Literary studies: ancient, classical Books

Book SynopsisClassica et Mediaevalia - Volume 48Table of ContentsOle Thomsen: Holger Friis Johansen 29.4.1927-2.11 1996 ivind Andersen: Diomedes, Aphrodite and D one: Background and function of a scene in Homer's Iliad George Hinge: Kritische Beitr ge zum alk anischen Digamma Ellen A. Madsen: Celebrating the pot-feast in the company of Aeschylus. An approach to an interpretation of The Exeter Pelike Beazley, ARV 1516, 80 fig. 1A & B Synn ve des Bo vrie: Euripides' Bakkhai and maenadism Henriett Bru un: De morbo and De a re aquis locis Er kur Sm ri Sigurdarson: Against fundamentalism in Hippocratic hermeneutics: A study of rep vovowv B R bin Lane Fox: Demosthenes, Dionysius and the dating of six early speeches Mogens Herman Hansen: One hundred and sixty theses about Athenian democracy Tomas H gg: After 300 years: A new, critical edition of the Greek Life of St. Antony Giuseppe Persiani: Contribution sur l'authenticit de l'ho lie chrysostomienne De Chananea (CPG 4529) Eri Christiansen: "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse d lendam" Minna Skafte Jensen: The fall of Troy in Plautus' Bacchides Mogens Leisner-Jensen: P. V ntidius and Sallust Otto Steen Due: Ulysses and Aeneas in Ovid Jens Peter Jensen: Aulus Gellius als Literaturkritiker: Impressionist oder Systema iker? Brian M ller Jensen: Callixtus II consecrated the cathedral of Piacenza.

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Book SynopsisClassica et Mediaevalia - Volume 50Table of ContentsHenriette Bruun - sudden death as an apoplectic sign in the Hippocratic Corpus; Vincent Gabrielsen - the naval records from the Athenian Agora; Christos Karvounis - die Dauer der gesetzlichen Befreiung von der Trierarchie; Erik Nis O Stenfeld - hypothetical method in the Charmides and in the Elenchus; Kristian stergaard - Die Antithese Physis/Nomosals rhetorische Problemstellung im Dialog Gorgias; Boris Dunsch - some notes on the understanding of Terence, Heaut on timorumenos 6; Torsten Cumberland Jacobsen - propaganda oder "Verbreitung"; W.S. Watt - notes on Ovid; Robert Edgeworth - passages in Juvenal Four and Ten; Werner Schneider - Zu Tisch mit der sch nen Galatee; David F. Bright - the chronology of the poems of Dracontius; Lena Wahlgren-Smith - "Ambrosium illud" in the letters of Herbert Losinga. Minna Skafte Jensen - classical scholarship in Denmark - eight examples - introductory note; Bodil Due - narrative technique in Xenophon's "Cyropaedia"; Pernille Flensted-Jensen - Mende, a city-state in northern Greece; Robin Lorsch Wildfang - the Vestal Virgins' ritual function in Roman religion; Patrick Kragelund - Senecan tragedy - back on the stage?; Christian Troelsgard - musical notation and oral transmission of Byzantine Chant; Fritz S. Pedersen - editing numerals - the Toledan Tables, 13th century; Pernille Harsting: "Should One Marry?"; Erik Petersen - learned communication.

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Book SynopsisVergil's pastoral poems -- Bucolica -- are not only some of the most prodigious from the Roman Antiquity to have survived, they are also the most elaborate. In this book Sven Lindahl interprets them in relation to the political situation of their context and points out a subtle 'architectural structure' in the collection. Shortly after young Vergil had written his pastorals, his friend Horace wrote his Epodes and in these poems, Lindahl sees a cunning dialogue with Vergil's work.

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Book SynopsisMenander was born in Athens in 342 BC and drowned in Piraeus in c. 290 BC. He wrote more than 100 comedies, but with regards to his character studies, he can be regarded as an heir to the tragedian Euripides. Only one of his comedies has been handed down as a complete play, namely Dyskolos (The Grouch), while others are almost complete. Menander was furthermore a model for the Roman comedians Plautus and Terence and thus for a later European comedy tradition. He associated with the intellectuals of his time, such as Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus, the philosopher Epicurus, and the politician and philosopher Demetrius of Phaleron.

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Book SynopsisHoplitkrigsførelse i arkaisk og klassisk tid

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Book SynopsisThis study is an investigation of a subject never explored before: the translations and the reception in Denmark of the most important English poet from the Middle Ages Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?-1400) from the first appearance in 1782 of a transformation of one of his Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath''s Tale, to the present day. Ebbe Klitgård analyses the story of Chaucer in Denmark also as an exemplary study of the history of English education, culture, language and literature in Denmark. Klitgård demonstrates that the cultural transmission of Chaucer is historically bound by the changing cultural ties between the English speaking world and Denmark. In this way the story of Chaucer in Denmark becomes an illustrative and very complicated story of cultural change.

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Book SynopsisBarry Powell, acclaimed translator of the Iliad (OUP, 2013) and the Odyssey (OUP, 2014) now delivers a graceful, lucid, free-verse translation of the most important books and passages of the Aeneid in a pleasant modern idiom. On-page notes explain obscure literary and historical references, while the rich visual program lightens the text and educates students in the history of Western art by presenting a single topic as represented over 2,000 years.The Aeneid''s first sentence charts the poem''s historical plot, taking us in one sweep of seven lines from Homer''s Troy to Augustus'' Rome. These two layers of time are felt all the way through the poem, from the distant past of Aeneas'' heroic and quasi-mythological time, over 1100 years before Vergil, down to the now of Augustus'' Rome, when Vergil was writing the poem between 30 and 19 BC, a period of ongoing political experimentation. The story of Aeneas--moving from one continent to another, undergoing and enforcing great transformatTrade ReviewPowell's translation roves with the lows and highs of Vergil's Latin, matching the poem's emotive and stylistic variations turn for turn. With rich visual illustrations and explanatory notes on nearly every page, Powell's Aeneid offers a full immersion into the mythological and political workings of the poem: in short, a book both good to think with, and good to teach with. * Kirk Freudenburg, Yale University *Powell's translation does more than just allow the Latin-less reader to appreciate the artistry of Vergil; it gives a glimpse into why we are still reading Vergil and why this 'handbook of empire' * with all of the attendant ambiguities and complexities of that phraseis still relevant today.Leah Kronenberg, Rutgers University *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; Book 1: The Shores of Africa ; Book 2: The Fall of Troy ; Book 4: The Death of Dido ; Book 6: Descent into the Underworld ; Book 7: The Seeds of War (lines 1-121; 230-389; 659-end) ; Book 8: The Shield of Aeneas (lines 1-176; 352-end) ; Book 9: Turnus Besieges the Trojan Camp (lines 151-391) ; Book 10: The Deaths of Pallas, Lausus, and Mezentius (lines 1-116; 408-552; 626-end) ; Book 11: The Mourning for Pallas and the Glory of Camilla (lines 416-?) ; Book 12: The Death of Turnus (lines 384-end)

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Book SynopsisWritten by one of the best-known interpreters of classical literature today, Sophocles and the Language of Tragedy presents a revolutionary take on the work of this great classical playwright and on how our understanding of tragedy has been shaped by our literary past. Simon Goldhill sheds new light on Sophocles'' distinctive brilliance as a dramatist, illuminating such aspects of his work as his manipulation of irony, his construction of dialogue, and his deployment of the actors and the chorus. Goldhill also investigates how nineteenth-century critics like Hegel, Nietzsche, and Wagner developed a specific understanding of tragedy, one that has shaped our current approach to the genre. Finally, Goldhill addresses one of the foundational questions of literary criticism: how historically self-conscious should a reading of Greek tragedy be? The result is an invigorating and exciting new interpretation of the most canonical of Western authors.Trade ReviewMr. Goldhill joins the crowded field, but his work should stand out. * San Francisco Book Review *Goldhill's critical discussion of the historical and philosophical origin of several key concepts of Sophoclean tragedy is of great interest * rogueclassicism.com *A brilliant balancing act: Simon Goldhill combines close readings of Sophocles' plays with penetrating chapters on the language of tragic criticism since the nineteenth century. There is something for everyone in this exhilarating and adventurous book. * Pat Easterling, University of Cambridge *Following up on his landmark studies of Aeschylus and his influential Reading Greek Tragedy, Goldhill offers now a full-length look at Sophocles. With his customary versatility as critic and cultural historian, he offers a Janus-faced volume that looks in two directions. In the first instance, there are exemplary close readings with insistence on the rhetoric, politics, and history of 5th century Athens as essential background for articulating how the poet develops his own particular engagement with the language of tragedy. In the second, Goldhill spreads a wider net to expose the often unrecognized historicity of our own understanding of the tragic, established especially by 19th century German thinkers, for whom Sophocles represented the perfect paradigm. Like all his work, Goldhill challenges us to rethink inherited ideas and deepens our understanding at every turn of the fabled author of Oedipus the King and those who have cherished him. * Froma Zeitlin, Princeton University *With this latest book, Simon Goldhill brings his customary acumen and verve to reading the 'language' of Sophoclean tragedy from two very different perspectives. ... By placing between the same covers 'profoundly conservative' and 'rashly revolutionary' critical perspectives (3), Goldhill instills in the reader a new awareness of the interpretive practices that have sustained tragedy scholarship for centuries at the same time that he defamiliarizes them. His eye for telling detail, moreover, combined with his panoramic sweep of intellectual history, is...enthralling. * New England Classical Journal *Mr. Goldhill joins the crowded field, but his work should stand out. * San Francisco Book Review *Goldhill's critical discussion of the historical and philosophical origin of several key concepts of Sophoclean tragedy is of great interest. * rogueclassicism.com *A brilliant balancing act: Simon Goldhill combines close readings of Sophocles' plays with penetrating chapters on the language of tragic criticism since the nineteenth century. There is something for everyone in this exhilarating and adventurous book. * Pat Easterling, University of Cambridge *Following up on his landmark studies of Aeschylus and his influential Reading Greek Tragedy, Goldhill offers now a full-length look at Sophocles. With his customary versatility as critic and cultural historian, he offers a Janus-faced volume that looks in two directions. In the first instance, there are exemplary close readings with insistence on the rhetoric, politics, and history of 5th century Athens as essential background for articulating how the poet develops his own particular engagement with the language of tragedy. In the second, Goldhill spreads a wider net to expose the often unrecognized historicity of our own understanding of the tragic, established especially by 19th century German thinkers, for whom Sophocles represented the perfect paradigm. Like all his work, Goldhill challenges us to rethink inherited ideas and deepens our understanding at every turn of the fabled author of Oedipus the King and those who have cherished him. * Froma Zeitlin, Princeton University *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Entrances and Exits ; Section 1: Tragic Language ; 1: Undoing: Lusis and the Analysis of Irony ; 2: The Audience on Stage: Rhetoric, Emotion and Judgment ; 3: Line for Line ; 4: Choreography: The Lyric Voice of Tragedy ; 5: The Chorus in Action ; Section 2: The Language of Tragedy ; 6: Generalizing about Tragedy ; 7: Generalizing about the Chorus ; 8: The Language of Tragedy and Modernity: How Electra Lost her Piety ; 9: Antigone and the Politics of Sisterhood: The Tragic Language of Sharing ; Coda: Reading With or Without Hegel: From Text to Script ; Glossary ; Bibliography

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Book SynopsisRoutes and Realms explores the ways in which Muslims expressed attachment to land in formal texts from the ninth through the eleventh centuries. These texts reveal that territories were imagined specifically as homes, cities, and regions and acted as powerful categories of belonging in the early Islamic world.Trade ReviewAntrim's study...will effectively stimulate discussion on the very nature (and study) of early Islamic geography. * Paul L. Heck, Journal of Historical Geography *Zayde Antrim's monograph provides a guided tour through the menagerie of literatures that poets, litterateurs, religious schoalrs, travel writers , and geographers of this vast empire devised between the ninth and twelfth centuries. * American Historical Review *Most of the texts Antrim uses will be very familiar to scholars of early Islamic history, but she has a talent for reading these in new, engaging and informative ways. Antrim has produced an innovative analysis of real importance which should be considered carefully by all who work on early Islamic history and the Arabic and Persian literary texts of the period. * Harry Munt, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies *The first comprehensive study of land and belonging in the premodern Islamic world Routes and Realms is a welcome addition to the study of medieval Muslim history. It challenges us to think about identity and belonging in new and compelling ways. It employs an innovative methodology for the analysis of texts that traverse conventional disciplinary boundaries and that highlights their extra-textual significance. It successfully makes the case for regionalism as a powerful category of belonging during the medieval period. * Steve Tamari, H-Net Reviews *Antrim's findings have ramifications for historians of the modern period. As ethnosymbolists have argued, pre-existing notions of a homeland, of the kind that Antrim traces in classical Arabic literature, are a necessary condition for the emergence of nationalism. But the complexity of the notions of home vs. nonhome, inside vs. outside, and local vs. stranger that she highlights contributes to an understanding of the alternative and competing types of nationalism that have emerged in the Middle East in the twentieth century, that is, pan-Arabism and pan-Islamic nationalism as well as nationalism at the level of individual countries. * Ahmed El Shamsy, American Historical Review *By exhaustively delineating early Muslim attitudes toward homeland, city, and regional identity, Zayde Antrim shows how early Muslims did, in fact, create their own ways of relating to the land beneath and around them, and hence a discourse of place with which any modern notions of nationhood would have needed to contend. It is a rare thing when the study of premodern history can enliven modern debates, but Antrim's work is one of those rarities. * Paul M. Cobb, University of Pennsylvania *Zayde Antrim's most significant contribution is that she challenges the dominant view that explains the rise of nationalism in the Middle East as a byproduct of the nineteenth century encounter with Europe. By critiquing this widely disseminated position, Antrim allows scholars of medieval and modern Middle East to realize that the concept of homeland represents at the same time continuity and change with the classical period, and therefore nationalism has invoked in the mind of medieval and modern Middle Easterners a complex web of legacies. She reminds us that good scholarship should be meticulous research and not speculation. * Suleiman A. Mourad, Smith College *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ; Note on Translations, Transliterations, and Dates ; Glossary ; Introduction: The Discourse of Place ; Part I: Home ; 1. Home as Homeland ; Part II: City ; 2. Cities and Sacred History ; 3. The Image of the City ; Part III: Region ; 4. Dividing the World ; 5. Routes and Realms ; Conclusion: Looking Forward ; Notes ; Bibliography ; Index

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Book SynopsisThe Oxford Handbook of Aristotle reflects the lively international character of Aristotelian studies, drawing contributors from the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, and Japan; it also, appropriately, includes a preponderance of authors from the University of Oxford, which has been a center of Aristotelian studies for many centuries. The volume equally reflects the broad range of activity Aristotelian studies comprise today: such activity ranges from the primarily textual and philological to the application of broadly Aristotelian themes to contemporary problems irrespective of their narrow textual fidelity. In between these extremes one finds the core of Aristotelian scholarship as it is practiced today, and as it is primarily represented in this Handbook: textual exegesis and criticism. Even within this more limited core activity, one witnesses a rich range of pursuits, with some scholars seeking primarily to understand Aristotle in his oTrade ReviewA must-buy for libraries, this book brings together 25 of the world's top Aristotle scholars. Shields's editorial work is superb, and his own contributions are lucid. Highly recommended. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsPreface ; Notes on the Contributors ; List of Aristotle's Works ; I. Aristotle's Philosophical Milieu ; 1. Aristotle's Philosophical Life and Writings, Christopher Shields ; 2. Aristotle on Earlier Natural Science, Edward Hussey ; 3. Science and Scientific Inquiry in Aristotle: a Platonic Provenance, Robert Bolton ; II. The Framework of Philosophy: Tools and Methods ; 4. Aristotle's Categorial Scheme, Paul Studtmann ; 5. De Interpretatione, Hermann Weidemann ; 6. Aristotle's Logic, Paolo Crivelli ; 7. Aristotle's Philosophical Method, C. D. C. Reeve ; 8. Aristotle on Heuristic Enquiry and Demonstration of What It Is, Kei Chiba ; III. Explanation and Nature ; 9. Alteration and Persistence: Form and Matter in the Physics and De Generatione et Corruptione, S. Marc Cohen ; 10. Teleology, David Charles ; 11. Aristotle on the Infinite, Ursula Coope ; 12. The Complexity of Aristotle's Study of Animals, James Lennox ; 13. Aristotle on the Separability of Mind, Fred D. Miller, Jr. ; IV. Being and Beings ; 14. Being qua Being, Christopher Shields ; 15. Substances, Coincidentals, and Aristotle's Constituent Ontology, Michael Loux ; 16. Actuality and Potentiality, Stephen Makin ; 17. Aristotle's Theology, Stephen Menn ; 18. Aristotle's Philosophy of Mathematics, David Bostock ; V. Ethics and Politics ; 19. Conceptions of Happiness, Terence Irwin ; 20. Aristotle on Becoming Good: Habituation, Reflection, and Perception, Richard Kraut ; 21. Aristotle's Politics, Pierre Pellegrin ; VI. Rhetoric and the Arts ; 22. Aristotle on the Moral Psychology of Persuasion, Christof Rapp ; 23. Aristotle on Poetry, Annamaria Schiaparelli and Paolo Crivelli ; VII. After Aristotle ; 24. Meaning: Ancient Comments on Five Lines of Aristotle, Richard Sorabji ; 25. Aristotle in the Arabic Commentary Tradition, Peter Adamson ; 26. The Latin Aristotle, Robert Pasnau ; Bibliography ; Index Locorum ; Index Nominum ; Subject Index

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Book SynopsisStephen Scully both offers a reading of Hesiod''s Theogony and traces the reception and shadows of this authoritative Greek creation story in Greek and Roman texts up to Milton''s own creation myth, which sought to soar above th'' Aonian Mount [i.e., the Theogony] ... and justify the ways of God to men. Scully also considers the poem in light of Near Eastern creation stories, including the Enûma elish and Genesis, as well as the most striking of modern scientific myths, Freud''s Civilization and its Discontents. Scully reads Hesiod''s poem as a hymn to Zeus and a city-state creation myth, arguing that Olympus is portrayed as an idealized polity and - with but one exception - a place of communal harmony. This reading informs his study of the Theogony''s reception in later writings about polity, discord, and justice. The rich and various story of reception pays particular attention to the long Homeric Hymns, Solon, the Presocratics, Pindar, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, and Plato in the Archaic and Classical periods; to the Alexandrian scholars, Callimachus, Euhemerus, and the Stoics in the Hellenistic period; to Ovid, Apollodorus, Lucan, a few Church fathers, and the Neoplatonists in the Roman period. Tracing the poem''s reception in the Byzantine, medieval, and early Renaissance, including Petrarch and Erasmus, the book ends with a lengthy exploration of Milton''s imitations of the poem in Paradise Lost. Scully also compares what he considers Hesiod''s artful interplay of narrative, genealogical lists, and keen use of personified abstractions in the Theogony to Homeric narrative techniques and treatment of epic verse.Trade ReviewScully has long been interested in the polis, as his excellent 1990 study, Homer and the Sacred City, demonstrated, and this new volume about Hesiod's Theogony is, in a sense, an extension of that interest. An equally exciting aspect of this comprehensive study is its clear and full discussion of Hesiod's until-now overlooked literary methods, in which personification reflects psychological reality, or flows from action, and in which common nouns, in their shifting meanings, follow the narrative arc of the poem. * Helaine L. Smith, Semicerchio: Rivista di poesia comparata *The heart of Stephen Scully's book is a masterful inquiry into the place of the Theogony in literary history, in the course of which he makes important observations about the evolution of ancient Greek ideas of the cosmos, divinity, sexuality and gender, justice, and the polis. He prefaces his historical investigations with a careful reading of the poem on its own terms, before looking backward toward its sources and then forward toward the influence it exerted on later texts. Literary analysis and literary history are carefully interwoven, as Scully's initial reading of the poem provides a road map for the historical sections of the book. * Deborah Lyons, American Journal of Philology *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements ; Introduction ; Chapter I: Points of Comparison: Hesiod and Homer; the Theogony and Genesis ; Chapter II: The Theogony ; Chapter III: The Theogony and Eastern Parallels: City-State Succession Myths? ; Chapter IV: The Theogony in the Archaic and Classical periods ; Chapter V: Echoes of the Theogony in the Hellenistic and Roman periods ; Chapter VI: Theogonic shadows: Byzantine, Medieval and Renaissance, Milton's Paradise Lost ; Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe encounter between Muslim and Hindu remains one of the defining issues of South Asian society today. It began as early as the 8th century, and the first Muslim kingdom in India, the Sultanate of Delhi, was established at the end of the 12th century. This power eventually reduced to vassalage almost every independent kingdom on the subcontinent. In Love''s Subtle Magic, a remarkable and highly original book, Aditya Behl uses a little-understood genre of Sufi literature to paint an entirely new picture of the evolution of Indian culture during the earliest period of Muslim domination. These curious romantic tales transmit a profound religious message through the medium of adventurous stories of love. Although composed in the Muslim courts, they are written in a vernacular Indian language and involve Hindu yogis, Hindu princes and princesses, and Hindu gods. Until now, they have defied analysis. Behl shows that the Sufi authors of these charming tales sought to convey an Islamic visionTrade ReviewDoniger has edited an excellent volume constructed from lectures and drafts written by the late Behl...This volume is an indispensable guide to a long-ignored literary genre that provides glimpses into a society in which Hindus and Muslims, kings and commoners, composed a social order now divided into two hostile communities...Highly recommended. * CHOICE *Aditya Behl's magnum opus is the consummation of his long quest for the multiple meanings of four fourteenth- to sixteenth-century epic romances, Indic and Hindu in language and imagery, yet written by Muslim poets attached to Sufi orders. His magisterial and lucid analysis, graced by lovely translations and suffused by his passion for storytelling, transcends the communalized assumptions of much modern scholarship on these enigmatic poems, to persuasively reconstruct their contemporary contexts of religious, political, and gender ideologies and of courtly and esoteric performance. * Philip Lutgendorf, author of Hanuman's Tale: The Messages of a Divine Monkey *In this multi-faceted work Aditya Behl shows persuasively that the Avadhi Sufi romances not only belong to a 'regional or Hindustani literary tradition with its own poets and politics,' but also move within a 'larger Islamicate world in which stories, people, and merchandise travelled freely.' Thus the 'yogic garb of the Sufi seeker and his sensuous meeting with the divinely beautiful beloved' must be read within a Sufistically inflected 'generic logic.' Behl does an elegant job of elucidating the allegorical complexities of this logic; it is sad to realize that we will have no more such work from him. * Frances W. Pritchett, Professor of Modern Indic Languages, Columbia University *If India is an ocean of stories, its deepest currents are mysticism, its highest waves poetry. Only the most masterful of fishermen could test these waters with hope of success. Aditya Behl has done the nearly miraculous: he has given us all the catch from his wondrous, too brief, time as the supreme troller and the compleat angler of pre-modern Indian Sufi romances. Wendy Doniger has paid a tribute to his genius, putting it on display as if by an act of legerdemain in editing this long but never disappointing treasure trove of Hindustan. * Bruce Lawrence, Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Humanities Professor of Religion, Duke University *Table of ContentsChapter 1: Studying the Sultanate Period Chapter 2: Inaugurating Hindavi Chapter 3: Creating a New Genre: The Candayan Chapter 4: Oceans and Stories: The Mirigivati Chapter 5: The Landscape of Paradise and the Embodied City: The Padmavat, Part 1 Chapter 6: The Conquest of Chittaur: The Padmavat, Part 2 Chapter 7: Bodies That Signify: The Madhumalati, Part 1 Chapter 8: The Seasons of Madhumalati's Separation: The Madhumalati, Part 2 Chapter 9: Hierarchies of Response Epilogue: The Story of Stories Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThe period 550 to 750 was one in which monastic culture became more firmly entrenched in Western Europe. The role of monasteries and their relationship to the social world around them was transformed during this period as monastic institutions became more integrated in social and political power networks. This collected volume of essays focuses on one of the central figures in this process, the Irish ascetic exile and monastic founder, Columbanus (c. 550-615), his travels on the Continent, and the monastic network he and his Frankish disciples established in Merovingian Gaul and Lombard Italy.The post-Roman kingdoms through which Columbanus travelled and established his monastic foundations were made up of many different communities of peoples. As an outsider and immigrant, how did Columbanus and his communities interact with these peoples? How did they negotiate differences and what emerged from these encounters? How societies interact with outsiders can reveal the inner workings and social norms of that culture. This volume aims to explore further the strands of this vibrant contact and to consider all of the geographical spheres in which Columbanus and his monastic communities operated (Ireland, Merovingian Gaul, Alamannia, Lombard Italy) and the varieties of communities he and his successors came in contact with -- whether they be royal, ecclesiastic, aristocratic, or grass-roots.Trade Reviewthe whole of Columbanus and the Peoples of Post-Roman Europe ought to be essential reading for any researchers of these centuries. * Erica Steiner, University of Sydney, Journal of the Australian Early Medieval Association *[C]ontains contributions from nearly all the leading scholars active in the field of Columbanian studies. The work is organized around the theme of the various ethnic groups – the gentes – that interacted with the saint or his monasteries. * Matthew Mattingly, Early Medieval Europe *If all the volumes arising from these conferences are as excellent as this one, the scholarly world will be blessed. * Nathan J. Ristuccia, Church History *[this book] certainly advances the state of knowledge with some fine examples of careful revision and probing. It is thus a welcome addition to the scholarship on a fascinating historical and hagiographical figure. * Diarmuid Ó Riain, Journal of Ecclesiastical History *Without question, O'Hara's Columbanus and the Peoples of Post-Roman Europe provides a substantial leap forward, most immediately for scholarship on Columbanus himself, and more broadly for this caliginous era of late antique Western/European history...Indeed, what this volume demonstrates above all is how much there is yet to learn, and how fruitful a field of research Columbanus studies remain. * Kristen Carella, Assumption College, Speculum *From a scholarly perspective, there is much here of great value to the study of this Irish and European saint's background, career and legacy, for which the editor and contributors should be congratulated. But the book also has a broader, contemporary message. * Patrick Wadden, Belmont Abbey College, The English Historical Review *Each contribution is insightful and many offer valuable reassessments of the sources for Columbanus and his legacy in Western Europe; the volume as a whole is tightly edited and remarkably cohesive. * Patrick Gleeson, Queen's University Belfast, The Society for Medieval Archaeology *The book is rich in content, and innovative and comprehensive in its approach. Each contribution is accompanied by an up-to-date bibliography and manages to apply new conceptual tools to older problems of Columbanian scholarship. The reader will find much that is of general interest for the study of the period and will gain considerable insight into the dynamics of intergroup relationships during an important phase of European history. * Carlo Cedra, History Ireland *The authors have carefully and creatively teased out the well-known documents to deepen our understanding of this period. Many of the essays also reinforce and nuance ideas across multiple chapters [...] Each essay also includes an up-to-date bibliography that will be invaluable to scholars wanting to explore these topics. This is an important volume of well-written essays that contribute much to the field and is highly recommended * The Medieval Review *In this wonderful collection of essays the reader travels with Columbanus through the Christian West, from Ireland to Brittany, from Northern Gaul to the Rhine, Bavaria, Alamannia, and Italy. Through the great Irishman's encounters with secular and ecclesiastical elites, with various religious cultures, Roman traditions, post-Roman states and peoples, this volume illuminates the profound changes that characterize the transition from the ancient to the medieval world. * Helmut Reimitz, Princeton University *The book is rich in content, and innovative and comprehensive in its approach. Each contribution is accompanied by an up-to-date bibliography and manages to apply new conceptual tools to older problems of Columbanian scholarship. The reader will find much that is of general interest for the study of the period and will gain considerable insight into the dynamics of intergroup relationships during an important phase of European history. * Carlo Cedro, History Ireland *Table of ContentsPreface List of Abbreviations Maps Contributors Foreword Walter Pohl Part I: Columbanus in Context Chapter 1: Introduction: Columbanus and Europe Alexander O'Hara Chapter 2: Columbanus and the Language of Concord Damian Bracken Part II: The Insular Background Chapter 3: The Political Background to Columbanus's Irish Career Dáibhí Ó Cróinín Chapter 4: Movers and Shakers? How Women Shaped the Career of Columbanus Elva Johnston Chapter 5: Columbanus's Ulster Education Alex Woolf Part III: The Frankish World Chapter 6: Columbanus in Brittany Ian Wood Chapter 7: Columbanus and Shunning: The Irish peregrinus between Gildas, Gaul, and Gregory Clare Stancliffe Chapter 8: Orthodoxy and Authority: Jonas, Eustasius, and the Agrestius Affair Andreas Fischer Chapter 9: Columbanus and the Mission to the Bavarians and the Slavs in the Seventh Century Herwig Wolfram Part IV: On the Fringe: Columbanus and Gallus in Alamannia Chapter 10: Between the Devil and the deep Lake Constance: Jonas of Bobbio, interpretatio Christiana, and the Pagan Religion of the Alamanni Bernhard Maier Chapter 11: Drinking with Woden: A Re-Examination of Jonas's Vita Columbani I. 27 Francesco Borri Chapter 12: Between Metz and Überlingen: Columbanus and Gallus in Alamannia Yaniv Fox Chapter 13: Quicumque sunt rebelles, foras exeant! Columbanus's Rebellious Disciple Gallus Philipp Dörler Part V: Lombard Italy and Columbanus's Legacy Chapter 14: Columbanus, Bobbio, and the Lombards Stefano Gasparri Chapter 15: Disputing Columbanus's Heritage: The Regula cuiusdam patris (with a translation of the Rule) Albrecht Diem

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Book SynopsisThis historical commentary examines books 79(78)-80(80) of Cassius Dio''s Roman History, which cover the period from the death of Caracalla in A. D. 217. to the reign of Severus Alexander and Cassius Dio''s retirement from political life in 229. Cassius Dio, a Roman Senator, provides a valuable eyewitness account of this turbulent period, which was marked by the assassination of Caracalla, the rise of Macrinus, Rome''s first equestrian emperor, and his subsequent overthrow, the tempestuous, and by all accounts peculiar, reign of Elagabalus, and the continuation of the Severan dynasty under the young Severus Alexander.In addition to elucidating important passages from these books, this study assesses Cassius Dio''s political life and its relationship to his literary career; his call to history and time of composition; his historical method; and his attitude toward and subsequent presentation of the later Severan dynasty. In its investigation of books 79(78)-80(80), the work assesses an Trade ReviewIt has the appeal of being accessible to those approaching Cassius Dio for the first time, and yet offers the chance to engage with his text in historical terms on a granular level ... It is a worthy addition to the growing commentary set on this extraordinary history and will hopefully prompt further publications in its wake. * Alex Imrie, Plekos *This excellent commentary on the last three books of Dio's history brings the reader to a better understanding of the historian's focus, methodology, and the system of personal experience and belief that inform the whole. * Barbara Saylor Rodgers, The University of Vermont, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *Table of ContentsTable of Contents Abbreviations Map Introduction I. Cassius Dio's life and career II. Texts and citations III. Cassius Dio as historical guide IV. Time of composition and the nature of Dio's contemporary history V. Cassius Dio, Greek annalist VI. Other sources for the reigns of Macrinus and Elagabalus VII. Modern scholarship on the reigns of Macrinus and Elagabalus Book 79(78): Macrinus I. The structure of book 79(78) and the chronology of Macrinus' reign II. Sources for book 79(78) III. Commentary Book 80(79): Elagabalus I. Overview and structure of book 80(79) II. Sources for Book 80(79) III. Assessing Elagabalus' reign IV. Historical outline V. Religion VI. Elagabalus' demise VII. Commentary Book 80(80): Severus Alexander I. Introduction II. Commentary Works Cited

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Book SynopsisDiscusses Aristotle's views on change, natural science, the mind, logic, philosophical method, metaphysics, and ethics, and suggests why the Greek philosopher still provokes controversy.Trade Review'An excellent little book. One cannot sufficiently recommend this book as an up-to-date fascinating introduction to Aristotle, clearly presented and accessible to the non-specialist. Even for the specialist, although its content will be known to him, this brief volume gives an interesting and, above all, refreshing presentation. Philosophical Studies

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Book SynopsisSophocles' "Electra" tells the story of the revenge Orestes and Electra take on their mother, Clytemnestra, for he murder of their father Agamemnon, after he returns from the Trojan War. This edition of the play is preceded by a critical introduction and is accompanied by explanatory notes.Trade Review"Carson's interpretation of Electra conveys the uniqueness, the vibrancy, and the tradition that must have been there for the original audience. The characters speak in a style which simultaneously juxtaposes the metrical and the colloquial....[The] changing meter is a wonderful and successful way of revealing the psychic tumult that keeps Electra on the edges of madness and violence."--Rain Taxi Online

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Book SynopsisThis revolutionary study presents new facts and an original theory about the source of the thought and literature which are termed `modern''.Using fifty-one new translations of sonnets from four languages spanning more than seven centuries, Oppenheimer argues that modern thought and literature were born with the invention of the sonnet in thirteenth-century Italy. In revealing the sonnet as the first lyric form since the fall of the Roman Empire meant not for music or performance but for silent reading, the book demonstrates that the sonnet was the first modern literary form deliberately intended to portray the self in conflict and to explore self-consciousness.Professor Oppenheimer traces the influences of the sonnet, as invented by Giacomo da Lentino, combining historical fact with the history of ideas and literary criticism. He illustrates, in bilingual format, the sonnet''s growing appeal and variety during the centuries that followed, with translations from Italian, German, FrenchTrade Review'Paul Oppenheimer has written a learned, well-tempered and fascinating book about the sonnet. This book is a cunningly constructed homage to its ostensible subject. Oppenheimer, the poet and the scholar, join hands to translate a book and a sonnet.' Anthony Rudolf, Chapman 60'

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Book SynopsisA translation and interpretation of one of Euripides' plays, this version reveals the formal beauty and thematic concentration of the Alcestis. The late William Arrowsmith presents the play as a drama of human existence with recognizably human characters who also represent masked embodiments of human conditions.Trade Review"The thoughtful introduction and notes will attract the intelligent reader. The translation itself is accurate and of high Literary quality."--Patricia P. Matsen, University of South Carolina"A fine translation with very useful introduction, notes, and glossary."--Diane Arnson Svarlien, Georgetown College"Translations should be readable poetry in their own right. DiPiero succeeds and is honest about how he does it."--Haydn Lewis Gilmore, Marywood College"I like this edition better than the Chicago translation."--Nancy Evans, Smith College

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Book SynopsisThis is the first book to offer comprehensive discussion of the dynamics of Greek obscenity and a detailed commentary on the terminology itself. It sets the standard for scholarly work on ancient obscenity in language, and has established itself as a classic in the field. For this new edition, Jeffrey Henderson has corrected and updated the philological material and added a new introduction.Trade Review`An important, sound, scholarly contribution to our understanding of obscenity not only to Athenian culture generally, but especially as it is integral to the themes of ancient comic plays ... This study breaks new ground and will have wide appeal' Library Journal `For the first time in the history of scholarship on Greek Old Comedy in general and on Aristophanes in particular we have in Jeffrey Henderson's [book] a comprehensive study of the obscenity which is so prominent a feature of Old Comedy, and his discussions will be welcomed by all interested in this aspect of it ... A major contribution.' Classical Journal

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Book SynopsisThe formidable talents of Anthony Hecht, one of the most gifted of contemporary American poets, and Helen Bacon, a classical scholar, are here brought to bear on this vibrant translation of Aeschylus'' much underrated tragedy The Seven Against Thebes. The third and only remaining play in a trilogy dealing with related events, The Seven Against Thebes tells the story of the Argive attempt to claim the Kingdom of Thebes, and of the deaths of the brothers Eteocles and Polyneices, each by the others hand. Long dismissed by critics as ritualistic and lacking in dramatic tension, Seven Against Thebes is revealed by Hecht and Bacon as a work of great unity and drama, one exceptionally rich in symbolism and imagery.Trade Review"A superb rescue of a powerful Athenian tragedy from the trash heaps. Ideal not only for students who must read the play in translation but also as a companion to the Greek text."--George E. Dimock, Smith College

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Book SynopsisBased on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly recreate the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. Under the general editorship of the late William Arrowsmith and Herbert Golder, each volume includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the plays. This vital translation of Euripides'' Electra recreates the prize-winning excitement of the original play. Electra, obsessed by dreams of avenging her father''s murder, impatiently awaits the return of her exiled brother Orestes. When he arrives, the play mounts toward its first climax, a tender recognition scene. From that moment on, Electra uses Orestes as her instrument of vengeance. They kill their mother''s

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Book SynopsisAdopting an interdisciplinary approach, this study examines the different representations of women in the Odyssey and their significance within the context of the poem and Greek culture. A central theme of the book is the visualization of the Odyssey''s female characters by ancient artists, and several essays discuss the visual and iconographic implications of Odysseus'' female encounters in Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art. Feminine in orientation, but not narrowly feminist in approach, this first interdisciplinary work on the Odyssey''s female characters will have a broad audience among scholars and students working in classical studies, iconography and art history, women''s studies, mythology, and ancient history.Trade ReviewA multi-disciplinary range - history, art history and literature. It has ample notes and references and a magnificent collection of sixty plates, eminently usable in other Homeric contexts. * JACT review *The twelve contributors combine to offer a remarkably coherent reading of the poem and its values; the volume as a whole is an important contribution to current debate in this much-discussed field. * M.R. Gale, Royal Holloway, London, Journal of Hellenic Studies *This is a helpful contribution to the field. All Greek is translated. The production is fine. * The Classical Review *In an impressive series of papers, the contributors to this rich volume examine the various facets of the feminine figures in the Odyssey in the light of Greek culture, history, and mythology...A unique collection of outstanding articles on every aspect of the feminine in the Odyssey.The Journal of Indo-European StudiesAn enjoyable, informative, and instructive read ... the first extensive interdisciplinary discussion of representation of female characters in the poem * Grainne McLaughlin, Univ. of Dublin, Hermathena *Three introductory essays ... will doubtless prove especially helpful to undergraduates as they cover the key areas of the poem's datation, its representation of female characters, and the contemporary nuances in their vizualization by artists of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. * Grainne McLaughlin, Univ. of Dublin, Hermathena *A work useful to both undergraduates and specialists. * Grainne McLaughlin, Univ of Dublin, Hermathena *

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Book SynopsisRobert Durling''s much-anticipated translation of the Paradiso, the third and final volume of Dante''s Divine Comedy, is available at last. Durling''s prose translations of the Inferno and the Purgatorio garnered high praise, and with this superb version of the Paradiso readers can now traverse the entirety of Dante''s epic poem of spiritual ascent with the guidance of one of the greatest living Italian-to-English translators. Reunited with his beloved Beatrice in the Paradiso, the poet-narrator journeys through the heavenly spheres and comes to know the state of blessed souls after death, the joy that every man can attain with God''s grace. As with the previous volumes, the original Italian and its English translation appear on facing pages for language mavens. But every reader will be drawn to Durling''s precise and vivid prose, which is perfectly suited to capture Dante''s extraordinary range of expression--from the high style of divine revelation to colloquial speech, lyrical inteTrade ReviewAs Durling and Martinez complete their monumental three-volume presentation of Dante's masterpiece, we can sense their triumph and elation, despite their characteristic modesty. This, after all, is the volume with which they can demonstrate the fullness and consistency of Dante's great project, its final approach to what they describe in one footnote as 'a pitch of intensity unique in all literature.' The scholarship, as always, is graceful, comprehensive, and acute, and it surrounds a translation that is so carefully considered and fully realized as to be, at times, quite breathtaking. * David Young, translator of The Poetry of Petrarch *Durling and Martinez deliver Paradiso in elegant English prose faithful to Dante's Italian. The general introduction and succinct notes to each canto enable an informed reading of a frequently daunting text, while the longer 'Additional Notes,' bibliography, and indices will more than satisfy the most exigent critic. Marvelous, in the richest medieval sense of the term. * Michael Wyatt, author of The Italian Encounter with Tudor England *At the end of his poem Dante claims that his 'high imagining failed of power,' but Durling and Martinez have suffered no such fate in completing their translation of the Divine Comedy. Their Paradiso is a crowning achievement, a work of lucid prose and of impeccable accuracy. Readers will find themselves rewarded by the succinct, richly informative notes at the end of each canto and the extended essay-notes at the back of the volume. A splendid accomplishment. * Richard Lansing, editor of The Dante Encyclopedia *Table of ContentsCONTENTS Abbreviations, xv Introduction, 2 PARADISO CANTO 1 Notes to Canto 1 CANTO 2 Notes to Canto 2 CANTO 3 Notes to Canto 3 CANTO 4 Notes to Canto 4 CANTO 5 Notes to Canto 5 CANTO 6 Notes to Canto 6 CANTO 7 Notes to Canto 7 CANTO 8 Notes to Canto 8 CANTO 9 Notes to Canto 9 CANTO 10 Notes to Canto 10 CANTO 11 Notes to Canto 11 CANTO 12 Notes to Canto 12 CANTO 13 Notes to Canto 13 CANTO 14 Notes to Canto 14 CANTO 15 Notes to Canto 15 CANTO 16 Notes to Canto 16 CANTO 17 Notes to Canto 17 CANTO 18 Notes to Canto 18 CANTO 19 Notes to Canto 19 CANTO 20 Notes to Canto 20 CANTO 21 Notes to Canto 21 CANTO 22 Notes to Canto 22 CANTO 23 Notes to Canto 23 CANTO 24 Notes to Canto 24 CANTO 25 Notes to Canto 25 CANTO 26 Notes to Canto 26 CANTO 27 Notes to Canto 27 CANTO 28 Notes to Canto 28 CANTO 29 Notes to Canto 29 CANTO 30 Notes to Canto 30 CANTO 31 Notes to Canto 31 CANTO 32 Notes to Canto 32 CANTO 33 Notes to Canto 33 THE NICENE CREED BOETHIUS' O QUI PERPETUA MUNDUM RATIONE GUBERNAS Notes to "O qui perpetua' ADDITIONAL NOTES 1. The Figure of Beatrice (After Canto 2) 2. The Paradiso and the Monarchia 3.The Primacy of the Intellect, the Sun, and the Circling Theologians (After Canto 14) 4. Dante and the Liturgy (After Canto 15) 5. The Religious Orders in the Paradiso 6. The Threshold Cantos in the Comedy 7. The Fate of Phaethon in the Comedy 8. Circle-Cross-Eagle-Scales: Images in the Paradiso 9. The Final Image 10. The Neoplatonic Background 11. Dante and Neoplatonism 12. Dante's Astrology 13. The Heavens and the Sciences: Convivio 2 14. The Paradiso as Alpha and Omega Textual Variants Bibliography Index of Italian, Latin, and Other Foreign Words Discussed in the Notes Index of Passages Cited in the Notes Index of Proper Names in the Notes Index of Proper Names in the Text and Translation

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Book SynopsisOne of the greatest living Italian-to-English translators, Robert Durling''s rendition of the third and final volume of Dante''s masterful literary epic is now available in paperback. As with the two preceding volumes, Durling''s precise and powerful translation of Paradiso appears alongside the original Italian text recounting Dante''s journey through heaven with the beautiful Beatrice. The end of each canto contains thorough yet succinct notes by Durling and Ronald Martinez that acquaint the reader with Dante''s medieval world and his reference points. Thus the volume will appeal to the general reader as well as lovers and students of Italian literature, language, and history. While English-language translations of the Commedia abound, the accuracy and lyrical verve of Durling''s translations have earned him a place as one of the all time greats.Trade ReviewAs Durling and Martinez complete their monumental three-volume presentation of Dante's masterpiece, we can sense their triumph and elation, despite their characteristic modesty. This, after all, is the volume with which they can demonstrate the fullness and consistency of Dante's great project, its final approach to what they describe in one footnote as 'a pitch of intensity unique in all literature.' The scholarship, as always, is graceful, comprehensive, and acute, and it surrounds a translation that is so carefully considered and fully realized as to be, at times, quite breathtaking. * David Young, translator of The Poetry of Petrarch *Durling and Martinez deliver Paradiso in elegant English prose faithful to Dante's Italian. The general introduction and succinct notes to each canto enable an informed reading of a frequently daunting text, while the longer 'Additional Notes,' bibliography, and indices will more than satisfy the most exigent critic. Marvelous, in the richest medieval sense of the term. * Michael Wyatt, author of The Italian Encounter with Tudor England *At the end of his poem Dante claims that his 'high imagining failed of power,' but Durling and Martinez have suffered no such fate in completing their translation of the Divine Comedy. Their Paradiso is a crowning achievement, a work of lucid prose and of impeccable accuracy. Readers will find themselves rewarded by the succinct, richly informative notes at the end of each canto and the extended essay-notes at the back of the volume. A splendid accomplishment. * Richard Lansing, editor of The Dante Encyclopedia *Table of ContentsCONTENTS ; Abbreviations, xv ; Introduction, 2 ; PARADISO ; CANTO 1 ; Notes to Canto 1 ; CANTO 2 ; Notes to Canto 2 ; CANTO 3 ; Notes to Canto 3 ; CANTO 4 ; Notes to Canto 4 ; CANTO 5 ; Notes to Canto 5 ; CANTO 6 ; Notes to Canto 6 ; CANTO 7 ; Notes to Canto 7 ; CANTO 8 ; Notes to Canto 8 ; CANTO 9 ; Notes to Canto 9 ; CANTO 10 ; Notes to Canto 10 ; CANTO 11 ; Notes to Canto 11 ; CANTO 12 ; Notes to Canto 12 ; CANTO 13 ; Notes to Canto 13 ; CANTO 14 ; Notes to Canto 14 ; CANTO 15 ; Notes to Canto 15 ; CANTO 16 ; Notes to Canto 16 ; CANTO 17 ; Notes to Canto 17 ; CANTO 18 ; Notes to Canto 18 ; CANTO 19 ; Notes to Canto 19 ; CANTO 20 ; Notes to Canto 20 ; CANTO 21 ; Notes to Canto 21 ; CANTO 22 ; Notes to Canto 22 ; CANTO 23 ; Notes to Canto 23 ; CANTO 24 ; Notes to Canto 24 ; CANTO 25 ; Notes to Canto 25 ; CANTO 26 ; Notes to Canto 26 ; CANTO 27 ; Notes to Canto 27 ; CANTO 28 ; Notes to Canto 28 ; CANTO 29 ; Notes to Canto 29 ; CANTO 30 ; Notes to Canto 30 ; CANTO 31 ; Notes to Canto 31 ; CANTO 32 ; Notes to Canto 32 ; CANTO 33 ; Notes to Canto 33 ; THE NICENE CREED ; BOETHIUS' O QUI PERPETUA MUNDUM RATIONE GUBERNAS ; Notes to "O qui perpetua' ; ADDITIONAL NOTES ; 1. The Figure of Beatrice (After Canto 2) ; 2. The Paradiso and the Monarchia ; 3.The Primacy of the Intellect, the Sun, and the Circling Theologians (After Canto 14) ; 4. Dante and the Liturgy (After Canto 15) ; 5. The Religious Orders in the Paradiso ; 6. The Threshold Cantos in the Comedy ; 7. The Fate of Phaethon in the Comedy ; 8. Circle-Cross-Eagle-Scales: Images in the Paradiso ; 9. The Final Image ; 10. The Neoplatonic Background ; 11. Dante and Neoplatonism ; 12. Dante's Astrology ; 13. The Heavens and the Sciences: Convivio 2 ; 14. The Paradiso as Alpha and Omega ; Textual Variants ; Bibliography ; Index of Italian, Latin, and Other Foreign Words Discussed in the Notes ; Index of Passages Cited in the Notes ; Index of Proper Names in the Notes ; Index of Proper Names in the Text and Translation

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Book SynopsisSocrates, as he is portrayed in Plato''s early dialogues, remains one of the most controversial figures in the history of philosophy. This book concerns six of the most vexing and often discussed features of Plato''s portrayal: Socrates'' methodology, epistemology, psychology, ethics, politics, and religion. Brickhouse and Smith cast new light on Plato''s early dialogues by providing novel analyses of many of the doctrines and practices for which Socrates is best known. Included are discussions of Socrates'' moral method, his profession of ignorance, his denial of akrasia, as well as his views about the relationship between virtue and happiness, the authority of the State, and the epistemic status of his daimonion. By revealing the many interconnections among Socrates'' views on a wide variety of topics, this book demonstrates both the richness and the remarkable coherence of the philosophy of Plato''s Socrates.Trade Reviewa detailed and well-structured analysis of the philosophy of Socrates, supported by a wealth of preference to Plato's early dialogues ... Their exposition is clear and cogent, and their readings maintain a high degree of plausibility. * F.R. Pickering, University of North London, The Classical Review, XLV, 2, 95 *an important new work in the rapidly growing field of Socratic studies. ... They have provided a fuller and more challenging account of Socrates as a philosopher which is both intelligible to the modern mind, and yet, potentially, highly critical of it. * Polis, vol.14, 1997 *

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Book SynopsisThis is the second volume in what will be a translation with full scholarly apparatus of the entire correspondence of St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). The translation follows Van Acker''s definitive new edition of the Latin text, which is being published serially in Belgium by Brepols. As in that edition, the letters are organized according to the rank of the addressees. The first volume included ninety letters to and from the highest ranking prelates in Hildegard''s world: popes, archbishops, and bishops. Volume II comprises letters 91-217, in which Hildegard addresses lower-ranking spiritual leaders (abbots and abbesses, for the most part) offering advice and consolation, and is particularly noteworthy for the correspondence with Guilbert of Gembloux, who provides a wealth of information about the saint and her spiritual gift.Trade ReviewThe two already published volumes are exemplary. The translations read well, the notes are helpful, and the brief bibliography and indexes enhance the readability of the text. * Commonweal *The appearance of the second volume of translations of Hildegard's letters...is an event to be welcomed. It makes accessible, in readable and accurate translations, another tranche of Hildegard's correspondence. * Catholic Historical Review *

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Book SynopsisScholarly commentary on the nuances of Greek writing fills library shelves, even entire libraries. Yet nothing can take the place of the documents themselves. The Classical Greek Reader marks an exciting departure from the traditional anthology approach to Greek literature and thought. By focusing not only on the big names but also on the less-familiar voices--the women, doctors, storytellers, herbalists, and romance writers--we are offered a glimpse of ancient Greece as we have rarely seen it. Kenneth J. Atchity provides the reader with firsthand access to literary, artistic, social, political, religious, scientific, and philosophical texts that shaped Greek thinking. From Homeric epics to the histories of Plutarch, and from the poems of Korinna to the romances of Heliodorus, this invaluable reference provides readers with modern translations of the voices that shaped the classical Greek spirit. Each entry contains an introduction identifying the author and providing information that Trade ReviewThis new examination of original texts, poems, art, plays, and historical documents from classical Greece offers a far more accessible format than most, providing source materials in a lively format for general readers * The Bookwatch *Table of ContentsPreface; Introduction; Part One:Preclassical; Homer:The Iliad; Homer: The Odyssey; Hesiod: Theogony; Hesiod: Works and Days; Anonymous: Homeric Hymns: Hymn to Aphrodite; Archilochos: Lyrics; Thales of Miletus: Water; Terpandros: Lyrics; Alkman: Lyrics; Alcaeus: Lyrics; Solon:Lyrics and Law Codes; Sappho: Lyrics; Stesichoros: Lyrics; Anacreon: Lyrics; Simonides: Lyrics; Anaximander: On Nature; Anaximenes: Air; Theognis: Lyrics; Aesop:Fables; Pythagoras: The Golden Verses; Xenophanes: On Nature and Lyrics ; Part Two:Classical; Pindar: Olympian Ode 2; Korinna: Lyric Fragments; Aeschylus: The Eumenides; Pricles: Funeral Oration(from Thucydes); Heraclitus: On Nature; Parmenides: On Nature; Telesilla: Lyric Fragments; Empedocles: Fragments and On Nature; Anaxagoras: On Nature; Protagoras: Fragments; Sophocles: Antigone; Herodotus: The History; Zeno: On Motion; Euripides: Alcestis; Hippocrates: The Physician's Oath; Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War; ; Socrates: Speech to the Athenians (from Plato's Apology); Praxilla: Lyrics; Aristophanes: Lysistrata; Lysias: The Olympiacus; Isocrates: Oration to Philip; Plato: The Republic; Xenophon: Anabasis; Aeneas the Tactician: On the Defense of Fortified Positions; Aeschines: Against Timarchus ; Aristotle: Poetics; Demosthenes: On the Crown; "Theophrastus"Tyrtamos: The Characters; Menander: The Dyskolos; Epicurus: Letter to Herodotus; Euclid: The Elements of Geometry; Leonidas of Tarentum: Lyrics; Theocritus: Thyrsis: The Death of Daphinis; Apollonius of Rhodes: The Voyage of Argo (Argonautica); Archimedes: The Sand-reckoner ; Part Three:Postclassical; Polybius: The General History of the Wars of the Romans; Nicander: Theriaca; Bion: Lament for Adonis; Strabo: The Geography; Meleager: Lyrics; Dionysius of Halicarnassus: The Roman Antiquities; Dioscorides: Materia medica; "Longinus": On the Sublime; Epictetus: The Encheiridion (Handbook); Plutarch: The Life of Alexander the Great and Against Going into Debt; Dio(n) Chrysostomos: The Hunters of Euboea; Lucian: Lyrics and Dialogues; Ptolemy: The Almagest; Apollodorus: The Library; Pausanias: The Acropolis of Athens; Galen: On the Natural Facilities; Plotinus: True Happiness; Longus: Daphnis and Chloe; Athenaeus: The Sophists at Dinner; Heliodorus: Aethiopica ; Greek Gods / Heroes, Roman Counterparts; Landmarks of Greek History; Glossary; Sources & Recommendations; Acknowledgementd; Index

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Book SynopsisEuripides'' Bakkhai is the staple of the canon of Greek tragedy and is required or strongly recommended reading for most undergraduate Classics majors. It also surfaces quite often in non-classics courses focusing on tragedy because its structure and thematics offer exemplary models of the classic tragic elements. The plot of Bakkhai centers around the actions of Pentheus, King of Thebes, who refused to recognise the god Dionysus or permit Thebans to worship him. In revenge, Dionysus drove Pentheus mad, made him cross-dress as a maenad, sent him to worship the god he had spurned, and made his mother, Agave, mistake him for a wild beast and rip him to shreds. Gibbons, a prize-winning poet, and Segal, a renowned classicist, are both leaders in their professions and are well-suited to take on this central text of Greek tragedy. This edition includes an introduction, a new translation, notes on the text, and a glossary.Trade Reviewthis translation merits serious thought for classroom and even scholarly use. Of particular interest is Segal's extensive reconstruction of the lacunae that mar the end of the Bakkhai, including the so-called compositio membrorum of Pentheus. * Thomas E. Jenkins, Trinity University *Gibbons ... has crafted a lyrical verse translation that displays an evident understanding of and respect fo the source text. * Thomas E. Jenkins, Trinity University *This is a lovely, thoughtful edition of the play, and between Gibbon's sturdy verse and Segal's sensitive notes, one can hardly go wrong in assigning the text to an introductory literature class. And even more advanced students of Greek tragedy will wish to examine Segal's valuable appendix on the compositio membrorum, a succinct and insightful bit of scholarship in its own right. * Thomas E. Jenkins, Trinity University *

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Book SynopsisThis book presents new English translations of 150 erotic poems composed in India''s three classical languages: Old Tamil, Maharastri Prakit, and Sanskrit. The poems are derived from large anthological collections that date from as early as the first centruy CE to as late as the eight century. In Martha Selby''s masterful translations, the poems both stand on their own as poems in English and maintain the flavours of the original verses as reflected in idiom and structure. The poems are grouped according to themes, and annotated whenever a brief gloss is necessary. The book begins with several scholarly essays on the poems and how to read them, their origin, and the languages in which they were composed. This is followed by the poems themselves.Trade ReviewThe translations leap from the eye to the ear, viscerally vernacular, as if newly thought in English. The notes make the most arcane problems vividly clear. And the introductory essays, not just about poetry but about sex, women, love, and gender, are in themselves a major contribution to the study of all of these subjects. A pleasure for anyone to read, and a real eye-opener for anyone who claims to know the culture of ancient India, as well as for those who do not. * Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago *Table of Contents1. INTRODUCTION ; 7. YOUNG WOMEN SPEAK TO THEIR FEMALE FRIENDS

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Book SynopsisFrom the tenth century to the thirteenth, the Jews of Spain belonged to a vibrant and relatively tolerant Arabic-speaking society, a sophisticated culture that had a marked effect on Jewish life, thought, artistic tastes, and literary expression. In this companion volume to Wine, Women, and Death, we see how the surrounding Arabic culture influenced the new poetry that was being written for the synagogue service. The Hebrew poems here, accompanied by elegant English translations and explanatory essays, are short lyrics of the highest literary quality.Table of ContentsIntroduction God and Israel God and the Soul Afterword Notes Technical Terms Index

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Book SynopsisThis volume looks at the fascinating intersection of traditional myth with an enthnographically-viewed Homeric world. Carol Dougherty argues that the resourcefulness of Odysseus as an adventurer on perilous seas served as an example to Homer's society.Trade ReviewA great virtue of Dougherty's book is that it not only offers possible answers but also encourages a range of further questions * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *some very good discussion, particularly of the relationships between issues of colonization and poetic imagination * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *The Introduction shows the breadth of Dougherty's argument, which itself traverses an extensive terrain for a book of a size that encourages the reader * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *This is a sparkling study of the Odyssey * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *

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Book SynopsisIn Herakles, Euripides reveals with great subtlety and complexity the often brutal underpinnings of our social arrangements. The play enacts a thoroughly contemporary dilemma about the relationship between personal and state violence to civic order . Of all of Euripides'' plays, this is his most skeptically subversive examination of myth, morality, and power. The play depicts Herakles being driven mad by Hera, the wife of Zeus. Hera hates Herakles because he is one of Zeus'' children born of adultery. In his madness, Herakles is driven to murder his own wife and children, and he eventually exiles himself to Athens. The volume includes a new translation, an introduction, notes on the text, and a glossary.

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Book SynopsisBoedecker and Sider's edited volume gathers the best of the recent research on Simonides' newly expanded oeuvre into a single collection which will be an important reference for scholars of Greek poetry.Trade ReviewPossessors of this book will often in years to come take their copies from shelf to desk. Noble poetry, as Simonides proclaimed, outlives a leafy mortality; but so also does fine scholarship. * Hermathena: A Trinity College Dublin Review *... the present volume deserves a warm welcome. The editors have brought together, with skill, tact, and accuracy, eighteen essays ... the book has a certain coherence, aided by judicious cross-referencing; and the quality of editing has been high. * Hermathena: A Trinity College Dublin Review *This book provides an excellent appraisal of the state of scholarship on the "New Simonides". It surpasses most edited volumes in the degree to which the contributors are clearly aware of one another's essays and provide cross-references to sustain the course of the questioning about the text. It has launched some important new challenges about the historical and literary traditions represented by the text. * American Journal of Philology *

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Book SynopsisFor readers, actors, students, teachers, and theatrical directors, this new translation of one of the greatest plays in the history of the western world provides the best combination of contemporary, powerful language, along with superb background and notes on meaning, interpretation, and ancient beliefs, attitudes, and contexts.Trade Review"I highly recommend [Antigone]. Translators Reginald Gibbons and Charles Segal have done a good job in steering a reasonable course between a literal prose rendition and a poetic paraphrase. There is a very good detailed introduction to the play, an essay on the problems of translating it, a glossary of proper nouns, and three appendices about the date, the history of the myth, and how the play was transmitted. As a director, most valuable are the extensive notes that are found in the back of the book [and] stage blockings added to the texts by the editors."--Frank Behrens, Brattleboro Reformer"These two new additions to Oxford's 'Greek Tragedy in New Translations' series only add to the luster of the previous releases. Each is firmly packed with insightful introductions, comprehensive and numbered notes, glossaries, and up-to-date bibliographies (the plays' texts take up about half of each volume). The collaboration of poet and scholar in each volume produces a language that is easy to read and easy to speak (compare, for instance, the Watchman's first lines in Shapiro and Burian's Agamemnon with those in Lattimore's 1947 translation). Each volume's introduction presents the play's action and themes with some detail. The translators' notes describe the linguistic twists and turns involved in rendering the text into a modern poetic language. Both volumes are enthusiastically recommended for academic libraries, theatre groups, and theatre departments."--Library Journal [starred review of Oresteia and Antigone]"Sophocles' text is inexhaustibly actual. It is also, at many points, challenging and remote from us. The Gibbons-Segal translation, with its rich annotations, conveys both the difficulties and the formidable immediacy. The choral odes, so vital to Sophocles' purpose, have never been rendered with finer energy and insight. Across more than two thousand years, a great dark music sounds for us."--George Steiner, Churchill College, CambridgeTable of ContentsIntroduction On the Translation Antigone Notes on the Text Appendices 1: The Date of Antigone 2: The Myth of Antigone, to the End of the Fifth Century The Transmission of the Text Glossary Suggestions for Further Reading

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Book SynopsisFrom the stories suggested by the great cave paintings of the Paleolithic period to the thought experiments of modern scientists, From Olympus to Camelot provides a sweeping history of the development of the rich and varied European mythological tradition. David Leeming, an authority on world mythology, begins with a general introduction to mythology and mythological terms, and then turns to the stories themselves. Discussing well-known figures such as Zeus, Aphrodite, Thor, and Cuchulainn, and less familiar ones such as Perun, Mari, and the Sorcerer of Lescaux, Leeming illustrates and analyzes the enduring human endeavor to make sense of existence through deities and heroes. Following an initial exploration of the Indo-European sources of European mythology and the connections between the myths of Europe and those of India and Iran, the book proceeds to survey the major beliefs of Greek, Roman, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, and Slavic cultures, as well as the mythologies of non-Indo-EuroTrade ReviewFrom Iceland to India, from prehistoric cave paintings and fertility figurines to such modern-day 'myths' as the invisible hand, the Oedipal conflict and Schrodinger's cat, Leeming's intriguing treatise on comparative mythology covers a lot of ground. Out of this enormous variety of information, Leeming, a professor of comparative literature and author of The World of Myth, discerns a coherent, distinctive European mythical tradition.... His wide-ranging, well-written treatment contains a wealth of insights on the development of Western culture. * PW Online *David Leeming brings his encyclopedic knowledge of mythology to From Olympus to Camelot, one of the very few comparative studies of the myths of Europe. His approach provides the reader with both the timeless stories of multiple mythological traditions and enlightening connections between them. * Joseph Nigg, author of The Book of Fabulous Beasts: A Treasury of Writings from Ancient Times to the Present *Leeming effectively uses archeological evidence to demonstrate not only the sources of these myth traditions, but also how they interact with and influence one another. For a reader in search of a solid survey and foundations for further study, From Olympus to Camelot will provide an engaging and enlightening entry into the fascinating world of European mythology. * Journal of American Folklore *David Leeming's learning is vast, his ability to synthesize astonishing. Some scholars are 'conservative' in the best sense: they conserve human knowledge by analyzing it carefully before packaging it in useful compendia. Leeming has contributed yeoman service in a series of volumes that span huge areas of mythological and religious traditions. This volume will be especially helpful to readers who are interested in the broad range of European mythologies that stretch, thanks to Proto-Indo-European materials, into India and even northern Africa. The work adroitly summarizes what can be extremely complex and contradictory, namely the fragmentary archaeological hints of symbol, myth, and culture in Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. * William G. Doty, author of Mythography: The Study of Myths and Rituals *

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Book SynopsisSt. Birgitta of Sweden (1303-1373, canonized 1391) was one of the most charismatic and influential female visionaries of the later Middle Ages. Altogether, she received some 700 revelations. They deal with a variety of subjects, from meditations on the human condition, domestic affairs in Sweden, and ecclesiastical matters in Rome, to revelations in praise of the Incarnation and devotion to the Virgin. Her Revelations, collected and ordered by her confessors, circulated widely throughout Europe and long after her death. Many eminent individuals, including Cardinal Juan Torqemada and Martin Luther, read and commented on her writings, which influenced the spiritual lives of countless individuals. Birgitta was also the founder of a new contemplative order, which still exists. She is the patron saint of Sweden, and in 2000 was declared (with Catherine of Siena and Edith Stein) the first co-patroness of Europe. This new translation in four volumes, supported by the Tercentenary Foundation oTrade ReviewThe introduction to the translation provides an extremely succinct and yet wide-ranging overview of Birgitta's work... This publication will do a lot to provide a secure foundation for the broader discussion of St Birgitta as a major medieval writer * Medium Aevum, Volume LXXVI *

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Book SynopsisPausanias, the Greek historian and traveler, lived and wrote around the second century AD, during the period when Greece had fallen peacefully to the Roman Empire. While fragments from this period abound, Pausanias'' Periegesis (description) of Greece is the only fully preserved text of travel writing to have survived. This collection uses Pausanias as a multifaceted lens yielding indispensable information about the cultural world of Roman Greece.Trade Review"The stimulating, thoughtful, and well-written essays of this volume will inspire still further work on Pausanias.... For anyone undertaking such work this book will be essential background reading, and it will also be rewarding reading for anyone interested in the era of the Second Sophistic and in the reception of antiquity in the modern age."--Bryn Mawr Classical Review

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Book SynopsisA new translation of a long-neglected Greek drama that has become increasingly popular in classrooms and on the stage. The two editors, Alan Shapiro and Peter Burian, a poet and classicist, collaborated previously on The Oresteia. This is the final volume of the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series.Trade ReviewShapiro's poetic translation works not just as a rendering of Greek, but as a good, at times gripping, English Literature script. * Maxine Lewis, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction On the Translation Trojan Women Notes on the Text Glossary For Further Reading

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Book SynopsisXenophon''s Anabasis, or The Expedition of Cyrus, is one of the most exciting historical narratives--as well as the most important autobiographical work--to have survived from ancient Greece. It tells the story of Cyrus, a young and charismatic Persian prince, who in 401 BC enlisted more than ten thousand Greek mercenaries in an attempt to seize the vast Persian empire for himself. Cyrus was killed in a great battle, most of the Greek commanders subsequently fell victim to treachery, and an Athenian aristocrat by the name of Xenophon found himself in the unexpected position of taking charge and leading the Greeks from the vicinity of Babylon in modern Iraq back to the Greek cities in Turkey. This book both places the Anabasis in its historical and literary context and, by employing a variety of critical methods, opens up for the reader different ways of interpreting its major themes. Interrelated chapters investigate Xenophon''s self-representation as a model leader, his possible didacTrade ReviewSparkles on every page with apposite and often novel interpretations that shed light where there was darkness. ... It is a model of its kind: a generous, thoughtful, and deeply insightful interpretation of an ancient text, and one that is clear and well written. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *In this stimulating volume Michael Flower provides a comprehensive approach to Xenophon's Anabasis that greatly enhances our understanding of its narrative art and historical reliability. It is by far the most intelligent and thoughtful analysis of the Anabasis now available. ... Flower gives us the basics, but he also airs the controversies and makes illuminating suggestions about them for even the most expert among us. There is a strong streak of originality in his analysis, which sets off his detailed knowledge of the scholarship of others. * Classical Philology *Table of ContentsContents ; Editors' Foreword ; Map ; Preface ; Introduction ; 1. The Anabasis in Context ; 2. Xenophon as Author, Narrator, and Agent ; 3. Let It be Fact and Let It be Fiction? ; 4. Style and the Shaping of Narrative ; 5. Xenophon Takes Command ; 6. Xenophon on Trial ; 7. Reading the Anabasis ; 8. The Hand of God Artfully Placed ; Bibliography ; Prominent Persons ; General Index ; Index Locorum

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Book SynopsisThis book collects together the major published works, as well as some previously unpublished items, by Parry, who remains a major figure in Homeric studies. His work, which had been edited by his son, connected disparate contentions and observations made by preceding scholars on the Homeric question (as to who composed the poems, for example, and how they were composed). In formulating a consistent picture of what Homeric poetry was and what the conditions were that allowed it to come into being, his work continues to have a major impact in classics.This is a paperback reissue of a title first published by Clarendon Press in 1970.Trade ReviewWarmly recommended to all students of early epic, Greek or otherwise. * Religious Studies Review *

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Book SynopsisThis accessible overview covers all the basic linguistic elements of Old English, including nouns, adjectives, verbs, syntax, word order, and vocabulary. Offering a unique study of Old English in context, it combines a wide variety of short texts with an up-to-date assessment of the forms of language that remain as the foundation of English today. Comparisons are drawn between Old and present-day English and also with other related languages such as Dutch, German, and French. Old English poetry and dialect variation are also discussed.

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Book SynopsisPolybius'' Histories is one of classical antiquity''s great political narratives. Written in 40 books (of which only the first five are preserved in full), it originally set out to explain the dramatic rise of Rome in the half century from the war against Hannibal to the defeat and abolishment of the Macedonian kingdom in 167 BC. At a later stage, Polybius extended his coverage down to the Roman destruction of Carthage and Corinth in the year 146 BC. Although written in an ordinary Greek style, the work was composed with great care, clarity and skill, and provides a fascinating discourse on the politics of power. The author was himself a leading Greek politician and general who moved at ease among the most powerful men of the day and participated in many of the events that he describes. This volume provides an accessible introduction to this important work of classical literature. Beginning with an outline of its contents and organization, Brian McGing goes on to examine Polybius'' theTrade ReviewMcGing provides an admirably succinct overview of the issues * Denis Feeney, Times Literary Supplement *Table of ContentsEDITORS' FOREWORD; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; INTRODUCTION; LATER TIMES; MAPS; APPENDIX: OUTLINE OF THE WORK; BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS CITED; LIST OF PROMINENT PERSONS; INDEX

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Book SynopsisAristophanes is widely credited with having elevated the classical art of comedy to the level of legitimacy and recognition that only tragedy had hitherto achieved. This book provides an invaluable companion to one of Aristophanes' most cherished works, Frogs.

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