Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture: [Volume 1] An Introduction

This volume deals with the submerged literature of ancient Greece; that is, all the texts produced for socially relevant events that have contributed to the configuration and articulation of ancient Greek culture as we know it. In particular, the hermeneutic tool of submerged literature may shed new light on the dynamics behind the 'emersion' or 'submersion' of certain texts during different periods. The category of submerged literature is extended here to include preserved and lost texts as well as those texts that can be reconstructed through investigation. The volume investigates the manifold speech acts that we know of through various sources and that, either from the outset or over the course of time, have been placed at the edge of diffusion, conservation and transmission. The essays contained in the volume deal with questions of hermeneutics, philology and methodology, as well as with epic cycles, lyric poetry, tragedy, comedy, satyr drama, and mime. By approaching these genres from the perspective of submerged literature, the book tries to provide a more precise contextualization of the texts within the communication system of ancient Greece. The book thus presents a new line of research and a series of studies that take a fresh look at the texts and all archaeological and iconographic sources relating to Greek culture, taking into account the results of ethnographic and anthropological research. This extensive investigation examines unique ancient Greek orality and literacy dynamics using a new hermeneutic frame that will hopefully reshape our understanding of ancient Greek culture. Introductory Notes Defining the Indefinable: Greek Submerged Literature and Some Problems of Terminology Submerged Literature in an Oral Culture The Canon and Its Boundaries Beyond the Canon: Hellenistic Scholars and Their Texts Local Epics and Epic Cycles: the Anomalous Case of a Submerged Genre Two Cases of Submerged Monodic Lyric: Sympotic Poetry and Lullabies Dramatic Actions from Archaic Iconographic Sources: the Domain of the Satyrikon Comedy outside the Canon: from Ritual Slapstick to Hellenistic Mime Out of Athens. Ritual Performances, Spaces, and the Emergence of Tragedy By Way of Conclusion Reference List Index Nominum Index Rerum Notabilium Index Locorum Contributors Illuminating the ways ancient Greek culture placed different texts at edge of transmission remains a desideratum. Intended as a new hermeneutics to study the whole range of texts that were produced for socially relevant events in ancient Greece and to investigate the dynamics behind their inclusion or exclusion from production, diffusion and transmission, this book offers fresh approaches to ancient Greek literature and cultural history [1] An Introduction -- Volume 2. Case Studies / Edited By Giulio Colesanti And Laura Lulli -- Volume 3. The Comparative Perspective / Edited By Andrea Ercolani And Manuela Giordano. Edited By Giulio Colesanti And Manuela Giordano. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 188-208) And Indexes.