Category: Language/Literature

Citation with persistent identifier: Zhang, Wei. “Knowing Characters and Knowing Authors: ‘Poetic Knowledge’ in Ancient Greece and Early China.” CHS Research Bulletin 1, no. 2 (2013). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:ZhangW.Knowing_Characters_and_Knowing_Authors.2013 Does poetry impart a special knowledge to its audience, a form of knowledge with its own intrinsic values and not to be measured by any external criteria? Is there any part of reality to which access can be gained only in poetry? Questions  formulated as such are typically Greek ones that have had reverberations throughout the history of Western thought on poetry. To come to grips with these questions it seems to me necessary to explore the origins of the notion of “poetic knowledge” in early Greek poetics. Why did Greek philosophy construct such a notion as “poetic knowledge” in the first place? In what cultural process and historical context was the notion constructed? While examining Greek origins, it is advisable to expand… more

Victor Hugo says that Les Misérables is “a hydra at the beginning; an angel at the end.”  Taking the theme of transformation from something deadly and devious into something kindly and benevolent, this paper investigates how two contemporaneous nineteenth-century authors of similar background, though they do not know each other, draw on the conventions of Greek tragedy in their novels.  W.M. Thackeray in Vanity Fair and Victor Hugo in Les Misérables not only draw on the conventions of Greek tragedy, they also present a re-interpretation of the Oresteia through their novels. more

The Sanctuary of Dionysos Eleuthereus on the south east slope of the Acropolis in Athens and the theatron that was erected above it, was the major and performance venue for fifth century Athenian drama and it is quite possible that almost every play from that period was created specifically for this space. I suggest that we can learn a great deal more about the original reception of the plays in performance by applying research from the affective sciences to the evidence of material culture and the texts of the plays themselves. Here I focus on the relationship of the spectator to the environment with which the theatre was located, in particular the stunning view of the landscape, sea and sky. I apply the four spatial realms theory of Previc to the theatre space and following Previc’s research, suggest that the relationship of the performance space to its view created a… more

As an initial and exploratory step of a broader research on emotional discourses in Hellenistic Judaism, this paper looks at emotional responses to others’ suffering in a few Jewish texts, written in Greek in late Antiquity. As the Hebrew tradition meets the Greek language and culture, new discourses emerge, adjusting the vocabulary available and reframing both the existing Hebrew and Greek discourses on compassion and pity. The paper examines the evolution of those discourses, especially in terms of social dynamics, in a few texts, representative of Judeo-Hellenistic literature: the Septuagint (LXX) translation of the Hebrew Book of Proverbs, Josephus’ rewriting of the Jewish scriptures in the first eleven volumes of his Antiquities, and the Testament of Zebulun, one of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, a pseudepigraphic narrative loosely grafted on the book of Genesis. The texts represent different stages in the development of Judeo-Hellenistic literature, and are characteristic of… more

This paper explores three deceptive and seductive female figures in Pindar’s myths: the Hera-cloud in Pythian 2, Koronis in Pythian 3, and Hippolyta in Nemean 5. The Hera-cloud is created by Zeus to deceive Ixion and to mark the end of the guest-friendship between Ixion and Zeus; thus, she represents the deception excluded from a relationship based on mutual respect and trust. Likewise, Koronis engages in a sexual relationship with Ischys in secret from her father. In doing so, she also deceives her previous lover Apollo, whose child she is carrying. Her deception damages the guest-host relationship between Ischys and her father and the pseudo-marriage between herself and Apollo. Finally, Hippolyta attempts to seduce Peleus, who, fearing retribution from Zeus Xenios, refuses her; she then concocts a story of Peleus’ attempts to seduce her. Gender is the key factor in coupling deception with seduction in each of these cases. Female… more