Papers by María José García Soler
In ancient Greece, there were festivals related to the celebrations of the New Year called Kronia... more In ancient Greece, there were festivals related to the celebrations of the New Year called Kronia. Like the Saturnalia in Rome, they represented a period of license, similar to that of a carnival, with the suspension of everyday reality, the reversal of roles, with the temporary dissolution of hierarchies, and an atmosphere of joy and rejoicing. In the ancient imaginary, Kronos’ times are those of the Golden Age, in which the Greek comedy is presented as the Land of Cockaigne. Everything is offered spontaneously without the need to work. Food and drink are plenty in a wonderful way and joy reigns.
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Gastronomy occupies a more prominent place in Greek literature than might at first be suspected. ... more Gastronomy occupies a more prominent place in Greek literature than might at first be suspected. Homer himself describes, along with the heroic deeds, the diet of those who fought before the walls of Troy, and the lyric poets sang of wine and symposium. However, there was also a side of poetry with a purely gastronomic theme of which we have preserved only a few testimonies transmitted thanks to Athenaeus of Naucratis, who in the second century A.D. wrote a dialogue dedicated to the banquet in all its aspects, both literary and material. The main representative authors of this poetic-gastronomic aspect were the dithyrambographer Philoxenos of Cythera, in the 5th century BC, and Archestratus of Gela, author of a didactic poem, and Matro of Pitane, who composed an epic parody, in the 4th century BC.
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Myths play a very important role in the everyday life of the Greeks and therefore enter very earl... more Myths play a very important role in the everyday life of the Greeks and therefore enter very early into comedy, which exploits the most grotesque aspects of the great heroes and gods as an instrument for laughter. In these stories, the playwrights of the Archaia also found a vehicle to satirize the leaders of the city, who, being mere mortals, tried to exercise absolute power over it, like the Olympian gods.
Political satire uses myths mainly through three procedures: 1) identifying the satirized person with some divinity; 2) transposing mythical themes to concrete facts of contemporary reality, and 3) using some mythical themes for a general critique of the situation in contemporary Athens.
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Jornadas Internacionales "Transformaciones de los mitos griegos: Parodia y racionalización", VItoria-Gasteiz, 2022
Acceso a la comunicación oral: https://ehutb.ehu.eus/video/62da3df6a44131d6862ad582
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Particle καί is mainly used as a copulative coordinating conjunction, but it can also function as... more Particle καί is mainly used as a copulative coordinating conjunction, but it can also function as an additive focus adverb. Among the various types that exist, καί belongs to the category of inclusion or additive adverbs, which indicate that the element they focus on, to which the speaker gives greater informative relevance, is added to the set formed by other possible values (the alternatives) to which the proposition is equally applicable. Depending on the context, it is a approximate equivalent of also, in a neutral addition, and of even, when on a scale that measures the addition, it focuses on the least expected element or that goes against the expectations of the speaker. The purpose of this paper is to study the typology of the elements that can be focused by καί and the properties of the particle from the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic points of view, based on the corpus composed by the Libanius of Antioch’ ethopoietic declamations.
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, 2021
Ancient authors often found laughing stock in everyday concerns. So, the scenes with hungry chara... more Ancient authors often found laughing stock in everyday concerns. So, the scenes with hungry characters has been a motive of laughter since ancient times. The image of hunger in comedy appears mainly associated with poverty and the disasters of war, but also with some characters that we could call “professionals of hunger”, like philosophers, who renounce the delights of life, or the parasites, constantly worried about finding a protector that guarantees their subsistence.
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The wine occupies a very important place in the life of the ancient Greeks, as highlighted by the... more The wine occupies a very important place in the life of the ancient Greeks, as highlighted by the numerous testimonies preserved in literature and the arts. One of the aspects that show this importance is that they even created a rich oenological vocabulary. With it they described the characteristics of the various wines - sometimes also through metaphors - in terms of colour, aroma, taste or texture.
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Fortunatae, 2020
Libanius presents in his Declamation XXVI a misanthrope who addresses the Council to be allowed t... more Libanius presents in his Declamation XXVI a misanthrope who addresses the Council to be allowed to commit suicide, because he has married a talkative woman and he cannot bear it. There are two points of reference that the author has followed for the construction of his characters. On the one hand, the practice of the schools of rhetoric, where one of the topics on which they worked in the preparatory exercises was whether or not to marry. On the other, Attic comedy, which made fun of feminine defects and warned about the dangers of taking a wife, within a long misogynistic tradition that has been present since the beginning of Greek literature.
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Paremia, 2020
The expression βοῦς ἕβδομος («seventh ox») is found in most of the collections of the Greek paroe... more The expression βοῦς ἕβδομος («seventh ox») is found in most of the collections of the Greek paroemiographers, who often explain it by indicating ἐπὶ τῶν ἀναισθήτων, which can be interpreted as «about the stupid» or «about the insensitive». Although these authors point out that it appears in two Attic playwrights of the New Comedy, we have a single example of its use in a literary work, the Declamation XXX of Libanius of Antioch, which puts it in the mouth of an envious person unable to bear that his neighbour has suddenly become rich. The analysis of the expression within a context allows us to intimate an approximation to the real meaning of the expression. In the absence of other texts that lead us to think about different possibilities, this passage points to the second sense we find in the paroemiographers, since with this expression the envious wants to express the callousness of those who are not able to grieve like him over the wealth of others.
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Food & History, 2017
Literature and epigraphy offer an overview of the figure of the cook in ancient Greece. They show... more Literature and epigraphy offer an overview of the figure of the cook in ancient Greece. They show the cook’s initial role as being closely related to the ritual of sacrifice in which he acted as the butcher who slaughtered the victim. As the cook gradually became detached from the religious context, he acquired greater refinement in consonance with the new fashions that appeared during the classical era. In parallel with this, however, the cook became a target for the taunts of comediographers who transformed him into a comic character characterized by charlatanism and insolence. Moreover, he was also the butt of criticism by moralists and philosophers who portrayed him as a servant of luxury and pleasure.
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Felicia Logozzo - Paolo Poccetti (eds.), Ancient Greek Linguistics: new approaches, insights, perspectives, Berlin/Boston, De Gruyter Studium, pp. 181-192, 2017
The purpose of this paper is to study the uses of two additive focus adverbs, καί and ἔτι, very c... more The purpose of this paper is to study the uses of two additive focus adverbs, καί and ἔτι, very common in ancient Greek, in the ethopoietic declamations by Libanius of Antioch. We will consider their properties from various points of view: semantic, as adverbs that mean addition; syntactic, paying attention to the typology of the elements which can be focalized, as well as to their position relative to them; and pragmatic, attending to the presuppositions they imply.
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Elena Redondo Moyano - Mª José García Soler (eds.), Nuevas interpretaciones del mundo antiguo. Papers in honor of Professor José Luis Melena on the occasion of his retirement, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Servicio Editorial de la UPV/EHU, 2016
The main function of ἔτι is to act as an adverb of time, particularly as a phase adverb. However,... more The main function of ἔτι is to act as an adverb of time, particularly as a phase adverb. However, it can also have a value as an additive focus adverb in two senses: it indicates that the focalized term is added to a set of alternatives to which the proposition is equally applicable (‘furthermore’) or it introduces a notion of scalarity, in which the focalized element occupies the most prominent position relative to its possible alternatives (‘even’).
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Gaia, 2016
La comédie d’Aristophane est riche d’images qui montrent la réalité de la vie athénienne, où les ... more La comédie d’Aristophane est riche d’images qui montrent la réalité de la vie athénienne, où les thèmes politiques occupent une position privilégiée, en particulier la critique des agissements des démagogues qui exerçaient des fonctions publiques. Pour dénoncer leurs abus et leur corruption, Aristophane se sert fréquemment de métaphores gastronomiques, qui mettent en évidence leur gloutonnerie et leur avidité ainsi que la faiblesse du peuple, qui se laisse tromper aisément pour assurer son quotidien.
Aristophanic comedy is rich in images of all kinds to show the reality of Athenian life. In his plays political issues occupy a privileged position, especially those relating to the action of the demagogues who held public office. To denounce their abuses and their corruption, Aristophanes frequently uses gastronomic metaphors that highlight their gluttony and their greed as well as the weakness of the people, who are fooled by them just to ensure their livelihood.
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Studia Philologica Valentina, 2016
The Declamation XXVI by Libanius shows a misanthrope who does not support noises and is married w... more The Declamation XXVI by Libanius shows a misanthrope who does not support noises and is married with a talkative woman. The topic of the excessive talkativeness has a broad reflection in proverbs – also present in the comedy, which the author uses to breathe life into his speech and portray his characters.
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Old Comedy offers various testimonies of the folkloric motif of Cockaigne, present in a series of... more Old Comedy offers various testimonies of the folkloric motif of Cockaigne, present in a series of fragments gathered by Athenaeus of Naucratis in the sixth book of Deipnosophists. This article focuses on studying the fundamental features of this topic through the analysis of the fragments, while trying to determine the purpose for which it is used by the comic writers, as the basis for a political satire in some cases and as an escape from reality in others.
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RIVAR. Revista Iberoamericana de viticultura, agroindustria y ruralidad, 2015
This article focuses on the importance that fruit plays in ancient Greece on the basis on the inf... more This article focuses on the importance that fruit plays in ancient Greece on the basis on the information provided by literary sources. Particular attention is paid to its role as part of the daily diet, as well as to its symbolic value in Greek mythology and religion.
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The character of Herakles acquires a series of burlesque features which draw him apart from the i... more The character of Herakles acquires a series of burlesque features which draw him apart from the image of great hero shown in mythology. From Epicharmus of Syracuse, who offers the first testimonies, he is characterised as a not excessively smart individual and above all paying too much attention to his stomach needs. His voracity, which originally has a symbolic character associated to Herakles' condition as a hero, becomes a traditional common place for laughter, used regularly in the comic scene. What the comedy and the satyr play did was to introduce burlesque connotations in features already present in the myth, which was enormously popular. Maybe there we could find out the clue to this topic success, of which these two genres offer so many testimonies.
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The Declamation XXIX by Libanius is based on the figures of the parasite and the philosopher, tha... more The Declamation XXIX by Libanius is based on the figures of the parasite and the philosopher, that the author build by taking Attic Comedy as a model. For the philosopher, he collects all the common places in this genre, presenting him as a trickster, dirty, miserable and and starving.
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Old Comedy brought into focus all aspects of life in Athens, with an infinite freedom of speech. ... more Old Comedy brought into focus all aspects of life in Athens, with an infinite freedom of speech. One of its main targets were the politicians who ruled the destinies of the polis, satirized mercilessly for their public activities, but also for their physical and moral characteristics. Pericles stands out among them, criticized by the tyrannical power he exerted on the city, like an Athenian Zeus, and by his military strategy when the Peloponnesian War started.
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The most known image of the athlete in the Greek literature has much to do with the highly positi... more The most known image of the athlete in the Greek literature has much to do with the highly positive valuation reflected in the epinikian odes in honour of the victors of the great competitions of antiquity. However, it begins to appear in parallel, especially in comedy, a burlesque image of this figure, characterized by its large appetite and its limited intellect. This, we can deduce from the fragmentary preserved testimonies, probably was very close to the comical type category.
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Papers by María José García Soler
Political satire uses myths mainly through three procedures: 1) identifying the satirized person with some divinity; 2) transposing mythical themes to concrete facts of contemporary reality, and 3) using some mythical themes for a general critique of the situation in contemporary Athens.
Aristophanic comedy is rich in images of all kinds to show the reality of Athenian life. In his plays political issues occupy a privileged position, especially those relating to the action of the demagogues who held public office. To denounce their abuses and their corruption, Aristophanes frequently uses gastronomic metaphors that highlight their gluttony and their greed as well as the weakness of the people, who are fooled by them just to ensure their livelihood.
Political satire uses myths mainly through three procedures: 1) identifying the satirized person with some divinity; 2) transposing mythical themes to concrete facts of contemporary reality, and 3) using some mythical themes for a general critique of the situation in contemporary Athens.
Aristophanic comedy is rich in images of all kinds to show the reality of Athenian life. In his plays political issues occupy a privileged position, especially those relating to the action of the demagogues who held public office. To denounce their abuses and their corruption, Aristophanes frequently uses gastronomic metaphors that highlight their gluttony and their greed as well as the weakness of the people, who are fooled by them just to ensure their livelihood.