This book investigates how subjectivity is encoded in the texts of a wide variety of medieval narratives and lyrics - not how they express the subjectivity of individuals, but how subjectivity, escaping the bounds of individuality, is incorporated in the linguistic fabric of their texts. Most of the poems discussed are in English, and the book includes analyses of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Man of Law's Tale, and Complaint Unto Pity, the works of the Pearl poet, Havelok the Dane, the lyric sequence attributed to Charles of Orleans (the earliest such sequence in English), and many anonymous poems. It also devotes sections to Ovid's Heroides and to poems by the troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn. For the first time, it brings to bear on medieval narratives and lyrics a body of theory which denies the supposed necessity for literary texts to have narrators or 'speakers', and in doing so reveals the implausibilities into which a dogmatic assumption of this necessity has led much of the last century's criticism.

Euripides' Electra opened up for its audience an opportunity to become self-aware as to the appeal of tragic Kunstsprache: it both reflected and sustained traditional, aristocratically-inflected assumptions about the continuity of appearance and substance, even in a radical democracy. A complex analogy between social and aesthetic valuation is played out and brought to light. The characterization of Orestes early in the play demonstrates how social appearances made clear the identity of well-born, and how they were still assumed to indicate superior virtue and agency. On the aesthetic side of the analogy, one of the functions of tragic diction, as an essential indication of heroic character and agency, comes into view in a dramatic and thematic sequence that begins with Achilles ode and ends with the planning of the murders. Serious doubts are created as to whether Orestes will realize the assumed potential inherent in his heroic genealogy and, at the same time, as to whether the components of his character as an aesthetic construct are congruent with such qualities and agency. Both sides of this complex analogy are thus problematized, and, at a metapoetic level, its nature and bases are exposed for reflection.

Did 1st century Mediterranean readers of the fourth Gospel have comparable literary examples to inform their comprehension of Moses as a character? In addressing this question, Harstine's study falls into two parts: the first is an analysis of the character Moses as utilized in the text of the fourth Gospel, and the second is an examination of other Hellenistic narrative texts, in which the character of Homer is also considered, as another important legendary figure with whom the readers of the fourth Gospel would have been familiar.

Richard E. Zeikowitz explores various discourses of male same-sex desire in diverse 14th century chivalric texts and describes the sociopolitical forces motivating those discourses. He attempts to dethrone traditional heteronormative views by drawing attention to culturally normative "queer" desire. Zeikowitz articulates possible homoeroticized interactions in chivalric texts, such as Charny's Book of Chivalry, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Troilus and Criseyde. He also examines how intimate male bonds are rendered as dangerous attachments in chronicle narratives of the reigns of Edward II and Richard II.

This volume comprises a series of studies focusing on the Latin poetry of the first and second centuries BCE, its relationship to earlier models both Greek and Latin, and its reception by later writers. A point of particular focus is the influence of Greek poetry, including not only Hellenistic writers like Callimachus, Theocritus, and Lycophron, but also archaic poets like Pindar and Bacchylides. The volume also includes studies of style, as well as treatments of the influence of Latin poetry on writers like Marvell and Dylan. Contributers include J. N. Adams, Barbara Weiden Boyd, Brian Breed, Sergio Casali, Julia Hejduk, Peter Knox, Leah Kronenburg, Charles Martindale, Charles McNelis, James O'Hara, Thomas Palaima, Hayden Pelliccia, David Petrain, David Ross, and Alexander Sens.

Contains: Conservatism and the Quarterly Review: A Critical Analysis The History of the Book: 1 Contributors to the Quarterly Review: A History, 1809-25 The History of the Book: 2 Wilkie Collins's American Tour, 1873-4 The History of the Book: 3 William Blake and the Art of Engraving The History of the Book: 4 Charles Lamb, Elia and the London Magazine: Metropolitan Muse The History of the Book: 5 Reading in History: New Methodologies from the Anglo-American Tradition The History of the Book: 6 Middle-Class Writing in Late Medieval London The History of the Book: 7 Readings on Audience and Textual Materiality The History of the Book: 8 Romantic Marginality: Nation and Empire on the Borders of the Page The History of the Book: 9 Wordsworth's Poetic Collections, Supplementary Writing and Parodic Reception The History of the Book: 10

In the first part of this volume on the literary technique of imitation, the author analyses Virgil's working over the text of Homer which paradoxically represents a true act of artistic originality. In the second chapter, the author reconstructs the presuppositions of a method and explores at the same time its limitations.

This motivational analysis of the protagonists in Thomas Hardy's three most widely read novels--Tess of the d'Urbervilles, The Mayor of Casterbridge, and Jude the Obscure--highlights an often-overlooked aspect of his art. Bernard J. Paris shows Hardy's genius in creating imagined human beings. He demonstrates that while Hardy tends to blame external conditions for his characters' painful fates, their downfalls are due to a very complex combination of cosmic, social, and psychological factors.

Hardy's characters are usually discussed primarily in thematic terms. The characters are are so richly portrayed, Paris argues, that they can be better understood independent of Hardy's interpretations, in motivational terms and he utilizes the psychologist Karen Horney's theories to recover Hardy's intuitions. The characters are full of inner conflicts that make them difficult to fathom, but the approach Paris employs explains their contradictions and illuminates their troubled relationships--shedding light on these expertly crafted imagined human beings.

This psychological approach to Hardy's characters enables us to understand his characters and gain insight into the implied authors of the works. In addition, the approach shows Hardy's authorial personality. We can see that Hardy treats some defensive strategies more sympathetically than others. Given his view of life as "a general drama of pain," resignation, like that of Hardy's character Elizabeth-Jane, is the strategy he prefers.

Studies on the Derveni Papyrus, volume II brings together two new editions of the first fragmentarily extant columns of the Derveni Papyrus and seven scholarly articles devoted to their interpretation. The Derveni Papyrus is by far the most important textual discovery of the 20th century regarding early Greek philosophy, religion, exegetical theory and practice, linguistic ideas, and a host of other areas and issues. But the editorial and interpretative history of this extraordinary document has been very checkered. While the interpretation of the better preserved later columns is still highly controversial in many regards, at least the text of those columns has by and large found a scholarly consensus; but the editorial and interpretative situation with the worse preserved first columns is quite different. This volume offers not one but two editions of the first columns, by Richard Janko and by Valeria Piano, given that it is not currently possible to agree upon a single edition; and it explains clearly and in detail the papyrological problems and doubts that lead to these two editions, making it possible for readers (even non-papyrologists) to form their own informed judgment about the most likely readings to be adopted. Furthermore, it contains a number of articles by leading scholars on the Derveni Papyrus, above all offering original solutions to the question of the relation between the earlier and the later columns, but also providing analysis and interpretation of other, related problems.

This volume on the three Flavian epic poets (Valerius Flaccus, Statius and Silius Italicus) for the first time critically engages with a unique set-up in Roman literary history: the survival of four epic poems from the same period (Argonautica; Thebaid, Achilleid; Punica). The interactions of these poems with each other and their contemporary context are explored by over 20 experts and emerging scholars. Topics studied include the political dimension of the epics, their use of epic themes and techniques and their intertextual relationship among each other and to predecessors. The recent upsurge of interest in Flavian epic has been focussed on the analysis of individual works. Looking at these poems together now allows the appreciation of their similarities and nuanced differences in the light of their shared position in literary and political history and gives insights into the literary culture of the period. The different approaches and backgrounds of the contributors ensure the presentation of a range of viewpoints. Together they offer new perspectives to the still increasing readership of Flavian epic poetry but also to anyone interested in the epic genre within Roman literature or other cultures more generally.

In Caesar's Civil War: Historical Reality and Fabrication, Westall combines literary analysis of Caesar's Bellum Civile with a concern for the socio-economic history of the Roman empire. The Bellum Gallicum and the Shakespearean play are better known, but Caesar's partisan account of the Roman civil war culminating in the battle of Pharsalus offers a historical text of perennial interest and relevance. Two introductory chapters contextualize this book and offer a traditional narrative of political and military history for 49-48 BCE. There follow seven chapters that are dedicated to each of the geographical theatres of civil war. These chapters show how Caesar's testimony sheds important light upon the nature of Roman rule in the Mediterranean, but also explore the problems to be encountered in using potentially tendentious testimony.

From runic inscriptions to sagas, this book introduces readers to the colourful world of Old Norse-Icelandic literature. It covers not only mythology and family sagas, but also looks at less well-known areas, such as oral story-telling, Eddaic verse and skaldic verse. An introduction describing the language and culture of the first settlers in Iceland helps readers to appreciate the background against which this literature was produced.

The book acts as an introduction not only to Old-Norse Icelandic literature, but also to its reception through the ages and its influence on literature written in English. The author shows how a whole range of authors from Chaucer to Seamus Heaney have been influenced by this body of work, pointing out that even King Lear and Hamlet appear in Old Norse texts.

The Consolation of Philosophy was composed when its author was awaiting execution on a charge of treason. It outlines the true good at which we should aim: not wealth, high position, or worldly fame, but the knowledge of God, our end and our beginning. Professor Walsh has included an introduction and explanatory notes which combined with his new translation make the text accessible to general readers and scholars alike.

"The Roman Self in Late Antiquity" for the first time situates Prudentius within a broad intellectual, political, and literary context of fourth-century Rome. As Marc Mastrangelo convincingly demonstrates, the late-fourth-century poet drew on both pagan and Christian intellectual traditions--especially Platonism, Vergilian epic poetics, and biblical exegesis--to define a new vision of the self for the newly Christian Roman Empire.

Mastrangelo proposes an original theory of Prudentius's allegorical poetry and establishes Prudentius as a successor to Vergil. Employing recent approaches to typology and biblical exegesis as well as the most current theories of allusion and intertextuality in Latin poetry, he interprets the meaning and influence of Prudentius's work and positions the poet as a vital author for the transmission of the classical tradition to the early modern period.

This provocative study challenges the view that poetry in the fourth century played a subordinate role to patristic prose in forging Christian Roman identity. It seeks to restore poetry to its rightful place as a crucial source for interpreting the rich cultural and intellectual life of the era.

The medieval in the modern world is here explored in a variety of media, from film and book to gaming. Medievalism - the ways in which post-medieval societies perceive, interpret, reimagine, or appropriate the Middle Ages - permeates popular culture. From Disney princesses to Game of Thrones, medieval fairs to World of Warcraft, contemporary culture keeps finding new ways to reinvent and repackage the period. Medievalism itself, then, continues to evolve while it is also subject to technological advances, prominent invocations in political discourse,and the changing priorities of the academy. This has led some scholars to adopt the term "neomedievalism", a concept originating in part from the work of the late Umberto Eco, which calls for new avenues of inquiry into the wayswe think about the medieval. This book examines recent evolutions of (neo)medievalism across multiple media, from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings to the film Beowulf and medieval gaming. These evolutions can take the form of what one might consider to be pop culture objects of critique (art, commodity, amusement park, video game) or academic tools of critique (monographs, articles, lectures, university seminars). It is by reconciling theseseemingly disparate forms that we can better understand the continual, interconnected, and often politicized reinvention of the Middle Ages in both popular and academic culture. KELLYANN FITZPATRICK is an affiliated researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy is a volume of original articles on all aspects of ancient philosophy. The articles may be of substantial length, and include critical notices of major books. From 2000 OSAP is being published not once but twice yearly, to keep up with the abundance of good material submitted; and it is being made available in paperback as well as hardback, in response to demand from scholars wishing to purchase it. This volume, the second of 2000, features contributors from Michael Wedin and Dominic Scott, and discusses issues ranging from Socratic Intellectualism to Aristotle on animal psychology.

'standard reading among specialists in ancient philosophy' Brad Inwood, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Argonauts of the Desert explains through a comparative analysis based on the structural method of anthropologist Claude L?vi-Strauss, how most of the stories and many laws of the Bible were inspired by Greek literature. The books from Genesis to Kings may have been written by a single author, a Hellenized Judean scholar, who used Platos ideal State in the Laws as a primary source of inspiration. As such, biblical Israel is a recreation of that twelve tribes State, governed solely by divine law. Most stories surrounding the birth, life and death of that State were inspired by Greek epics, such as the Argonauts, Thebes, Heracles and Troy, as well as by Herodotus Histories. Previous paradigms dealing with the origins of the Old Testament, such as the documentary hypothesis, are rejected in this demonstration. The main chapters are set in the order of the books from Genesis to Kings, each of which presents biblical stories or laws and compares them with their Greek or Roman equivalents. For each story, there is a discussion of similarities and differences. Through this demonstration, the reader comes to understand how the Bible was written and influenced by Greek literature. The book can be read as a commentary on the Bible in light of its Greek sources, to an extent that has not been attempted before.

Medieval Irish texts reveal distinctive and unexpected constructions of gender. Constructing Gender in Medieval Ireland illuminates these ideas through its fresh and provocative re-readings of a wide range of texts, including saga, romance, legal texts, Fenian narrative, hagiography, and ecclesiastical verse. This ground-breaking collection presents new research by emerging and established scholars, who explore a variety of perspectives on sexual difference in medieval Irish culture. The contributors examine the intersections of gender with narrative, visuality, law, speech acts, transgression, and performance - painting a compelling picture of the many ways in which authors and audiences conceptualized gender in medieval Ireland.

Overviews the background, plot, themes, and language of Beowulf Perhaps the most important work written in Old English, Beowulf tells of a world very different from our own. While the history and culture behind the poem make it challenging for modern audiences, its story of war, violence, and heroism remains relevant to today's readers. Though largely neglected until the 20th century, Beowulf is now widely studied by school students and undergraduates. In addition, it continues to shape contemporary popular culture. This companion overviews the poem and its legacy. The first part of the book provides information of interest to a wide range of readers, while the second covers more specialized topics. Thus the initial chapters review the merits of different translations and offer a detailed plot summary, while later chapters discuss the poem's language and style, its treatment of religion, its relation to Anglo-Saxon culture, and its legacy in popular culture. One of the greatest Beowulf scholars was J.R.R. Tolkien, and the book gives special attention to his use of the poem in his own fiction. valuable guide to one of the most challenging yet enduring works of English literature.; Accessible to school students and general readers; Provides a detailed plot summary; Discusses the poem's background, style, and language; Discusses the poem's lasting influence on contemporary popular culture, including its influence on Tolkien

The Poetics of Aristotle By Aristotle A Translation By S. H. Butcher Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory. In it, Aristotle offers an account of what he calls "poetry" (a term which in Greek literally means "making" and in this context includes drama-comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play-as well as lyric poetry, epic poetry, and the dithyramb). He examines its "first principles" and identifies its genres and basic elements. His analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion. Although Aristotle's Poetics is universally acknowledged in the Western critical tradition, Marvin Carlson explains, "almost every detail about his seminal work has aroused divergent opinions." The work was lost to the Western world and often misrepresented for a long time. It was available through the Middle Ages and early Renaissance only through a Latin translation of an Arabic version written by Averroes.

The transmission of literature in writing began in the Greek world with poetry; the publication of laws and regulations came later, and prose literature last, about 500 BC. This book examines the stages by which prose was turned into the sophisticated art-form practised in the fourth century BC, in particular by Plato and Demosthenes. An attempt is made to determine the linguistic conventions which can reasonably be attributed, on the analogy of other cultures, to unwritten narrative and oratory. The extent to which `content' and `form' can be separated is considered, and the stylistic choices which constitute form are treated as determining the relationship (e.g. of authority or familiarity) between creator and receiver and the balance sought by the creator between innovation and deference to the receiver's expectations.

Philip Burton explores Augustine's treatment of language in his Confessions - a major work of Western philosophy and literature, with continuing intellectual importance. One of Augustine's key concerns is the story of his own encounters with language: from his acquisition of language as a child, through his career as schoolboy orator then star student at Carthage, to professor of rhetoric at Carthage and Rome. Having worked his way up to the eminence of Court Orator to the Roman Emperor at Milan, Augustine rediscovered the catholic Christianity of his childhood - and decided that this was incompatible with his rhetorical profession. Over the next ten years, he gradually reinvents himself as a different sort of language professional: a Christian intellectual, commentating on Scripture and preaching to his flock.

?Among the many national poets of historical Persia, Ferdowsi is perhaps the greatest...In this superb translation of the epic, the Western reader would not fail to discern clear equivalents of chapters in Genesis, The Odyssey, Paradise Lost or the Canterbury Tales.? Islamic Review
The Shah-nama is the national epic poem of Persia. Written in the tenth century it contains the country's myths, legends and historic reminiscences. This edition makes available a valuable prose translation selecting the most representative parts of the original including the stories of Rustum, the giant hero and his son Sohrab.

Essays considering the representation and perception of hell in a variety of texts. Narratives of a descent to the underworld, of the sights to be seen and the punishments meted out there, have kept a hold on the popular imagination for millennia. The legacy from doctrinal warnings and the deep-set literary markers that identify a place of suffering and alienation continue to stimulate creative exchange and critical thinking. Such work takes risks: it braves the dark and questions the past. The contributions in this volume reflect on the exigency of hell in the stories that we tell. They consider the transfer and repurposing of motifs across genres and generational divides, and acknowledge the sustained immediacy of physical and psychological landscapes of hell. The essays span a wide chronological range and apply various contemporary critical approaches, including cognitive science, performance studies and narratology. This cross-period analysis is complemented by interviews with three creative practitioners: Jeya Ayadurai, director of "Hell's Museum" in Singapore, the actor Lisa Dwan, who is acclaimed for her dramatisation of Samuel Beckett's late works, and the writer David Almond. From ancient myth and early English sermons to mid-twentieth-century surrealism and current responses to terrorist activities and environmental damage, the literature of hell engages with issues of immediate relevance and asks its audiences to reflect on their cultural history, the meaning of social justice and the nature of embodied existence.