thersites. Journal for Transcultural Presences and Diachronic Identities from Antiquity to Date
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Individual vs. Collective Expressions of Grief in the Homeric Poems
Full text linkIn the Homeric poems, expressions of grief and mourning abound. This is a key theme in the Iliad, and the poem culminates with the big funeral scenes of the last three books. Homeric poetry has long been linked to the emergence of the Greek polis, and it offers us an insight into accepted patterns of displaying grief and mourning practices in the public sphere. The funeral games and the different forms that these choral laments adopt, particularly the thrênos, are collective expressions of ritualised mourning that acquire a paradigmatic role comparable to that they enjoy in the iconographic record (e.g. on Geometric pottery). In contrast, some individual responses to grief in the poems are presented as anomalous, for example, Achilles’ which is explained in terms of his heroic temper and Penelope’s because of her uncertainty over Odysseus’ fate. These examples allow the poet to portray extreme personal responses to grief, made manifest in severe physical symptoms. Their individual specificity functions as a foil to the paradigmatic representation of the collective management of grief through ritualised competition and communal choral practices.En los poemas homéricos son frecuentes las expresiones de dolor y duelo. Este es un tema clave en la Ilíada, que culmina con las grandes escenas de los funerales de Patroclo y Héctor en los últimos tres libros. Estas representaciones están estrechamente relacionadas con los patrones de gestión y exhibición del dolor en la esfera pública propios de la polis arcaica. Los juegos fúnebres y las diferentes formas que adopta el lamento, particularmente el thrênos coral, son expresiones colectivas de duelo ritualizado que tienen un paralelo visual en el registro iconográfico, p.ej. en la cerámica geométrica. En marcado contraste, dos respuestas individuales al dolor por la pérdida son presentadas en los poemas como comportamientos anómalos, los de Aquiles, relacionado con su temperamento heroico, y Penélope, a causa de la incertidumbre sobre el destino de su marido. Estos ejemplos permiten al poeta representar respuestas estrictamente personales al dolor, manifestadas a través de síntomas físicos extremos y gestos de aislamiento de la comunidad, reflejados en la iconografía de ambos personajes en el período clásico. Su especificidad funciona en los poemas homéricos como contraste poético que enfatiza la representación paradigmática de la gestion colectiva del dolor a través de la competición ritualizada y especialmente de la práctica coral
Introduction : Ancient Greek and Roman Multi-Sensory Spectacles of Grief
Full text linkIst Trauer um den Tod eines geliebten Menschen ein universelles, transhistorisches Gefühl? Welche Rolle spielt der historische, politische und soziokulturelle Kontext bei der Frage, wie Trauer in der Literatur und Kunst verstanden, verarbeitet, aufgeführt,beschrieben und dargestellt wird? Diese Sonderausgabe von thersites versucht, diese Fragen unter Bezugnahme auf die Kulturen des antiken Griechenlands und Roms zu beantworten. Ausgehend von einem breitem Spektrum an textlichen und materiellen Kulturnachweisen untersuchen die sechs Aufsätze, aus denen sich diese Ausgabe zusammensetzt, wie antike Griechen und Römer auf den Tod von Verwandten, Freunden und Mitgliedern ihrer weiteren Gemeinschaft reagierten und wie sich dies auf ihr Leben, ihre Gesellschaft und ihr Identitätsgefühl auswirkte. Die erste Hälfte dieser Ausgabe widmet sich der Darstellung der Trauer in den homerischen Epen und der griechischen Tragödie, während die zweite eine große Vielfalt an römischen Zeugnissen von Inschriften über Kunst, Literatur und Philosophie untersucht. Unsere Arbeit unterscheidet sich von breiteren Debatten im interdisziplinären Bereich der Geschichte der Emotionen, jedoch beziehen sich einige der Beiträge auch auf die neuere Forschung zu Gefühlen in der Antike.Is grief for the death of a loved one a universal, trans-historical emotion? What role does the historical, political and socio-cultural context play in how grief is understood, processed, performed, written about and represented in art? This special issue of thersites seeks to address these questions with reference to the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. Drawing on a wide range of both textual and material culture evidence, the six papers that make up this issue investigate how the ancient Greeks and Romans reacted to the death of relatives, friends and members of their wider community, and how it affected their lives, societies and sense of identity. The first half of the issue is devoted to the portrayal of grief in the Homeric epics and Greek tragedy, while the second examines a rich variety of Roman evidence from inscriptions to art, literature and philosophy. Our work intersects with wider debates in the cross-disciplinary field of the History of Emotions, but some of the papers also reference recent scholarship on the senses in antiquity
The first Modern Greek translation of Catullus’ poems by Gustave Laffon
Full text linkThe reception of Catullus has a long history in Western Europe. A lot of critical editions, translations and commentaries were composed for his work. In 19th century Greece there are a few translations of some of Catullus’ poems. Gustave Laffon (1835-1906) was a Franco-Cypriot poet who wrote in Modern Greek and translated a number of French authors in Greek, as well as a few poems of Roman lyric poets and elegists. In this paper I study Laffon’s five Modern Greek translations in verse of Catullus’ poems for Lesbia (published after his death, in his Apanta in 1915). Firstly, I reveal the identity of these poems. Furthermore, I analyze some of his translation techniques, his language and style. Finally, I try to detect the readership of these translations
The Smell of Grief: Odour and Olfaction at the Roman Funeral
Full text linkThe Roman funeral has received regular scholarly attention as a ritualised expression of elite identify and performative grief, with emphasis on its visual and auditory elements. By contrast, analysis of the role of smell in funerary rites has typically been relegated to a passing mention, and all too often been dismissed as merely a means of offsetting the dismal odour of a decaying corpse. However, this prioritisation may better reflect contemporary western attitudes to the senses than those of the ancient Romans, who in their literature placed considerable emphasis on the presence of funerary odours, and spent considerable sums of money to treat their dead with the finest spices from across the empire. As Pliny, Plutarch, and others make clear, these materials and the fragrances they produced could provoke strong reactions and accusations of mollitia among the living. And yet, for those bearing witness to the deceased’s departure from one world and their transition to another, the funeral’s olfactory dimensions were central to its form and function. This paper examines the social, ontological and epistemological significance of odour to the Roman funeral – its importance in communicating critical information about the grief endured by the living, the status of the deceased and the success of the ritual itself
Review: M. Janka / M. Stierstorfer, Verjüngte Antike. Griechisch-römische Mythologie und Historie in zeitgenössischen Kinder- und Jugendmedien (2017)
No full textfantastischeantike.de – ein Blog-Projekt zur Antikenrezeption in Science Fiction, Horror und Fantasy
Full text linkThe fantastischeantike.de project collects and analyses examples of classical reception in science fiction, horror and fantasy
Penia in Entenhausen: Ökonomische Theorie, soziale Utopie und politische Ideologie bei Aristophanes und Carl Barks
Full text linkCarl Barks, the most influential chronicler of the Duckburg universe and the creator of such memorable characters as Scrooge McDuck, only very rarely made references to classical antiquity in his comic stories. Nevertheless, there is a striking resemblance between ideas propounded in "Plutos," Aristophanes’ last extant comedy of 388 B.C., and “A Financial Fable,” a story by Barks published in 1951. Both stories feature protagonists wishing for universal wealth, and in both this financial utopia is contrasted with a demonstration how such a state of affairs would inevitably bring all human productivity to a halt. Such parallels, even if not the result of direct reception, lead to a set of questions regarding the political coloring of humor and its ideological implications
