1,720,963 research outputs found
Like Two Pis in a Pod: Author Similarity in the Ancient Greek Corpus
Full text linkOne commonly recognized feature of the Ancient Greek corpus is that some later texts imitate and allude to model texts from earlier time periods, but analysis of this phenomenon is mostly done for specific author pairs based on close reading and highly visible instances of imitation. In this work, we use computational techniques to examine the similarity of a wide range of Ancient Greek authors, with a particular focus on similarity between authors writing many centuries apart. We represent texts and authors based on their usage of high-frequency words to capture author signatures rather than document topics. We propose the Jensen-Shannon Similarity metric for measuring similarity between authors and show that it outperforms other common metrics for vector comparison. We then use this similarity metric to analyze author similarity across distances in time, finding high similarity between specific authors and across the corpus that is not common to all languages. We analyze these similar author pairs more closely and find the similarity is the result of similar usage of many different words rather than just a few
Women, Metapoetry, And Comic Reception In Terence
Full text linkThe focus of this study is self-reflexivity as a key to understanding Terence's dramaturgy and the poetics professed in his prologues. Building upon recent scholarship, I approach Terence's prologues not as biographical accounts but as fictional compositions with programmatic function. I explore the parallels between the prologues and the plots of his plays, interpreting the plots as metapoetic commentaries on playwriting as described in the prologues. Specifically, I argue that female characters in Terence's Eunuchus (Chapters 2-5) and Self-Tormentor (6-7) are metaphors for the plays and vice versa. Pursuing the analogy of women and poetry is rewarding for several reasons. The position of women and control over them are of fundamental importance in Menander and Roman comedy. Woman as a metapoetic trope, abundantly attested in ancient literature, especially comedy, highlights the commodification of texts and articulates the poets' anxiety of ownership and availability of their work. The same concern emerges from Terence's prologues, mapping onto the themes of sexual exclusivity and anxiety about emotional reciprocity in the plays. Central to Terence's program is self-positioning vis-à-vis other poets. I first consider a possibly unique case of the woman-as-play trope in Plautus' (most likely) last play, the Casina, proposing that he playfully commodified his "swan's song" by imagining its revival (Chapter 1). In Chapter 2 I turn to Terence and interpret the Eunuchus prologue as "open-market" poetics, enacted in the play as sharing a meretrix (Ch. 3). An indication that the poetics are disingenuous is the emphasis on "privileged material:" the violation of a citizen virgin (Ch. 4), framed in temporal paradoxes of initiative and imitation (Ch. 5), which ultimately secures Terence's poetic superiority by positioning the Eunuchus as a prehistory of the genre. The key to the Self-Tormentor poetics is performative ("ontological") duplicity, between what is staged and what should be inferred (Ch. 6). This is manifested in the play through the character of Antiphila, designed to challenge the possibility of verifying a woman's emotions by appearance (Ch. 7). The last chapter analyzes how Menander and Plautus encoded the anxiety about female sincerity as deceptiveness, and especially duplicity, of performance
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Thrace And The Athenian Elite, Ca. 550-338 Bce
Full text linkThis dissertation examines the personal ties between elite Athenians and Thrace from the mid sixth century to the mid fourth century BCE in four case studies - the Philaids and the Thracian Chersonese, Dieitrephes and the massacre at Mycalessus, the northern campaigns of Alcibiades and Thrasybulus, and the fourth century mercenary general Iphicrates. In order to highlight further the particular qualities of those elites who were drawn to Thrace, the final chapter examines figures that shared several traits with Athenian Thracophiles but did not make extensive use of Thracian ties. The relationship between Athens and Thrace is explored in terms of three broad categories - political, military, and cultural. Given that there continued to be ambitious elites in Athens even after Solon‟s reforms and the subsequent climate of increasing political equality between male citizens, Thrace served as a political safety valve. Thrace was a place to which elites could remove themselves should they be unwilling or unable to engage in the prevailing ideological system and should mechanisms like ostracism fail to achieve the desired result, such as the removal of their more powerful competition. Experience with Thracians was often the catalyst for military innovation. Several Athenians were pioneers in adopting Thracian methods of warfare. Thrace was a forum for experimentation as it was a long way from the pitched hoplite battles that were the norm between mainland Greek poleis, and Thracophiles were frequently the sorts of leaders that were unconstrained by the hoplite ethos. Finally, some elements of Thracian culture and society were powerfully attractive for ambitious Athenians. In the Athenian imagination Thrace was a throwback to the primitive societies of the Greeks‟ own past, specifically the world of epic. For the Athenians, Thracian culture and society were defined by aselgeia (licentiousness) and poluteleia (extravagance). While these traits were disdained by many, they proved enticing to others, those whom Aristophanes would dub Thraikophoitai, or Thrace-haunters
The Strength Of The City: Morale In Thucydides' Histories
Full text linkThis thesis is a study of morale in Thucydides' Histories. As a general himself, Thucydides had firsthand knowledge of the importance of soldiers' morale, and his emphasis on seeing the entirety of the war shows that he was also able to observe the collective morale of city-states over the long term (5.26.5). Each chapter investigates the use of one term that relates to morale in Thucydides' narrative and earlier literature. Word studies of andreia, tolma, prothumia, and rhome show how the Greek language was being adapted over the course of the 5th century to allow greater abstraction and facilitate theoretical discourse. In addition, the results of these studies reveal the central role of morale in Thucydides' Histories. Morale is not just the confidence of a single soldier; it has to do with a group's collective response to adversity and danger. The group can be a contingent in an army, an entire army, a city-state, or a confederation. The shared values of the group will determine when and how its members willingly risk death, which is the ultimate proof of good morale. Thucydides represents a clash of two very different Greek city-states, whose customs and values affect the way they wage war and respond on the battlefield. In books six and seven, morale becomes a major theme, as Thucydides repeatedly returns to the mindset of the Athenians, Syracusans, Lacedaemonians, and Corinthians. The confidence (rhome) and enthusiasm (prothumia) of Athens' enemies keep increasing, until the morale (rhome) of the Athenians in Sicily totally disintegrates because Athens shows too much boldness (tolma) rather than courage (andreia). Although the terms and methods of analysis constantly evolve, morale remains a chief concern even in contemporary conflicts. The tensions between conservative and innovative, daring and cautious that so deeply affected the course of the Peloponnesian War have wider resonance. Despite the great differences in time, technology, and resources, the human element of warfare remains much the same. By understanding why the Greeks fought and died two and a half millennia ago, we will better recognize our own feelings about and responses to war
Changing Minds: Development, Discontinuity And The Hallmarks Of Lysianic Persuasion In Lysias 1, 3, 7 And 10
Full text linkVariations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Theatron Perceived: The Seen, The Unseen, And The Seers In Greek Tragedy
Full text linkWhat if the ornate purple fabric in Agamemnon was not on stage at all? What if the cataclysm at the end of Prometheus Bound was not staged? This dissertation argues that ancient Greek tragedy demanded an active, imaginative engagement from the audience in order to create theatrically real props and action that may not have been visible on the stage. Drawing on philosophical texts as well as key tragedies, including Sophocles' Philoctetes, Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes and Prometheus Bound, and Euripides' Heracles and Hippolytus, this study further shows that seeing was itself understood as a powerful force, almost a physical touch between seer and seen object, and that this understanding is a crucial concept behind ancient anxieties about the powers and dangers of theatrical spectatorship. Chapter 2 delineates the major functions of props in Greek tragedy, ultimately proposing that the unique functions of props do not always demand the presence of a visible prop on stage. Instead, some may have been theatrically real yet physically absent, too small to see, or very abstract. These objects, "rhetoricized props," emerge through the language of the play, dramatic context, actors' gestures, and imaginations of the spectators, which collaborate to create the theatrical reality of the props. Chapter 3 builds on the idea of rhetoricized props to approach action that takes place on stage but that seems too unwieldy to have been represented fully with ancient stagecraft. Several key scenes yield a range of techniques that serve as indicators to the spectators of what is happening and how they should imagine it, even if they cannot see it. Chapter 4 explores ancient philosophical texts that attempt to explain the mechanics of perception. The Greeks seem to have understood vision as involving a close connection between seer and seen, and this serves as framework for understanding tragic scenes in which characters cover themselves or others to avoid being seen. If one can become polluted by simply seeing a polluted person, such as Heracles after he has murdered his family, what might that mean for those who watch theatrical performances
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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