The Center for Hellenic Studies

PUBLICATIONS

Donum natalicium

Traumatic Dreams: Lacanian Love, Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, and the Ancient Greek Novel, or, Gliding in Phantasmagoric Chains of Metonymy

back Anton Bierl, University of Basel I. Introduction During Greg Nagy’s last visit to Basel, we had an intense discussion about adolescence and the work of psychologist Carol Gilligan, who has made great strides toward giving a voice to young women. [1] On this occasion I realized that I had not yet told him in detail about the progress of my current book on… Read more

Donum natalicium

Graveside Irony in the Iliad

back Mike Tueller I. The grave of a Homeric hero is marked by a σῆμα. Whatever its materials or construction, the purpose of a σῆμα is clear: to attract attention. This much we can discern from the word σῆμα itself, but Homer is sometimes even more clear. In the following passage Nestor does not use the word σῆμα, but clearly describes one when he speaks of a τύμβος: “ἀμφ᾽… Read more

Donum natalicium

A Piping Odysseus in Ptolemy the Quail

back Timothy Power, Rutgers University, New Brunswick A strange bird indeed Even in the odd company of Imperial mythographers, paradoxographers, antiquarians, and literary revisionists, Ptolemy the Quail (Ptolemaios Chennos), an Alexandrian writing around the turn of the first into the second century CE, qualifies as a fringe figure. [1] While the Quail was certainly not the only author of his time (or earlier) to… Read more

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Picturing Homeric Weaving

back Susan T. Edmunds Introduction §1. In discussion of Homer and the lyric poets, Gregory Nagy has shown how “the idea of making song is expressed metaphorically through the idea of making fabric.” [1] The process of weaving would have been completely familiar to the average person in Greek antiquity, yet it is not generally familiar to us. We touch woven cloth almost constantly… Read more

Donum natalicium

Lying or Blaspheming? Problems in the Translation of Oral Epics

back Karl Reichl who translates literally is a liar, one who embellishes is a blasphemer. Talmud (Kiddushim 49a/b) The learned rabbi to whom this saying in the Talmud is due was no doubt thinking of the Bible and not of the Homeric epics or any other epic poem. But what he says is also true of the translation of secular works. If one translates literally one misses to… Read more

Donum natalicium

A Misunderstood Ancient Wedding-Song, or Two

back J.C.B. (Yiannis) Petropoulos, Democritean University of Thrace & CHS-Greece Given the special occasion for this collection of papers, I would like to preface mine with a few remarks—short reminiscences rather—that are necessarily (and a bit awkwardly) autobiographical. [1] I return to the fatefully formative year 1981, when I wrote my senior thesis at Harvard under Greg Nagy’s galvanizing guidance. This exercise concerned itself… Read more