Greek language and literature

Tipo di tesi Tesi di dottorato di ricerca
Autore BENELLI, LUCA
URN etd-12092013-172526
Titolo SAPPHOSTUDIEN ZU AUSGEWÄHLTEN FRAGMENTEN
Settore scientifico disciplinare L-FIL-LET/02
Corso di studi DISCIPLINE UMANISTICHE
Commissione tutor Prof. Hammerstaedt, Jürgen
relatore Prof. Medda, Enrico
Parole chiave
Frammenti
Fragmente / Saffo
Sappho
Data inizio appello 15/01/2014;
Disponibilità completa
Riassunto analitico Commento filologico dettagliato ad una serie di frammenti di Saffo, con nuove proposte testuali.

The satirical writings of Lucian of Samosata had a tremendous influence on the literature of the Eastern European Haskalah, shaping its criticism of the burgeoning Hasidic movement in the nineteenth century as if there were no gap between it and the Roman Empire of the second century. Lucian’s criticism of false prophets, self-proclaimed philosophers, and common fools and frauds, like his satirical dialogues with the world of the dead, provided the perfect model for those Maskilim who opposed the revelations of the Hasidic movement in both theological and social realms. One particularly salient testimony to the classical satirist’s influence is the astounding translation of his story “Alexander the False Prophet” by the Maskilic writer Meir Letteris, the first translation of Lucian’s work into Hebrew. The translation, printed in full below, was based on the German edition of Christoph Martin Wieland and published in the journal Ha-Tsefirah, which Letteris edited in 1823. As with every translation, it is a new product, shaped in and by its own context. This essay discusses the tendencies and apparent goals of the translator, the additions and omissions he made to the text, and the influence of Lucian’s satirical style on the Haskalah.

There are certain invariants of heroic poetry, elements that define it essentially: the theme – a narrative about “extraordinary deeds”, famous, adventurous topics, in the style of “traditional heroic mythology” (Marino) – and the idealized typology so that the epic hero usually occurs like
a sum of the virtues appreciated by the community which assumes him. Very likely influenced by the Mesopotamian one from the beginning of the second millennia B.C., the Homeric epic exerts its influence further in time and cultural geography, over the Latin one from the end of the 1st century B.C. and, via the Aeneid, over the Germanic epic from the Middle Ages. Through Virgil, Homer’s  self -confessed  competitor,  there  could  be  clarified  an  issue  of  the  European  literary history: how did the transition from the “heroic song” of the Germanic tribes –“lost, as long as it was not recorded in writing” (Curtius) –, to the Anglo-Saxon heroic epic or the Medieval German one (mittelhochdeutsch) occur? The Aeneid
appears to be, according to Heusler and Curtius, the missing link between the epic tradition of Mediterranean Antiquity and the Germanic Medieval
heroic epic. (The latter, the product of a culture that, by its “barbarian” roots, had the inspiration of  and  ability  to  assimilate,  from  the  defeated  Rome,  the  classic  inheritance  of  Greek -Latin humanism).  The  literary  heredity  that  unites  Homer,  Virgil  and  the  Germanic  epic  on  the background  of  Mesopotamian  loans,  provides  yet  another  very  interesting  example  of (inter)cultural intermediation and continuity in the Eurasian space, within a historical interval of almost four millennia –from Gilgamesh’s legendary rule in Uruk and its literary echoes to the
Germanic heroic epic from the Middle Ages.

This paper can be downloaded for free - Articolo liberamente scaricabile

This paper compares a number of epigrams from the Garland of Philip and their likely models in the Garland of Meleager. By such a comparison, this work aims to stress the common features in the Philippan variations, which in turn would represent stylistic trends of the second Garland, namely: 1) the avoidance of suspense, by revealing the theme of a poem from its beginning; 2) the use of standard expressions, possibly felt as sub-generic hallmarks; 3) the reduction in the number of enjambments and the overall tendency towards a rigorous distribution of the themes in every line or couplet; 4) the relevant role played by the words, which the model and the imitation share; 5) the lexical refinement, a frequent feature but less prominent than commonly believed. By trying to shed light on these stylistic trends of Philippan variations, this paper wants to offer an argument against the view of Philippan poetry as merely imitative.

Chapter 10 studies Hellenistic and Roman military epitaphs, and addresses a number of interconnected issues: the unpopularity of epitaphs for individual soldiers in the Greek Anthology; the near absence of inscribed epitaphs in literary sources, despite the fact that they are often of good literary quality; and the question of their authorship.
Apparently, there was no ‘Hellenistic Simonides’, author of warriors’ inscriptional epitaphs worthy to be gathered in a book. In the seventh book of the Greek Anthology there are many fictitious epitaphs for Homeric heroes or famous historical figures, but funerary epigrams celebrating the death in battle of individual, contemporary military men are only a dozen. This lack may be a choice of later compilers of florilegia, or may be due to the fact that epigrammatists who composed  military epitaphs did not publish them as a collection. There is no evidence that any epigrammatist known from the Greek Anthology also acted as a professional writer of military epitaphs; we can just propose some hypothetical candidates for this role, such as Damagetus  and Posidippus. Epitaphs for common soldiers were usually commissioned to professional poets, most of whom now remain anonymous (only occasionally we find signatures in epigraphic poems); the technitai  found their inspiration in Homer and in the elegiac, lyric and tragic ‘classics’; anthologies like that of Meleager could also offer some models, although the main literary-epigraphic reference was still the Simonidean corpus. The lack of a specific, recognizable personal style makes it difficult to trace the same hand in contemporary epitaphs. It has been suggested that professional versifiers used ‘sample books’ for composing epitaphs, but the very existence and the nature of these anthologies is still to be proved. In some cases, the deceased, especially when he presents himself as a veteran belonging to the local élite, may have had his say on the contents and form of his future epitaph, or even might have been responsible for composing it.

Il volume raccoglie le osservazioni sul lessico tecnico della musica e del teatro del Cinquecento, attestato dalle traduzioni manoscritte di alcuni trattati greci: «Onomasticon» di Polluce, i «Problemi musicali» («Probl. XIX»), attribuiti ad Aristotele e altri testi più brevi. Le traduzioni, eseguite dal fonetista fiorentino Giorgio Bartoli (1534-1583), forniscono materiali per l'allestimento di un glossario ragionato che costituisce il nucleo centrale del volume.

This is a meticulous survey of the reception of some lyric subgenres
in Hellenistic poetry and it is meant to be the first of a series of contributions
on the subject. Leaving aside lyric in a religious context, the paper is divided
into two main sections, namely lyric poetry composed for rulers and lyric poetry
written for everyday people. In the new social context lyric poetry was intended
for presentation in the royal symposia. The Alexandrians wrote all types of occasional
lyric poetry (enkomia, epinikia, epithalamia, threnoi and epikedeia), a fact
that is reflected both in the work of distinguished poets, such as Callimachus,
Posidippus and Theocritus as well as in the epigrammatic tradition and in poetic
fragments found on papyri. Special attention is given to stichic lyric poetry and
to the new genre of the mime, whereas the oral tradition of the carmina popularia
and the making of lyric anthologies for symposiastic use complete the picture.

Το Χειρόγραφο (The manuscript)

Ο νεαρός, φιλόδοξος ερευνητής Γκέιλ Έλιοτ αφοσιώνεται στη μελέτη ενός λησμονημένου φιλοσόφου του δέκατου όγδοου αιώνα, ωστόσο σταδιακά αποσπάται από τον «εαυτό» του και ασυνείδητα αφομοιώνεται από το κεντρικό πρόσωπο της αφήγησης. Ο φιλόσοφος (Φλόυερ Σίντενχαμ), σε μια τελευταία, μοιραία συνάντηση με τον Έλιοτ, αποκηρύσσει το έργο του, και σε έναν χρόνο ασύμβατο, μεταξύ ονειρικής απόδρασης και μιας σχεδόν μυστικής σύλληψης της πραγματικότητας, σε ένα συγκλονιστικό ταξίδι στο παρελθόν, αναλαμβάνει ο ίδιος να ολοκληρώσει το βιβλίο παραμερίζοντας τον συγγραφέα. Ποιός είναι εν τέλει ο ήρωας του βιβλίου; Ο συγγραφέας ή ο πρωταγωνιστής του; Ποιός είναι, αληθινά, ο πρωταγωνιστής στο «Χειρόγραφο»; Προβολή της φαντασίας του συγγραφέα, ένα πληγωμένο φάντασμα ή η προσωποποίηση μιας ένοχης συνείδησης; Μια παράξενη ιστορία, με φόντο το Λονδίνο δύο εποχών.

Τρεις μήνες και μία μέρα (Three months and a day)

Ένας φοιτητής φιλοσοφίας φτάνει σε ένα παλιό βικτοριανό κτίριο, για να βιώσει μια παράδοξη περιπλάνηση στο παρελθόν. Το ιστορικό οικοδόμημα – παλιό σανατόριο ανίατων ασθενών, στέγη φοιτητών πια – δυιλίζεται στον χρόνο και στη λονδρέζικη ομίχλη, μαζί με τους ενοίκους του, και μετατοπίζεται με βιαιότητα σε τρεις διαδοχικές εποχές, με ανάστροφη πορεία και απροσδόκητο προορισμό. Σπονδυλωτή ατμοσφαιρική αφήγηση που διαδραματίζεται σε “τρεις μήνες και μία μέρα”.

The focus of this study is the literary use of language in the novel Αντιποίησις Αρχής, which was written by Alexandros Kotzias (1926-92) and first published in 1979. It centers on a linguistic description of its language varieties and an examination of its various linguistic styles. The aim is to argue that this range of varieties and styles represents the author's deliberate rejection of a linguistic straitjacket and that this, in turn, reflects a time of liberation of the language at an official level in Greece. This rich linguistic repertoire generates constant linguistic interaction among the speaking characters and simultaneously provides persuasive evidence that narrative fiction does not need to be limited linguistically.

«Η ευτυχία είναι κάτι εσωτερικό, μια αίσθηση πληρότητας».

«Πολλοί άνθρωποι παλεύουν να δαμάσουν σε γραπτό λόγο […] αυτά που έχουν μέσα τους. Δεν είναι εύκολο και δεν τα καταφέρνουν όλοι».

http://www.sharpdialogue.com/432558257/4366188/posting/%CF%84%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%AC%CE%BD%CE%B1-%CE%B1%CE%B2%CE%AD%CF%81%CF%89%CF%86

کتاب «آموزش زبان يوناني باستان»، که نخستين آموزش‌نامه‌ي زبان يوناني كهن به زبان پارسي به شمار می‌رود، در سال 1394 از سوی «نشر سينا» روانه‌ی بازار نشر شده است. این کتاب، از آنجا که نخستین کتاب در گونه‌ی خود به شمار می‌رود، بسیار ارزشمند است و امید می‌رود که راهی برای یونان‌پژوهی شایسته‌تر در ایران بگشاید. با این همه، این کتاب نیز تهی از کاستی نیست. نوشته‌ی کنونی، می‌کوشد این کاستی‌ها را گوشزد نماید و امیدوار است پیشنهادهایش در چاپ‌های آینده، از سوی دست‌اندرکاران چاپ این کتاب به دیده گرفته شود. کاستی‌های پیش‌گفته، از یک سوی به واژه‌ی «ترجمه و تأليف» روی جلد باز می‌گردد و پیشنهاد می‌کند که نام «لانگ‌ورث ویلدینگ» همچون نویسنده و نام ژانت بليك و ايمان شفيع‌بيك، چون برگردانندگان روی جلد کتاب جای گیرد. از سوی دیگر، کتاب به ویرایش دو باره‌ای نیازمند است. چرا که نادرستی‌های نگارشی آن پرشمارند. تمرین‌هایی از پلاتون و آریستوتلس به پایان برگردان پارسی نوشته افزوده شده که با چارچوب کتاب همخوانی ندارند و بهتر است کنار گذارده شوند. و به فرجام، پیشنهاد این مقاله این است که کتاب به زودی بازبینی شده و ویرایش‌هایی فراگیر بر آن انجام گیرد.

Revised and expanded version of the paper presented at the conference "The Poetics of War. Remembering Conflict from Ancient Greece to the Great War". UCL, 2015:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/classics/outreach/general-public/ww1

In spite of the abundance of literary, epigraphic, artistic and papyrological documents, the dynamics of most of the military events which took place in the Hellenistic period are still obscure. Numerous, however, are the epigraphic poems commemorating individual soldiers who fought in the said battles, often dying in action. Rich in literary topoi and imagery derived from the previous epic, epigrammatic and elegiac tradition, Hellenistic epitaphs, not unlike court poetry of the same period, offer a representation of contemporary wars through the lenses of the literary conventions and in the light of the poetic reinvention of the previous historical and mythical wars. Some of the traditional literary images here discussed also crop up/resurface, unexpectedly, in modern war poetry, especially British poetry of the First World War.