Allusion, Authority, and Truth : Critical Perspectives on Greek Poetic and Rhetorical Praxis

Questions about how ancient Greek texts establish their authority, reflect on each other, and project their own truths have become central for a wide range of recent critical discourses. In this volume, an influential group of international scholars examines these themes in a variety of poetic and rhetorical genres. The result is a series of striking and original readings from different critical perspectives that display the centrality of these questions for understanding the poetic and rhetorical aims of ancient Greek texts. Characterized by a combination of close attention to philological detail and theoretical sophistication, the essays in this volume make a compelling case for this kind of focused, critically informed dialogue about the nature of ancient textual __praxis__. Students of classical literature will find a wealth of critical insights and challenging new readings of many familiar texts. Allusion, Authority, and Truth: Critical Perspectives on Greek Poetic and Rhetorical Praxis......Page 4 Preface......Page 6 Table of Contents......Page 8 Introduction......Page 10 Epic and Lyric......Page 20 1. Claude Calame: The Authority of Orpheus, Poet and Bard: Between Tradition and Written Practice......Page 22 Orpheus as Poet-Musician and as Master of Initiation......Page 23 Orpheus and Cosmo-Theogony in Epic Diction......Page 26 Between “Narrative” and “Speech”: Homeric Diction......Page 28 Procedures of Poetic Enunciation......Page 30 Hermeneutic and Initiatory Erudition in an Orphic Commentary......Page 32 Commentary and the Authority of the Poem......Page 33 Interpretative Procedures Reserved for the Initiated......Page 34 Between Physical Principles and Divine Forces......Page 38 The Initiatory Itinerary of a Written Hermeneutic Practice......Page 40 Orpheus and the Authority of Written-Oral Text......Page 43 Bellies and Beggars......Page 46 Gastēr and Thumos......Page 47 Gastēr and Menos......Page 49 Remembering the Gastēr......Page 52 Odysseus and Achilles......Page 56 3. Phillip Mitsis: Achilles Polytropos and Odysseus as Suitor: Iliad 9.307-429......Page 60 4. Philippe Rousseau: Hector’s Inaction (Iliad 5.471-492)......Page 86 5. Christos Tsagalis: Epic Space Revisited: Narrative and Intertext in the Episode between Diomedes and Glaucus (Il. 6.119-236)......Page 96 Story Space......Page 98 Embedded Story Space......Page 106 Merging Spaces......Page 112 Intertextual Space......Page 113 The Luwian Wilusiad and Lycian Epic......Page 117 6. Simon Goldhill: Idealism in the Odyssey and the Meaning of mounos in Odyssey 16......Page 124 7. Daniel Turkeltaub: Reading the Epic Past: The Iliad on Heroic Epic......Page 138 8. Gregory Nagy: The Meaning of homoios (ὁμοῖος) in Theogony 27 and Elsewhere......Page 162 9. Pierre Judet de La Combe: Hesiod, Th. 117 and 128: Formula and the Text’s Temporality......Page 178 10. Thomas Hubbard: Pylades and Orestes in Pindar’s Eleventh Pythian: The Uses of Friendship......Page 196 Drama......Page 210 1. Vittorio Citti: Aeschylus, Suppliants 112-150......Page 212 2. Barbara Goff: Sons of the Shield: Paternal Arms in Epic and Tragedy......Page 228 3. Oliver Taplin: Echoes from Mount Cithaeron......Page 244 Appendix on Euripides’ Antiope and Eleutherae......Page 256 Odysseus versus Hecuba......Page 258 The Death of Polyxena: a Rhetorical Act......Page 263 The Herald’s Narrative......Page 264 Hecuba Alone......Page 268 5. Froma Zeitlin: The Lady Vanishes: Helen and Her Phantom in Euripidean Drama......Page 272 6. Andrew L. Ford: “A Song to Match my Song”: Lyric Doubling in Euripides’ Helen......Page 292 Parodos: Proode and Strophe A (164-178)......Page 294 The Hoopoe’s Song (Birds 209-222)......Page 300 Parodos Antistrophe A: Echo and Responsion (179-190)......Page 303 Anadiplosis and Doubled Speech......Page 306 Introduction......Page 312 The Comic Kolax......Page 313 Aristotle on Kolakeia......Page 317 Philos and Kolax......Page 318 Kolax and Tyrant......Page 320 Kolakeia and Apatē......Page 321 Kolakeia and Hierarchy......Page 323 How Pericles Led the Demos......Page 325 Kolakeia and Democratic Politics: The Athenian Demos as Tyrant......Page 328 Politics as Kolakeia......Page 329 Kolakeia in Knights......Page 331 Slaves as Tyrants......Page 333 Demos as Tyrant and Slave......Page 334 The Language of Kolakeia......Page 336 Aristophanes’ Wasps......Page 339 Philocleon as Archōn and Archōmenos......Page 340 Kolakeia in Wasps......Page 341 Conclusion......Page 344 Appendix: The Vocabulary of Kolakeia......Page 346 Introduction: the Frogs Attempt to Save Athens......Page 348 Who is sitting near Socrates?......Page 349 For Whom Is the Beatitude?......Page 353 Why Nobody Should Sit near Socrates......Page 357 Why One Had Better Sit near Socrates......Page 359 Conclusion: Who Will Save Athens?......Page 365 Introduction......Page 368 Comedy “Goes Political”......Page 370 Censorship and the Case of Cratinus’ Dionysalexandros......Page 372 ἔμφασις and Comedy......Page 375 Allegories of Abuse......Page 379 Conclusion......Page 383 Prose......Page 384 Introduction......Page 386 Imitation in Against the Sophists and the Levels of Training......Page 388 Truth, Justice and the Selection of Models......Page 395 Democritus’ Paradigm......Page 404 Conclusion......Page 408 2. François Hartog: Polybius and Daniel: Two Universal Histories, or What Does It Mean To Be Contemporary?......Page 410 The Political Context according to Daniel and Polybius......Page 411 What is the Problem in Polybius?......Page 413 What Is the Problem in Daniel?......Page 415 The Question of Succession......Page 418 Bibliography......Page 422 List of Contributors......Page 454 Publications by Pietro Pucci......Page 460 General Index......Page 466

Questions about how ancient Greek texts establish their authority, reflect on each other, and project their own truths have become central for a wide range of recent critical discourses. In this volume, an influential group of international scholars examines these themes in a variety of poetic and rhetorical genres. The result is a series of striking and original readings from different critical perspectives that display the centrality of these questions for understanding the poetic and rhetorical aims of ancient Greek texts. Characterized by a combination of close attention to philological detail and theoretical sophistication, the essays in this volume make a compelling case for this kind of focused, critically informed dialogue about the nature of ancient textual praxis. Students of classical literature will find a wealth of critical insights and challenging new readings of many familiar texts.

The past few decades have seen the development of new critical methods with which the poetic and rhetorical dimensions of ancient Greek texts can be evaluated. In this volume, an international group of distinguished scholars comes together to examine how a wide range of ancient texts in different genres were able to assert their authority and claims to truth, often alluding to one another in subtle ways as they attempted to project their own superiority. A series of illuminating new readings is offered of both particular passages and whole works in the light of these new critical advances. Biographical note: Phillip Mitsis, New York University, USA, and Christos Tsagalis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece