1,721,004 research outputs found
Introduction
No full textParmi les études sur le « comique », l’« humour », le « drôle », l’« ironique » ou encore le « ludique » dans la littérature grecque et latine de l’Antiquité, deux pistes ont été particulièrement empruntées : d’une part, repérer et étudier les termes anciens qui semblent dénoter ces catégories et examiner quelles définitions en étaient données (voir parmi de nombreuses publications, pour ces dernières années l’article de Robson, « Theories of Humor and Laughter in Encyclopedia of Greek Comedy..
A l’aube d’une histoire littéraire : comment les textes grecs de l’époque impériale ont-ils cristallisé le canon classique?
Full text linkThe scholars agree that Antiquity must be divided into time periods: Archaic Greece, Classical antiquity, Hellenistic Greece, Imperial period and late Antiquity, the two latter having led to growing interest in the last decades although they had been discredited as decadent for a long time. The aim of this paper is to investigate how the authors of the Imperial era gave rise to such a periodization, but also how they are responsible themselves of the long-lasting belief that they were decadent. Beginning by Dionysus Halicarnassus’ texts, I will analyse how the canon of the “great” ancient authors already grew up in the first century AD – including Homer, the tragedians, the attic orators, Plato –: the preference given to attic language, which is now named Atticism, over bombastic rhetoric of Hellenistic Greece, called Asianism, is the cause of the opposition we still make between the classical and the alexandrine periods. Then I will deal with the omnipresence of this canon in the imperial texts by statistically studying references to the classical texts. Finally, the aim of this paper is to shed light on an apparent paradox: while the authors of the first-third century BC gave rise to the periodisation of antiquity we still depend on, they also played a part in seeming decadent. Having taken it in consideration, I will finally investigate how the narratology permitted us to rehabilitate them in the recent past and will pursue to do so in the years to come
A rhetorical Trojan War : Philostratus’ Heroicus, the Power of Language and the Construction of the Truth
No full textAlthough the characters of Philostratos’ Heroikos claim to tell the ‘true’ version of the Trojan War, a close study of the compositional techniques used in the text shows that this alternative story of the Homeric poems and the Epic Cycle is mostly based on rhetorical categories, such as likelihood (εἰκός), possibility (δυνατόν) and non-contradiction. This article aims to explore this polemical relationship to archaic poetry by comparing the argumentative tech- niques of the Heroikos with the exercise of contestation (ἀνασκευή), as it is defined in the Progymnasmata. Unsurprisingly, Philostratos chose the Trojan War to do so: no ancient writer doubted its historical reality, but it was taken for granted that Homer and the poets of the Epic Cycle distorted it for poetic reasons. In this sense, we can identify in the Heroikos a questioning similar to Gorgias’: what can λόγος say about a fact whose reality is unattainable
Compte rendu de Michel PATILLON, Syrianus. Sur les États de cause. Texte établi et traduit par M.P. Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2021
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Réinterpréter l'épopée homérique dans la Vie d'Apollonios de Tyane de Philostrate
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L'Attique sous l'Empire romain : territoire symbolique de la langue grecque ?
No full textInternational audienceUnder the Roman Empire, in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, the Greek language was not unified but consisted of two distinct linguistic varieties: the standard koine on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the language used in the literate classes, imitating the canonical Attic writers of the classical period (5th and 4th centuries BCE). The sociocultural and linguistic identity of Atticist intellectuals seems to have been de-territorialized: any Greek-speaker who received a Greek education could indeed claim to be “Attic”, regardless of their ethnic origin or place of residence. In literary works, however, most notably in Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists (second half of the 3rd century CE), Attica appears symbolically as the territory of a cultural capital linguistically rooted in classical Athens. Greek- speaking intellectuals thus defined themselves as citizens of an idealised Athenian world that transcended the boundaries of space and time.Sous l’Empire romain, aux 2e et 3e siècles de notre ère, la langue grecque n’était pas unifiée ; deux variétés linguistiques s’opposaient : d’une part, la koinè ; de l’autre, la langue de l’élite lettrée, qui imitait les usages des grands auteurs attiques de la période classique (5e et 4e siècles avant notre ère). À première vue, l’identité socioculturelle et linguistique des intellectuels atticistes semble déterritorialisée : tout hellénophone dépositaire d’une éducation grecque pouvait se prétendre « attique », quels que soient ses origines ethniques et son lieu de vie. Néanmoins, dans les sources littéraires, notamment les Vies des sophistes de Philostrate (deuxième moitié du 3e siècle de notre ère), l’Attique se présente comme le territoire symbolique d’un capital culturel qui reste profondément attaché aux racines linguistiques de l’Athènes classique. Les intellectuels hellénophones se définissent ainsi comme les citoyens d’un monde athénien idéalisé, qui transcende à la fois l’espace et le temps
De l’archaïsme à l’innovation verbale : retraduire et réinterpréter la Vie d’Apollonios de Tyane de Philostrate
Full text linkWorking on a translation of Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana, written in Greek in the 3rd century AD, we encounter two problems, which are both aesthetic and socio-cultural.
First, this text belongs to the Atticist movement theorized by rhetors and lexicographers in the previous century: instead of using the Greek language widely spoken in its time (the koine), its vocabulary is borrowed from the orators and authors of the 5th-4th centuries BC. Nevertheless, Philostratus is not a purist: he combines the language of Plato and Demosthenes with words from Homeric poetry and Euripides’ tragedies. This raises the question of how to represent within a translation the allusions and connotations that are potentially activated by the text. An alternation between different language registers – colloquial, formal, archaic – is one possibility, but the problem is not simply one of style if we are to provide the modern readership with a reading experience akin to that of the original readers.
Second, Philostratus’ use of syntax is characterized by its freedom: thus, he probably intends to differentiate himself from Atticist aesthetics and pique the reader’s curiosity. The peculiarities of his text have often been omitted by the modern translators. Should we try to render this abrupt style, although French syntax is by nature very different from that of the Greek?
The paper aims to propose some solutions to these problems and to investigate their limitations, by asking to what extent and how translation could render the cultural capital of the original readers
L'Attique sous l'Empire romain : territoire symbolique de la langue grecque ?
No full textInternational audienceUnder the Roman Empire, in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, the Greek language was not unified but consisted of two distinct linguistic varieties: the standard koine on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the language used in the literate classes, imitating the canonical Attic writers of the classical period (5th and 4th centuries BCE). The sociocultural and linguistic identity of Atticist intellectuals seems to have been de-territorialized: any Greek-speaker who received a Greek education could indeed claim to be “Attic”, regardless of their ethnic origin or place of residence. In literary works, however, most notably in Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists (second half of the 3rd century CE), Attica appears symbolically as the territory of a cultural capital linguistically rooted in classical Athens. Greek- speaking intellectuals thus defined themselves as citizens of an idealised Athenian world that transcended the boundaries of space and time.Sous l’Empire romain, aux 2e et 3e siècles de notre ère, la langue grecque n’était pas unifiée ; deux variétés linguistiques s’opposaient : d’une part, la koinè ; de l’autre, la langue de l’élite lettrée, qui imitait les usages des grands auteurs attiques de la période classique (5e et 4e siècles avant notre ère). À première vue, l’identité socioculturelle et linguistique des intellectuels atticistes semble déterritorialisée : tout hellénophone dépositaire d’une éducation grecque pouvait se prétendre « attique », quels que soient ses origines ethniques et son lieu de vie. Néanmoins, dans les sources littéraires, notamment les Vies des sophistes de Philostrate (deuxième moitié du 3e siècle de notre ère), l’Attique se présente comme le territoire symbolique d’un capital culturel qui reste profondément attaché aux racines linguistiques de l’Athènes classique. Les intellectuels hellénophones se définissent ainsi comme les citoyens d’un monde athénien idéalisé, qui transcende à la fois l’espace et le temps
Feintise ludique et non pas leurre : lire Dictys de Crète à la lumière de la παιδεία
No full textThe aim of this paper is to compare two extracts from the Ephemeris belli Troiani (3.15 and 6.5) with the ancient scholia to Homer and with the Troika composed by historiographers. I intend to show that Dictys Cretensis (re)uses ancient debates about the status of poetry in order to reconstruct a Trojan War that seems likely or credible (pithanon) to his readership. Nevertheless, this complex interaction with a whole historiographical and exegetical tradition invites the readers not to take the text seriously and to approach it with a critical mind. This attitude has already been programmed by the prologue, which presents itself as a fake: we cannot decode the tricks of Dictys’ text without considering its intellectual context. In this sense, we can define the interaction between the Ephemeris and its readership as a prototype of the fictional pact: a connivance is supposed to link the two. If such a conclusion is correct, the text emerges as a ludic exercise that can be compared to the more sophistic(ated) games of Dio of Prusa (Or. 11) and Philostratos (Heroikos)
Philostrate : Vie d'Apollonios de Tyane. Texte introduit, traduit et commenté par Valentin Decloquement
No full textPhilostrate, Vie d'Apollonios de TyaneAu début du IIIe siècle apr. J.-C., le sophiste athénien Philostrate décide de restaurer la mémoire d’Apollonios de Tyane, figure controversée du Ier siècle, accusée de charlatanisme et de sorcellerie. À contre-courant de l’opinion répandue, la Vie d’Apollonios de Tyane brosse le portrait d’un grand sage injustement oublié, d’un philosophe pythagoricien qui brille par sa tempérance et par son ascétisme, d’un homme divin dont les pouvoirs dépassent l’entendement. Accompagné de son fidèle disciple Damis, Apollonios accomplit un voyage initiatique à travers le monde connu de la Méditerranée, jusqu’à ses mystérieux confins en Inde et en Éthiopie. Champion d’une culture grecque incluse dans l’Empire romain, il se fait le conseiller politique de souverains désireux de bien régner, mais doit également se confronter à des empereurs tyranniques, hostiles à la philosophie.À la croisée des chemins littéraires, l’oeuvre de Philostrate est tout aussi insaisissable que son héros : vie de philosophe, discours apologétique, récit de voyage aux allures romanesques, fiction historique avant l’heure… ce texte païen n’est pas non plus sans rappeler les Évangiles. La Vie d’Apollonios est longtemps restée connue comme un texte subversif, susceptible de mettre à mal l’autorité du Christ lui- même ; mais elle n’a pas manqué de séduire la postérité par sa couleur mystique, par sa teneur poétique, ou encore par son caractère ludique
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