Titles in Greek Literature: Forms, Practices, and Theories of an Ancient Paratext May 17-19, 2024 University of Toronto Dept. of Classics Lillian Massey Building (125 Queen’s Park) Friday, May 17 3:00-3:15 Kenneth Yu, Welcome and Introduction 3:15-4:15 Jonathan Burgess, “The Alkinou apologos and the Apologos of Odysseus” 4:15-4:30 Coffee break 4:30-5:30 Lyndsay Coo, “Entitled Reconstructions: The Titles of Fragmentary Tragedies” 5:30-6:30 Dustin Dixon, “Naming and Making Literary Precursors in Greek Comedy” 6:45 Pre-dinner drinks and light food at nearby pub Saturday, May 18 10:00-11:00 Theodora Hadjimichael, “Lyric Titles as Cultural Markers” 11:00-12:00 Alex Schultz, “Genre, Author, Title: Ordering Knowledge in Callimachus’ Pinakes and Beyond” 12:00-1:30 Lunch 1:30-2:30 Max Leventhal, “‘Peritextual Poetics’ from Title to Incipit to Epigraph” 2:30-3:30 Katerina Oikonomopoulou, “Titles and their Intellectual Function in Plutarch’s Quaestiones Convivales and Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae” 3:30-4:00 Coffee break 4:00-5:00 Nicola Reggiani, “προγραφαί: Recipe Titles and Headings in the Greek Collections of Medical Prescriptions on Papyrus” 7:00 Conference Dinner Sunday, May 19 10:00-11:00 Stephen White, “The Logic of Entitlement in Socratic Discourses” 11:00-12:00 Alexander Riehle, “Book Titles in Byzantium: Memory and Authority” 12:00-1:30 Lunch 1:30-2:30 Sabrina Inowlocki, “Navigating the Bibliographic Landscape of Early Christianity” 2:30-3:30 Emilia Barbiero, “Chasing the Title in Early Latin Literature” 3:30-3:45 Concluding discussion Abstracts Jonathan Burgess, “The Alkinou apologos and the Apologos of Odysseus” The topic is the ancient use of the phrase Alkinou apologos and similar phrases when discussing Odysseus' narration of his wanderings in Odyssey Books 9-12. Besides reviewing the ancient employment the phrase and its various implications (often, in general, a reference to any long-winded account), I will discuss the parameters of the first-person Apologos by Odysseus, which ancient sources often rightly contextualized with the Phaeacian episode in general (so, potentially Books 5-13). Lyndsay Coo, “Entitled reconstructions: the titles of fragmentary tragedies” While previous discussions have considered the question of whether the tragic titles that we know today were the same as those given to the works at the time of production, this paper instead focuses on the role that our transmitted titles (whether original or not) have played in the reconstruction and interpretation of fragmentary Greek drama. In the case of tragic fragments, the ascription to a named play is, aside from attribution to an author, a major determinant of whether the text will receive much critical attention at all; titles are the guiding organisational principle of editions of fragmentary drama, and delineate the interpretative frameworks into which the (often recalcitrant) fragments are fitted. Because of this, closer scrutiny of our methodological practices when analysing the relationship between a transmitted title and its fragments can shed light on the wider assumptions that undergird working with fragmentary drama as a whole. In particular, this paper will examine those instances in which the correlation between title and fragments is less straightforward, such as where tragedians are attested as having written multiple plays with the same title (for example, Sophocles’ three Thyestes plays); where single plays were known by multiple titles (as in the case of Sophocles’ Atreus / Women of Mycenae, which may also have been the same as one of the aforementioned Thyestes plays); where multiple titles attributed to the same author appear to overlap in their dramatic subject matter, leading some to conjecture that they were the same play (as with Sophocles’ Epigonoi and Eriphyle); or where our sources display persistent confusion between similar titles (as in the case of fragments attributed to Euripides’ Antigone and Antiope). Dustin Dixon, “Naming and Making Literary Precursors in Greek Comedy” Greek comedy is a peculiar participant in what has been called the “megatext” of the rich and varied corpus of mythology. Though all dramas with mythological subjects engage this megatext, comedies, in contrast to tragedies, often do so explicitly by observing their own debts to and innovations on other works of literature. Thus, comedies make their own literary precursors by identifying them. My paper, focusing on comedy’s engagement with tragedy, reveals how entitling practices, both how comedians refer to tragedies and how comedies have acquired titles, complicate comedy’s place within the megatext of myth. I draw on case studies from the plays of Aristophanes and the rich corpus of comic fragments to explore some of the interpretive challenges that naming a text creates. Theodora Hatzimichaeli, “Lyric Titles as Cultural Markers” This paper will focus on titles of canonical lyric poetry, as it was organised in Hellenistic editions, and will explore their significance in the textual context of the Alexandrian library in connection with their sixth- and fifth-centuries performative context that the titles evoke. Within the discussion titles of lyric poems and books in lyric editions are perceived as markers of cultural knowledge, and some of the aspects that will be analysed are the Alexandrians’ generic awareness and classification, organisational and intitulation patterns, and knowledge of performance and song culture. The analysis will oscillate between the sixth and fifth centuries BC, the era when lyric poems were composed and performed and the era that is embodied in the poems, and the Hellenistic period, the era when these poems were organised in editions and were in all probability assigned titles. The discussion will take into account testimonia that refer to the nature of the corpus of specific lyric poems (e.g. Suda), papyrological information (e.g. ancient commentaries), the lyric poems themselves, as well as the literary culture within which lyric books and lyric poems were organised. Possible examples include Alcman, Sappho, Pindar, Bacchylides, and Simonides, along with comparisons with elegy, iambos, and poems of the New Music. Alexandra Schultz, “Genre, Author, Title: Ordering Knowledge in Callimachus’ Pinakes and Beyond” This paper sets Callimachus' Pinakes within the broader context of literary historical and critical works of the Classical and Hellenistic periods. First, I examine the extant fragments of the Pinakes and set out what they tell us about the structure, content, aims, and later reception of this work. I argue that the Pinakes were not a catalogue of the books held in the royal library at Alexandria, but a work of literary history and criticism that remained influential (and controversial) for centuries beyond Alexandria. Second, I explore possible precursors to the Pinakes: not only the scientific and biographical works of the Peripatetic school, but also writings by the sophists and by proponents of the 'Antimachean' school of poetry and scholarship. In contrast to those prior works, which tended to organize literary history chronologically, the Pinakes' chief innovations were the listing of authors in alphabetical order within each genre, and the assignation of titles to many works. Finally, building on recent work on canon formation in classical antiquity, I consider the relationship between titles and canonization. Titles were essential tools for referencing, organizing, and transmitting texts, and are frequently enumerated in book lists across different media in the Hellenistic period. However, titles played a less significant role in canonical formations of Greek literature, which operated chiefly at the level of genre and author. It was mainly in order to establish the style and reputation of a particular author that ancient critics took part in, debated, and even parodied intitulation. Max Leventhal, “‘Peritextual Poetics’ from Title to Incipit to Epigraph” In this paper I take Gerard Genette as my travelling companion as we criss-cross the ‘thresholds of interpretation’ – between the titles of Greek and Latin poetic works, the first line of a work and the epigraph to a work. The journey begins with a mapping of the terrain: I first consider individual instances where (part of) a title is taken over into the first line, or a first line operates as a title for the work. I then proceed to examine Callimachus’ recording of both titles and incipits in his monumental Pinakes, with a stop along the way to peer into the Vienna Epigrams Papyrus (G 40611) where we will see the impact of this practice. Taking direction from this use of epigrammatic incipits as identifying ‘titles’, I consider in the final leg of this expedition a range of Greek and some Latin epigrams which I claim, on the one hand, purposefully play with the status of an epigrammatic opening as a title and, on the other hand, with the status of the entire epigram as the epigraph to a work. The influence of cataloguing and indexing practices flows through the literary landscape from the Hellenistic period onwards and plots out a special place for both incipit and title; this paper will trace out how poets bridge the gap between title, incipit, epigraph and work tout court, and to what effect. Katerina Oikonomopoulou, “Titles and their intellectual function in Plutarch’s Quaestiones Convivales and Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae” This paper will focus on the intellectual functions and effects of titling in Plutarch’s and Athenaeus’ erudite sympotic miscellanies (the Quaestiones Convivales and the Deipnosophistae, respectively). Both Plutarch and Athenaeus write in the Roman imperial era, in the context of a thoroughly bookish culture, even as they adopt very different strategies when it comes to the titles of the many works they cite: where titles are used sparsely in Plutarch’s philosophically-minded Quaestiones Convivales, Athenaeus’ scholarly Deipnosophistae abounds with them. Both authors however showcase what role intellectual conversation in the oral context of the symposium may have played in imperial Graeco-Roman antiquity’s practices of naming, labelling and titling earlier works or parts thereof. Plutarch’s and Athenaeus’ characters cite titles for various purposes: in order to classify works (particularly obscure ones) in terms of genre, evaluate, criticise or reject their arguments, draw attention to how a particular topic (e.g. the symposium) is approached across a vast range of writings by different authors, weigh the testimony of one author against that of another, and discuss specific scenes or sections within a work, on the basis of their distinctive theme. Thus, within the sympotic universe of both miscellanies, where the ability to recall knowledge from memory relies on the depth and range of one’s bookish erudition, titles are a versatile conceptual tool that assists the interlocutors’ navigation through the vast repository of Greek literature of the past. Nicola Reggiani, “προγραφαί: Recipe Titles and Headings in the Greek Collections of Medical Prescriptions on Papyrus” The significance of assigning titles to recipes (instructions for preparing remedies) in ancient Greek medicine was multifaceted, as evidenced by various types of headers. These titles served to indicate the type of medicine (such as pill or plaster), its physical attributes (colour, substance), its pharmacological composition, therapeutic purpose, certified efficacy, and even its inventor's name or its place of origin. Ranging from conveying practical information to emphasizing the quality and effectiveness of the remedy, titles played a crucial role in prescriptive writings, a fact explicitly recognized by medical authors like Galen. This paper will examine the occurrences of medical recipe titles in Greek papyri, aiming to categorize them overall and engage in a general discussion comparing them to those found in medical literature. Stephen White “The Logic of Entitlement in Socratic Discourses” Abstract forthcoming Alexander Riehle, “Book Titles in Byzantium: Memory and Authority” Classical and late antique Greek literature constituted a cornerstone of elite culture and identity in Byzantium and was thus referenced, theorized, and commented on throughout the empire’s millennial existence. This paper will explore the various ways in which Byzantine authors, scholars and scribes remembered this literature and reaffirmed its authority through references to canonical authors and texts, asking what these acts of individual or collective memory can tell us about Byzantine conceptions of literature and notions of canonicity. Besides book titles, the paper will also consider practices of referencing by author name (proper names and sobriquets), incipit and indirect allusion. This discussion will draw on three different kinds of sources: paratexts in manuscripts (headings, glosses, tables of contents), intertextual references in literary texts such as orations and letters, and metaliterary discourse (e.g., entries in the Souda and Photios’ Bibliotheca, essays by Michael Psellos and Theodore Metochites, treatises on rhetorical theory such as On the Four Part of the Perfect Speech, and paradeigmata or lists of canonical authors). Sabrina Inowlocki, “Navigating the Bibliographic Landscape of Early Christianity” This paper delves into the early Christian approach to bibliography, examining both the material aspects of organizing bibliographic information and the conceptual representations of bibliographies in ancient texts. It focuses on the bio-bibliographical sections within Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica, providing a pivotal lens through which to explore the formation of a Christian bibliographic framework and the potential standardization of authorial and bibliographic practices during this formative period. This study contends that an investigation into ancient Christian bibliography necessitates an integrated understanding of authorship and its conventions, prompted by the noticeable dichotomy between the consistent significance of authorship and the relative fluidity of titles, as evidenced in both Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica and Jerome's De Viris Illustribus. The paper raises critical questions regarding the apparent secondary importance of titles in bibliographic works compared to authorship, exploring possible explanations across material, philosophical-theological, and literary dimensions. This includes considering how knowledge was organized within libraries, the philosophical and theological valorization of the author's mind and life over the titles of their works, incorporating theoretical perspectives from scholars such as Foucault. Furthermore, the study aims to shed light on two notable case studies: first, the transmission and representation of Philo of Alexandria’s bibliography by Eusebius and Jerome. This is an especially important instance because of the long bibliography provided by Eusebius. Second, the transformation of Josephus’ Bellum Judaicum into Pseudo-Hegesippus’ De Excidio Urbis Hierosolymitanae, a compelling example of Christianization affecting both author and title. These case studies promise to offer insightful lessons on the complexities of bibliographic and authorial identity in early Christian texts, contributing to a deeper understanding of the bibliographic and intellectual culture of the period. Emilia Barbiero, “Chasing the Title in Early Latin Literature” When and how was the title first used in Latin literature? My paper answers these questions by collecting all of the existing evidence for republican titulature and exploring the surviving titles' interpretative possibilities. Special attention will be devoted to the titles of fragmentary works or works that survive in title alone since the title offers us a way into these lost texts: as the only paratext meant to exist with or without the text it designates, the title, I argue, is a legitimate object of interpretation in and of itself.