Examining Odysseus’ Raid on Egypt in its Late Bronze Age Context
back Jeffrey P. Emanuel [1] Abstract Though Odysseus’ ainos in Odyssey xiv 199–359 is presented as a fictional tale within Homer’s larger myth, some elements have striking analogs in historical reality. This paper examines the “Cretan Lie” within its fictive Late Bronze–Early Iron Age context for the purpose of identifying and evaluating those elements that parallel historical reality, with a particular focus on three… Read more
Tribute to Our Bátyánk
back Blaise, Michael, and Joseph Nagy Older brothers are usually cast as inconsequential foils or second-tier villains in the world of folktales. They fail where the youngest brother succeeds, and in their resentment of the latter’s success they may even go so far as to try to prevent that brother from reaching his “happily ever after.” The relationship between brothers in the realm of epic, on the other hand,… Read more
Chicken Paprikás with Nokedli
back Robin Olson This is an image of an original water color painting (11.5 inches x 14 inches) rendering a still life representation of the recipe. Read more
My Daddy
back Antonia Nagy I have always admired Gregory Nagy the man. He is undeniably a remarkable person. Brilliant, friendly, funny, caring, and of course, passionate. He is an easy man to respect. But I am his daughter, so I have also always been critical of him as a father. But that is not my fault! I was raised by intellectuals who value the process of deductive reasoning. How could… Read more