7. An Anthropological Fiction* Freud used the word “historical” on several occasions to characterize what he set out to describe in Moses and Monotheism; [1] the word implies that he was referring to events that had actually happened, that were not arbitrarily constructed. He could rely on psychoanalysis to assure him that this was the case. On the… Read more
6. Purifications* God on Earth A subversive action Purifications (Katharmoi) marks a complete break with the cultural tradition, one that could equally well be called literary or religious. The poem [1] invents a myth, a new story that purports to replace all the other stories that have ever been told, from Homer and Hesiod to the… Read more
5. Reading Myths* Research on the cycle of becoming had to be linked with cosmology. Speculation on ordered movement and the birth of time occupied a central place. The refutation of the thesis that there were two parallel and opposite cycles in Empedocles, under the headings of Love and Hatred (or Strife), was a decisive preliminary condition for the reconstitution of Empedocles’ system. Read more
4. Reflections on the Practice of Philology* I To edit a page of Aeschylus or Plato, to separate these authors’ sentences or their lines of verse—to understand, in a word—is to discover that, to a considerable degree, the composition obtained by a lengthy and coherent tradition, but also by modern science, heir to that tradition, is different from the text that has… Read more
3. Odysseus among the Philologists* The Controversy An outdated practice Classical philology, the dominant discipline in higher education until the early twentieth century, has an ambiguous status; a definition of that status could explain why the field has never produced a theory of meaning, although it has produced numerous methodological works on which the other literary disciplines are based. On the… Read more
2. Reading the Philologists?* By opting for philologische Wissenschaft, “philological science,” with texts at the center, and not for Altertumswissenschaft, or “archaeological science,” within the field of criticism—in a sense, against criticism and against a form of “essayism,” [1] as a way of acquiring the means for understanding—I was referring to a practice. At the same time I… Read more
1. Learning to Read* When I started out, I found it hard to distinguish writing projects from re-elaborations of subject matter, and I failed to pay sufficient attention to the breaks, large or very small, that produce the meaning of a text. I gradually came to understand that these breaks allow for freedom in the act of reading, without establishing the potentialities of… Read more
[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.] Foreword Gregory Nagy Introduction [1]… Read more
Translators’ Preface Catherine Porter and Susan Tarrow The challenges of translating Jean Bollack’s work are well known to his fellow classicists. His work, published primarily in French, has also appeared in German, either in the author’s own text or in translation, but very little was available in English when we agreed to take on this collection. Each of us had translated one of Bollack’s essays for… Read more
Bibliography Adrados, F. R. 2007. “The Panorama of Indo-European Linguistics since the Middle of the Twentieth Century: Advances and Immobilism.” Journal of Indo-European Studies 35:129–153. Albêrûnî. 2002. Albêrûnî’s India. Trans. E. C. Sachau. New Delhi. Allan, J. 1914. Catalogue of the Coins of the Gupta Dynasties and of Śaśāṅka, King of Gauda. London. Amory,… Read more
