Silvio Bär - Böcker

This ground-breaking volume connects the situatedness of genre in English poetry with developments in classical scholarship, exploring how an emphasis on the interaction between English literary criticism and Classics changes, sharpens, or perhaps even obstructs views on genre in English poetry. “Genre” has classical roots: both in the etymology of the word and in the history of genre criticism, which begins with Aristotle. In a similar vein, recent developments in genre studies have suggested that literary genres are not given or fixed entities, but subjective and unstable (as well as historically situated), and that the reception of genre by both writers and scholars feeds back into the way genre is articulated in specific literary works.Classical scholarship, literary criticism, and genre form a triangle of key concepts for the volume, approached in different ways and with different productive results by contributors from across the disciplines of Classics and English literature. Covering topics from the establishment of genre in the Middle Ages to the invention of female epic and the epyllion, and bringing together the works of English poets from Milton to Tennyson to Josephine Balmer, the essays collected hereargue that the reception and criticism of classical texts play a crucial part in generic formation in English poetry.

This ground-breaking volume connects the situatedness of genre in English poetry with developments in classical scholarship, exploring how an emphasis on the interaction between English literary criticism and Classics changes, sharpens, or perhaps even obstructs views on genre in English poetry. “Genre” has classical roots: both in the etymology of the word and in the history of genre criticism, which begins with Aristotle. In a similar vein, recent developments in genre studies have suggested that literary genres are not given or fixed entities, but subjective and unstable (as well as historically situated), and that the reception of genre by both writers and scholars feeds back into the way genre is articulated in specific literary works.Classical scholarship, literary criticism, and genre form a triangle of key concepts for the volume, approached in different ways and with different productive results by contributors from across the disciplines of Classics and English literature. Covering topics from the establishment of genre in the Middle Ages to the invention of female epic and the epyllion, and bringing together the works of English poets from Milton to Tennyson to Josephine Balmer, the essays collected hereargue that the reception and criticism of classical texts play a crucial part in generic formation in English poetry.

This is the first scholarly exploration of concepts and representations of Artificial Intelligence in ancient Greek and Roman epic, including their reception in later literature and culture. Contributors look at how Hesiod, Homer, Apollonius of Rhodes, Moschus, Ovid and Valerius Flaccus crafted the first literary concepts concerned with automata and the quest for artificial life, as well as technological intervention improving human life.Parts one and two consider, respectively, archaic Greek, and Hellenistic and Roman, epics. Contributors explore the representations of Pandora in Hesiod, and Homeric automata such as Hephaestus’ wheeled tripods, the Phaeacian king Alcinous’ golden and silver guard dogs, and even the Trojan Horse. Later examples cover Artificial Intelligence and automation (including Talos) in the Argonautica of Apollonius and Valerius Flaccus, and Pygmalion’s ivory woman in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Part three underlines how these concepts benefit from analysis of the ekphrasis device, within which they often feature. These chapters investigate the cyborg potential of the epic hero and the literary implications of ancient technology. Moving into contemporary examples, the final chapters consider the reception of ancient literary Artificial Intelligence in contemporary film and literature, such as the Czech science-fiction epic Starvoyage, or Small Cosmic Odyssey by Jan Kr?esadlo (1995) and the British science-fiction novel The Holy Machine by Chris Beckett (2004).

This is the first scholarly exploration of concepts and representations of Artificial Intelligence in ancient Greek and Roman epic, including their reception in later literature and culture. Contributors look at how Hesiod, Homer, Apollonius of Rhodes, Moschus, Ovid and Valerius Flaccus crafted the first literary concepts concerned with automata and the quest for artificial life, as well as technological intervention improving human life.Parts one and two consider, respectively, archaic Greek, and Hellenistic and Roman, epics. Contributors explore the representations of Pandora in Hesiod, and Homeric automata such as Hephaestus’ wheeled tripods, the Phaeacian king Alcinous’ golden and silver guard dogs, and even the Trojan Horse. Later examples cover Artificial Intelligence and automation (including Talos) in the Argonautica of Apollonius and Valerius Flaccus, and Pygmalion’s ivory woman in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Part three underlines how these concepts benefit from analysis of the ekphrasis device, within which they often feature. These chapters investigate the cyborg potential of the epic hero and the literary implications of ancient technology. Moving into contemporary examples, the final chapters consider the reception of ancient literary Artificial Intelligence in contemporary film and literature, such as the Czech science-fiction epic Starvoyage, or Small Cosmic Odyssey by Jan Kr?esadlo (1995) and the British science-fiction novel The Holy Machine by Chris Beckett (2004).

This collection offers a new collaborative reading of Quintus Smyrnaeus' Posthomerica: a major, fascinating Greek epic written at the height of the Roman Empire. Building on the surge of interest in imperial Greek poetry seen in the past decades, this volume applies multiple approaches literary, theoretical and historical to ask new questions about this mysterious, challenging poet and to re-evaluate his role in the cultural history of his time. Bringing together experienced imperial epic scholars and new voices in this growing field, the chapters reveal Quintus' crucial place within the inherited epic tradition and his role in shaping the literary politics of Late Antique society.

Offers a literary and cultural-historical analysis of the PosthomericaConnects Quintus with a far wider range of ancient literature: historical, philosophical, dramatic, and rhetorical genres; and prosaic and poetic worksMoves away from the localized study of particular aspects of the poem to a joined-up understanding of this era of epic, as a corpus engaging dialogically with issues of empire, literary inheritance and cultural changeIntersects with the growing field of study of Late Antique literature, and the burgeoning interest in imperial Greek poetry and its accounts of the sack of Troy a story which continues to resonate in scholarly and public discourseThis collection offers a new collaborative reading of Quintus Smyrnaeus' Posthomerica: one of the most important Greek epics written at the height of the Roman Empire. Building on the surge of interest in imperial Greek poetry seen in the past decades, this book applies new approaches - literary, theoretical and historical - to ask new questions about this mysterious, challenging poet and to re-evaluate his role in the cultural history of his time.Bringing together experienced imperial epic scholars and new voices in this growing field, the chapters reveal Quintus' crucial place within the inherited epic tradition and his role in shaping the literary and identity politics of Late Antique society.