- Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal
Pedro Braga Falcão
Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Faculdade de Teologia, Faculty Member
- Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Centro de Estudos de História Religiosa, Faculty MemberUniversidade de Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Clássicos, Faculty Memberadd
- History of Religion, Comparative Religion, Ancient Egyptian Religion, Ancient Greek Religion, Biblical Archaeology, Classical philology, and 23 moreLatin Literature, Greek Literature, Latin Language and Literature, Ancient Greek History, Roman History, Ritual Theory, Classical Mythology, Religious Pluralism, Epic poetry, Theology, Ancient Philosophy, Ancient Theology, Sumerian Religion, Greek Religion, Mystery cult, Inter-religious Dialogue, History and Theology, Religious Studies (Theory And Methodology), Mythography, Roman Religion, Horace, Ancient myth and religion, and Latin poetryedit
- Doutor em Estudos Clássicos pela Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa. Lecciona na área das línguas e cultur... moreDoutor em Estudos Clássicos pela Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa. Lecciona na área das línguas e culturas clássicas e da história das religiões na Faculdade de Teologia da Universidade Católica de Lisboa.
Tem desenvolvido trabalho de investigação sobre a religião do mundo antigo, estudando com particular atenção a religião grega e romana, a convivência entre estas e o cristianismo, leccionando, organizando e acompanhando vários seminários temáticos e encontros científicos neste domínio, e publicando regularmente sobre estes temas em revistas científicas da área. É investigador integrado do Centro de Estudos de História Religiosa da Universidade Católica Portuguesa e investigador colaborador do Centro de Estudos Clássicos da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa. É igualmente membro da Subcomissão Científica do Novo Testamento, que prepara uma nova tradução da Bíblia sob a égide da Conferência Episcopal Portuguesa.
No campo da literatura, a sua área de especialização é a poesia clássica, onde tem publicado diversos estudos e traduções, particularmente no âmbito da obra de Horácio, onde se salienta a sua tradução das Odes, dos Epodos e das Epístolas e a sua dissertação de doutoramento.
No domínio dos estudos comparados, tem publicado vários artigos sobre a recepção da cultura clássica no domínio não só da literatura (particularmente na obra heterónima de Fernando Pessoa), mas também da música ocidental, aproveitando a sua formação e regular actividade musical como instrumentista. Tem também uma regular actividade como poeta, ensaísta e romancista, com vários títulos já publicados, concebendo e acompanhando igualmente vários projetos performativos de diálogo entre música e literatura.edit
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The concept of "climax" has been often used in modern literary analysis to define the highest point of a literary piece, be it a speech, a poem, a tragedy, or a novel. Also in the field of musical studies the term is broadly used to... more
The concept of "climax" has been often used in modern literary analysis to define the highest point of a literary piece, be it a speech, a poem, a tragedy, or a novel. Also in the field of musical studies the term is broadly used to describe the way a composer reaches a particularly expressive moment in his piece, and the technical tools he has at his disposal to achieve it. However, only few scholars mention the concept's past as a rhetorical device in which the last word of a phrase or clause is repeated at the beginning of the next. But what is the relation between this rhetorical device and its etymological sense in Greek (klimax = "stair")? How did that technical word gain the much broader sense of crescendo? Why did "climax" begin to be applied to name the last step of a given dynamical movement? In this paper we discuss the complex etymological evolution of the word, since antiquity till modern times, and attempt to theorize this often vaguely applied concept .
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Research Interests: Roman Religion and Horace
Research Interests: Horace and Book Reviews
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Book Lambda of the Metaphysics by Aristotle presents us a mysterious ex- pression: τὸ κινοῦν ἀκίνητον, which most of the translators render as the Unmoved Mover. Our aim is to prove that that translation is false, because it is not aware,... more
Book Lambda of the Metaphysics by Aristotle presents us a mysterious ex- pression: τὸ κινοῦν ἀκίνητον, which most of the translators render as the Unmoved Mover. Our aim is to prove that that translation is false, because it is not aware, in our view, of the difference established by Aristotle between "the god" and this movens immobile. Therefore, based on excerpts of Metaphysics Book Lambda we try to set light upon two different styles (grammatically, syntactically speaking, etc.) used by Aristotle: one when referring to an abstract principle (the so called "unmoved mover1'), a physical explanation for the movement, and another when talking about "the god". In the last case it is possible to experience a somehow passionate description, almost an expression of faith which compared to that "cold" movens immobilis, makes us wonder if, as tradition suggests with- out questioning, "the god" and movens immobilis are for the philosopher the same being.
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"Horácio e Roma: uma Cidade e um Poeta em Constante Renovação", in Maria Cristina de Sousa Pimentel, José Manuel Brandão e Paolo Fedeli (coord.), O Poeta e a Cidade no Mundo Romano, Coimbra, Centro de Estudos Clássicos e Humanísticos da... more
"Horácio e Roma: uma Cidade e um Poeta em Constante Renovação", in Maria Cristina de Sousa Pimentel, José Manuel Brandão e Paolo Fedeli (coord.), O Poeta e a Cidade no Mundo Romano, Coimbra, Centro de Estudos Clássicos e Humanísticos da Universidade de Coimbra (2012), pp. 37-47
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Este texto estuda, numa análise interdisciplinar, a forma como a Electra de Sófocles foi lida na música de Richard Strauss e no libreto de Hugo von Hofmannsthal. A mitologia foi inegavelmente um veículo de transmissão da cultura e... more
Este texto estuda, numa análise interdisciplinar, a forma como a Electra de Sófocles foi lida na música de Richard Strauss e no libreto de Hugo von Hofmannsthal. A mitologia foi inegavelmente um veículo de transmissão da cultura e sabedoria helénicas no espaço Ocidental; neste particular, os protagonistas da tragédia grega e a forma como no espaço trágico o herói é interpretado e colocado no palco da própria condição humana foi uma peculiar fonte de inspiração artística. No princípio do século XX, sob a influência de Freud, a memória das grandes tragédias clássicas foi sendo revisitada e reinventada literária e musicalmente, em especial na fecunda colaboração entre o escritor Hofmannsthal e o compositor Richard Strauss. Nesta comunicação estudar-se-á a ópera Elektra deste músico, tendo em linha de conta não só as divergências em relação à homónima tragédia de Sófocles, que reflectem uma cultura e mundividência radicalmente diferentes, mas também as convergências, em especial na forma como quer o compositor alemão quer o tragediógrafo gerem o mito do ponto de vista composicional, de forma a conduzir a um clímax de emoção, processo formal que aponta para uma sabedoria comum ao nível da gestão e manipulação do tempo literário e musical de um texto dramático.
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Orpheus and Eurydice’s myth has inspired many composers and librettists since Renaissance until present times, and was at the birth of one of the first known operas, the Euridice by J. Peri and G. Caccini. In this paper the author studies... more
Orpheus and Eurydice’s myth has inspired many composers and librettists since Renaissance until present times, and was at the birth of one of the first known operas, the Euridice by J. Peri and G. Caccini. In this paper the author studies the influence of this myth in two of the most significant operas of modern repertoire: L’Orfeo by C. Monteverdi, and Orfeo ed Euridice by C. W. Gluck, bearing in mind the classical version established by Ovid and Virgil. Each opera has two distinct purposes: Monteverdi and Striggio’s work reflects a diligent care about the Classical World and its conceptions; Gluck and Cazalbigi’s effort is to use the myth’s text as a pretext for singing an overwhelming passion.
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Abstract: In this paper the author studies apparent incoherencies in some of Horace's Odes, in two main topics. The first based on an intertextual reading of IV. 1 discusses the problematic and sometimes conflicting relation between an... more
Abstract: In this paper the author studies apparent incoherencies in some of Horace's Odes, in two main topics. The first based on an intertextual reading of IV. 1 discusses the problematic and sometimes conflicting relation between an emotional approach to love and a rational and cold view of what should be decorum for an old man. The second studies Horace's dispassionate and inexorable view of death, in relation with the sphragis of book I I , and also III, which claims that the poet will not die. The main goal is not to argue that Horace is an incoherent poet, but to study how these so called «incoherencies» are read, sung and overcome by the poet himself.
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In Horace’s Odes I. 25, III. 15 and IV. 13, there are three feminine characters, Lydia, Chloris and Lyce, that are aging, though they behave as if they didn’t know it. There is not a collection of loci communes inherited from comedy or... more
In Horace’s Odes I. 25, III. 15 and IV. 13, there are three feminine characters, Lydia, Chloris and Lyce, that are aging, though they behave as if they didn’t know it. There is not a collection of loci communes inherited from comedy or epigram, but there are poetic reasons that led Horace to this pitiless characterization of three old women, bearing in mind the ideas and the arguments of the poet himself, especially in the ode IV. 1. In this paper the author argues that these characters are not the true recipients of Horace’s cruelty: they are victims of Time, which eventually is responsible for their poor conduct– although they are no longer beautiful, the desire to be loved as remained intact.
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Carmen Saeculare plays a very special role in Horace’s corpus. It is the poem of a specific καιρόός, a ritual music written for the Ludi Saeculares. Therefore, in order to understand Horace’s interpretation of his own function in the... more
Carmen Saeculare plays a very special role in Horace’s corpus. It is the poem of a specific καιρόός, a ritual music written for the Ludi Saeculares. Therefore, in order to understand Horace’s interpretation of his own function in the ceremonies, the author studies the journey that begins in the so called Ludi Tarentini, a dark and expiatory rite, continues in the Ludi Saeculares of 17 BC, the celebration of a new Augustan age based on the ancient chthonic tradition of the Games, and ends in the Carmen Saeculare, a clear attempt to forget the shadowy nights of the Ludi, towards a new light brought by the clarus Anchisae Venerisque sanguis. With the purpose of achieving this goal the author studies the Oracle of the Sibyl preserved by Zosimus and the Acta of the 17 BC Ludi Saeculares, examining their diverse levels of influence in Horace’s text, and also establishing which aspects are emphasized and which are neglected in the poet’s reading of the ritual, with the aim of contributing to a more comprehensive study of the programmatic design of Horace’s music. Aspects such as the numerological structure of the Ludi Saeculares, based on the number 3, and its influence on various details of the composition will not be ignored. In this text is also analyzed the proportion between the different parts of the poem which reflects the Golden Mean ratio, as well as the main climax of the carmen, also intuitively derived from the sectio aurea’s principles.
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Livro que fala sobre algumas das mais fascinantes etimologias da língua portuguesa.
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Tradução das Odes de Horácio para português.
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This dissertation examines the concept of climax in Horace’s Odes, defining it in the context of several disciplines, from Rhetoric to Music. The First Part begins with a thorough study of the word κλῖμαξ, and its Latin equivalent... more
This dissertation examines the concept of climax in Horace’s Odes, defining it in the context of several disciplines, from Rhetoric to Music. The First Part begins with a thorough study of the word κλῖμαξ, and its Latin equivalent gradatio, within the framework of ancient and modern Rhetoric, then proceeding to apply it in its various meanings (classical, modern and contemporary) to distinct forms of artistic creation, such as Greek Tragedy (Sophocles’ Electra), Opera (Richard Strauss’ Elektra), Novel (Camilo Castelo Branco’s Amor de Perdição) and Instrumental Music (Claude Debussy’s Prélude à L’Après‐midi d’un Faune). This preliminary reading ends with the analysis of Mallarmé’s poem L’Après‐midi d’un Faune that leads the way to the Second Part of the thesis focused on the study of the poetical phenomenon, in particular Horace’s Odes. From this specific view‐point various carmina are analyzed, in an effort to find and categorize the climax or climaxes of individual compositions. This is achieved through a dynamical analysis of the Odes, bringing musical terms such as crescendo, diminuendo, forte and piano to the realm of poetry. This method allows not only to study the design of a poetical κλῖμαξ but also to explore key concepts in a reading of this nature, such as chronology and tempo variation. This study provides an in depth reflection on “climax” (in its contemporary sense) in poetry, an examination that has been missing, even though many scholars use the expression in their works on Horace’s Odes. This dissertation defines and systematically applies the concept “climax” for the first time to many of his compositions, paving the way for the study of how elements in a poem can be gradually arranged towards a climax and for a reflection on the poetic devices Horace uses to achieve it.