The cento-tragedy Medea usually attributed to Hosidius Geta was transmitted in the Codex Salmasianus (now Codex Parisinus 10318). This is a comprehensive study and reevaluation of the text against the background of the ancient cento tradition, also providing a new English translation. After developing a new definition of the ancient conception of the cento in general, Geta's cento technique and his use of the Vergilian text as well as his relation to the Greek and Roman models for his Medea are examined. It is shown that his play is innovative and sophisticated in both technique and content.

Little attention has been focused on the representation of Muslims in medieval Germany. Proceeding from a grounded use of contemporary cultural theory and close textual analysis, this study analyzes the role of Muslims in several core texts representing drama, epic, and lyric written by the most important writers of medieval Germany. Far from simply adding medieval Germany to the growing scholarly list of the 'pre-post-colonializing' European cultures, this study provides important new perspectives.

Righteous heathens or virtuous pagans - classical or other non-Christian figures whose reputation for virtue evoked the admiration of medieval writers and provoked anxious speculation about the possibility of their salvation - feature prominently in a wide variety of late-medieval English texts, and this book surveys their appearances in travel literature, chronicles, romances, and sermons, as well as in the work of Langland, Chaucer and Gower, Representing Righteous Heathens in Medieval England is not just a taxonomy; Grady argues throughout the interest in virtuous pagans is much more than just an outgrowth of contemporary theological debates and that English used these figures to explore a variety of historical, cultural and formal literary issues.

Plautus, Rome's earliest extant poet, was acclaimed by ancient critics above all for his mastery of language and his felicitous jokes; and yet in modern times relatively little attention has been devoted to elucidating these elements fully. In Funny Words in Plautine Comedy, Michael Fontaine reassesses some of the premises and nature of Plautus' comedies. Mixing textual and literary criticism, Fontaine argues that many of Plautus' jokes and puns were misunderstood already in antiquity, and that with them the names and identities of some familiar characters were misconceived. Central to his study are issues of Plautine language, style, psychology, coherence of characterization, and irony. By examining the comedian's tendency to make up and misuse words, Fontaine sheds new light on the close connection between Greek and Roman comedy. Considerable attention is also paid to Plautus' audience and to the visual elements in his plays. The result is a reappraisal that will challenge many received views of Plautus, positioning him as a poet writing in the Hellenistic tradition for a knowledgeable and sophisticated audience. All quotations from Latin, Greek, and other foreign languages are translated. Extensive indices, including a "pundex," facilitate ease of reference among the many jokes and plays on words discussed in the text.

This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary collection explores different ways of visualising Greek and Roman epic from Homer to Statius, in both ancient and modern culture. The book presents new perspectives on Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Valerius Flaccus and Statius, and covers the re-working of epic matter in tragedy, opera, film, late antique speeches of praise, story-boarding, sculpture and wall-painting. The chapters use a variety of methods to address the relationship between narrative and visuality, exploring how and why epic has inspired artists, authors and directors, and offering fresh visual interpretations of epic texts. Themes and issues discussed include: intermediality, ekphrasis and panegyric, illusion and deception, imagery and deferral, alienation and involvement, the multiplicity of possible visual responses to texts, three-dimensionality, miniaturisation, epic as cultural capital, and the specificity of genres, both literary and visual.

Explores the transformative power of ekphrasis in high and late medieval dream visions and mystical visions. Demonstrates that medieval ekphrases reveal ekphrasis as a process rather than a genre and shows how it works with cultural memory to transform, shift, and revise composition.

Despite the large number of early Greek inscribed epigrams and their historical and social importance, modern studies have focused either on the literary epigram or (especially after the publication of Hansen's Carmina Epigraphica Graeca) on the inscribed funerary epigram. The dedicatory inscribed epigram, on the other hand, has received little scholarly attention. As a result, neither a comprehensive commentary nor a study of the different features (archaeological, epigraphical, literary and linguistic) of Archaic and Classical inscribed verse dedications has appeared to date. This book aims to fill such a significant void by offering an interdisciplinary commentary on all the early Attic dedicatory epigrams, i.e. those dating from the 7th through the 5th century BCE. Since the message conveyed by an inscribed epigram can be understood only by taking into account three different semantic systems - that of art and archaeology, epigraphy, and that of language and style - at the same time, this commentary will combine a description of the morphology of the monuments on which the epigrams were engraved with an analysis of the alphabets and dialects used in the poems, while making observations on stylistic and literary data.

Evolving from a patrician domus, the emperor's residence on the Palatine became the centre of the state administration. Elaborate ceremonial regulated access to the imperial family, creating a system of privilege which strengthened the centralised power. Constantine followed the same model in his new capital, under a Christian veneer. The divine attributes of the imperial office were refashioned, with the emperor as God's representative. The palace was an imitation of heaven. Following the loss of the empire in the West and the Near East, the Palace in Constantinople was preserved - subject to the transition from Late Antique to Mediaeval conditions - until the Fourth Crusade, attracting the attention of Visgothic, Lombard, Merovingian, Carolingian, Norman and Muslim rulers. Renaissance princes later drew inspiration for their residences directly from ancient ruins and Roman literature, but there was also contact with the Late Byzantine court. Finally, in the age of Absolutism the palace became again an instrument of power in vast centralised states, with renewed interest in Roman and Byzantine ceremonial. Spanning the broadest chronological and geographical limits of the Roman imperial tradition, from the Principate to the Ottoman empire, the papers in the volume treat various aspects of palace architecture, art and ceremonial.

Chaucerotics examines the erotic language in Chaucerian literature through a unique lens, utilizing the tools of "pornographic literary theory" to open up Chaucer's ribald poetry to fresh modes of analysis. By introducing and applying the notion of "Chaucerotics," this study argues for a more historically-nuanced and theoretically-sophisticated understanding of the obscene content in Chaucer's fabliaux and Troilus and Criseyde. This book demonstrates that the sexually suggestive language of this magisterial Middle English poet could stimulate and titillate various literary audiences in late medieval England, and even goes so far as to suggest that Chaucer might well be understood as the "Father of English pornography" for playing a notable, liminal role in the development of porn as a literary genre. In making this case, Geoffrey W. Gust presents an insightful account of an important intellectual issue and opens up the subject of premodern pornography to consideration in a way that is new and highly provocative.

This book offers a new edition and comprehensive commentary of the extant fragments of genealogical and antiquarian epic dating to the archaic period (8th-6th cent. BC). By means of a detailed study of the multifaceted material pertaining to the remains of archaic Greek epic other than Homer, Hesiod, and the Homeric Hymns, it provides readers with a critical reassessment of the ancient evidence, allows access to new material hitherto unnoticed or scattered in various journals after the publication of the three standard editions now available to us, and offers a full-scale commentary of the extant fragments. This book fills a gap in the study of archaic Greek poetry, since it offers a guiding tool for the further exploration of Greek epic tradition in the archaic period and beyond.

Chaucer was a keen observer of the lives of women with a remarkable ability to see beyond his culture's preconceptions concerning their proper roles. The lives of medieval women were divided into three estates--virginity, wifehood, and widowhood--each with complex rules extending to particulars of speech and dress, but all directed toward the single purpose of preserving female chastity, for which a woman was to be prepared to suffer or even die. Margaret Hallissy's lively and literate study traces Chaucer's female characterizations against a background of medieval rules and common assumptions governing women to determine where he adhered to or departed from the behavioral norms. She concludes that he discounted much of these codes of conduct as being detrimental to the development of a full human person. The Wife of Bath, Chaucer's most drastic deviation from the received wisdom about women of his day, could only have been developed by an author/narrator who turned from the prescribed written rules--which, sacred or secular, were all instruments of patriarchal power--to female discourse and action. Applying insights from the works of modern social historians of the Middle Ages and ranging widely in sources from the visual arts, civil and canon law, homiletics, theology, architecture, fashion history, and medicine, Hallissy illuminates the preconceptions with which Chaucer's original audience would have encountered his work and brings her findings to bear on a close analysis of literary characters in the text. The resulting study provides an original and essential dimension for reading Chaucer, while its feminist-historicist approach broadens the audience to those interested in medieval studies and women's studies in general.

What is a paratext, and where can we find it in a Roman text? What kind of space does a paratext occupy, and how does this space relate to the text and its contexts? How do we interpret Roman texts 'paratextually'? And what does this approach suggest about a work's original modes of plotting meaning, or the assumptions that underpin our own interpretation? These questions are central to the conceptual and practical concerns of the volume, which offers a synoptic study of Roman paratextuality and its exegesis within the broad sphere of Roman studies. Its contributions, which span literary, epigraphic and visual culture, focus on a wide variety of paratextual features - e.g. titles and inter-titles, prefaces, indices, inscriptions, closing statements, decorative and formalistic details - and other paratextual phenomena, such as the frames that can be plotted at various intersections of a text's formal organization.

Shortlisted for the 2011 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies

Tolkien's unparalleled popularity has been largely attributed to his gifts as a storyteller and his thematic currency. But "The Lord of the Rings" may have become a modern classic for a deeper reason than we've noticed: Tolkien is a first-rate stylist. "The Power of Tolkien's Prose "illuminates the multifaceted appeal of Tolkien's prose style in dimensions ranging from his fantastic realism to his revitalizing imagery to his dynamic narrative to his expansive characterization to his engaging language. Viewed through the lens of Steve Walker's stylistic appreciation, Tolkien's fiction emerges as a new dimension of perception.

This volume examines the teaching of Jewishness within the context of medieval England. It covers a wide array of academic disciplines and addresses a multitude of primary sources, including medieval English manuscripts, law codes, philosophy, art, and literature, in explicating how the Jew-as-Other was formed. Chapters are devoted to the teaching of the complexities of medieval Jewish experiences in the modern classroom. Jews in Medieval England: Teaching Representations of the Other also grounds medieval conceptions of the Other within the contemporary world where we continue to confront the problematic attitudes directed toward alleged social outcasts.

This is the first major critical study of three late plays of Euripides: Helen, Andromeda, and Iphigenia among the Taurians. Matthew Wright offers a sustained reading of the plays, arguing that they are a thematically connected trilogy. He re-examines central themes such as myth, geography, cultural identity, philosophy, religion, and (crucially) genre. These are not separate topics, but are seen as being joined together to form an intricate nexus of ideas. The book has implications for our view of Euripides and the tragic genre as a whole.

A major work of Latin literature, Tristia 2 is a verse letter addressed by the exiled poet Ovid to the man who banished him from Rome, the emperor Augustus. Ovid apologizes to Augustus for the misdemeanours that led to his banishment, but, more importantly, defends both his life and his poetry in light of the accusation that his earlier Ars amatoria (The Art of Love) had promoted adultery. Jennifer Ingleheart's commentary, the most up-to-date and comprehensive one available, is an invaluable guide to all aspects of the poem - textual, literary, historical, and political - while her Introduction explores, among other topics, its ironical and subversive aspects.

Exploring and understanding how medieval Christians perceived and constructed the figure of the Prophet Muhammad is of capital relevance in the complex history of Christian-Muslim relations. Medieval authors writing in Latin from the 8th to the 14th centuries elaborated three main images of the Prophet: the pseudo-historical, the legendary, and the eschatological one. This volume focuses on the first image and consists of texts that aim to reveal the (Christian) truth about Islam. They have been taken from critical editions, where available, otherwise they have been critically transcribed from manuscripts and early printed books. They are organized chronologically in 55 entries: each of them provides information on the author and the work, date and place of composition, an introduction to the passage(s) reported, and an updated bibliography listing editions, translations and studies. The volume is also supplied with an introductory essay and an index of notable terms.

Laurie O'Higgins examines the role of women as producers of joking speech, especially within cults of Demeter. She considers the speech from its mythical origins in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, through the reactive iambic tradition and into old comedy. Sometimes known as aischrologia, this speech had considerable weight and vitality within its cultic context. It also influenced literary traditions, notably iambic and Attic old comedy traditionally regarded as entirely male.

Old and Middle English literature can be obscure and challenging. So, too, can the vast body of criticism it has elicited. Yet the masters of medieval literature often drew on similar texts, since imitation was admired. For this reason, recent scholarship has often focused on the importance of genre. The genre in which a work was written can illuminate the author's intentions and the text's meaning. Read in light of a genre's parameters, a given work can be considered in relation to other works within the same category. This reference is a comprehensive overview of Old and Middle English literature.

Chapters focus on particular genres, such as Allegorical Verse, Balladry, Beast Fable, Chronicle, Debate Poetry, Epic and Heroic, Lyric, Middle English Parody/Burlesque, Religious and Allegorical Verse, and Romance. Expert contributors define the primary characteristics of each genre and discuss relevant literary works. Chapters provide extensive reviews of scholarship and close with detailed bibliographies. A more thorough bibliography of major scholarly studies closes the book.

This book provides the first full edition and commentary of the Oxyrhynchus Glossary (POxy 1802 and 4812). This is a unique document both for the history of Greek lexicography and for the study of the cultural and linguistic exchange between the Greeks and the "others" in the Hellenistic near East. The fragment contains a fully alphabetized glossary with lemmas defined as "Persian," "Babylonian," and "Chaldaean", as well as lemmas taken from Greek dialects or common Greek. The entries are rich in quotations from ancient authorities including Berossus, Apollodorus and Erasistratus. This glossary had never been analyzed in depth previously. Francesca Schironi provides a comprehensive introduction and commentary that places the Oxyrhynchus Glossary into the wider context of Greek lexicography and scholarship, discusses its interest for non-Greek languages and the problems related to linguistic exchanges in the Near Eastern areas, and shows the uniqueness and value of this document. The Oxyrhynchus glossary and this study will be of interest to classicists, papyrologists, comparative philologists, and scholars interested in the history of Greek lexicography and scholarship.

The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio is one of the most discussed sources for the Norman Conquest of England. Its authorship and date cannot be established entirely beyond dispute, but the weight of scholarly opinion supports a date of composition of 1068 or earlier, by Guy, bishop of Amiens, thus making it the earliest surviving account. Whatever its date, the Carmen remains a source of intrinsic interest and importance, and one used by some of the great chroniclers of the period, such as Orderic Vitalis. It is an epic poem, concerned with some of the most momentous events of a remarkable year, in which Halley's comet was a disturbing portent of undisclosed disasters. For this second edition, Frank Barlow has written an entirely new and substantial historical introduction, incorporating the scholarly research of a generation. He has also provided a fresh translation and notes, as well as revising the Latin text of the 1972 edition by Catherine Morton and Hope Muntz.

The conquest of Wales by the medieval English throne produced a fiercely contested territory, both militarily and culturally. Wales was left fissured by frontiers of language, jurisdiction and loyalty--a reluctant meeting place of literary traditions and political cultures. But the profound consequences of this first colonial adventure on the development of medieval English culture have been disregarded. In setting English figurations of Wales against the contrasted representations of the Welsh language tradition, this volume seeks to reverse this neglect, insisting on the crucial importance of the English experience in Wales for any understanding of the literary cultures of medieval England and medieval Britain.