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Books > Language & Literature > Literature: texts > Essays, journals, letters & other prose works > Classical, early & medieval
This book covers the history of Polish cinema from 1989 up to the present in a broad political and cultural context, looking at both the film industry and film artistry. It considers the main ideas behind the institutional changes in the Polish film industry after the collapse of communism and assesses how these ideas were implemented. In discussing artistry, the focus is on the genres which dominated the Polish cinematic landscape after 1989 and the most important directors.
This is the OCR-endorsed edition covering the Latin A-Level (Group 2) prescription of Annals XIV, 1-13, giving full Latin text, commentary and vocabulary, with a detailed introduction that also covers the prescribed material to be read in English for A Level. Tacitus is one of the great Roman historians. His Annals, written in the early-2nd century CE, described the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius and Nero, covering the years 14-68 CE. In this selection he provides a memorable vignette of Nero's decadence and cruelty in the failed and then successful murder of his own mother, Agrippina. The drama of Nero's reign must be read in the context of Tacitus' perspective as an author writing within living memory of the events he describes, events which shaped the further development of imperial rule. Supporting resources are available on the Companion Website: https://www.bloomsbury.pub/OCR-editions-2024-2026
Aristophanes (ca. 456 BC - ca. 386 BC) was a Greek Old Comic dramatist. He is also known as the Father of Comedy and the Prince of Ancient Comedy. "Lysistrata" was written during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta and argues not so much for pacifism as for the idea that the states ought not be fighting one another at this point but combining to rule Greece.
This is the OCR-endorsed edition covering the Latin AS and A-Level (Group 3) prescription of Virgil's Aeneid Book 2, lines 40-249 and the A-Level (Group 4) prescription of Book 2, lines 268-317, 370-558, giving full Latin text, commentary and vocabulary, with a detailed introduction that also covers the prescribed material to be read in English for A Level. Book II of Virgil's Aeneid is the story of how Troy fell and how Aeneas escaped with his family and his city's gods. It is a narrative relayed in retrospect by Aeneas as a refugee at the court of Queen Dido in Carthage, and the OCR selection covers the book's first two thirds: the Wooden Horse episode, and the chaos which ensues - including the dramatic murder of King Priam. Virgil depicts war in all its ugly complexity, and Aeneas' response to this - as combatant in Troy, as exile in Carthage - is central to the poem's early exposition. Supporting resources are available on the Companion Website: https://www.bloomsbury.pub/OCR-editions-2024-2026
Feminist theory on motherhood has successfully transformed mothers into subjects of their own discourse, recognized the historical, heterogeneous and socially constructed origins of their life experience while, at the same time, widening our understanding of the notion of mothering. This collection combines a literary and a wider cultural perspective from which to look at the topic of the representation of other or forgotten motherhoods. Mothers who have been forced to live exiled and away from their children, women who after trying to conceive, get pregnant but discover they cannot bear to become mothers, or even literary characters based on an autobiographical experience of a sexually abusive mother. The essays critically point out how writing becomes a tool to think and write about the many aspects of motherhood such as an idealized maternal experience versus the real one or the accepted stereotypes of the good mother and the bad mother.
The first time that Nietzsche crossed the path of Dostoevsky was in the winter of 1886-87. While in Nice, Nietzsche discovered in a bookshop the volume L'esprit souterrain. Two years later, he defined Dostoevsky as the only psychologist from whom he had anything to learn. The second, metaphorical encounter between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky happened on the verge of nihilism. Nietzsche announced the death of God, whereas Dostoevsky warned against the danger of atheism. This book describes the double encounter between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. Following the chronological thread offered by Nietzsche's correspondence, the author provides a detailed analysis of Nietzsche's engagement with Dostoevsky from the very beginning of his discovery to the last days before his mental breakdown. The second part of this book aims to dismiss the wide-spread and stereotypical reading according to which Dostoevsky foretold and criticized in his major novels some of Nietzsche's most dangerous and nihilistic theories. In order to reject such reading, the author focuses on the following moral dilemma: If God does not exist, is everything permitted?
Three manuscripts together preserve a fragment from book II of the "Elementa Rhythmica" of Aristoxenus, a contemporary of Aristotle.;This edition offers the first critical text to be published for over a century and the only commentary since that of Westphal in 1893. Professor Pearson offers further evidence of Aristoxenian theory in extracts from later Greek musical writers, and from the important papyrus fragment "Oxyrhynchus Papyri" 2687, also presented here with translation and commentary. He shows that Aristoxenus explains rhythm in terms that would be acceptable to musicians today, and that he does not regard rhythm as "purely quantative". Moreover, he maintains here that rhythm, as Aristoxenus understands it, can be found in the lyric poetry of the fifth century, and that he offers an alternative to current metrical theory. This study covers rhythm and harmonic theory from the surviving fragments of Aristoxenus' text and other sources, and then applies it to actual texts of Greek poetry, aiming to reveal the rhythm or rhythms to which Aristoxenus thought the verse was meant to be sung.
The author has selected a cross-section of Cornelius Nepos' work, which shows the literary, social, political and intellectual history of the period 90 to 30 B.C. There are also fragments of Cato, Atticus and Nepos' other works. He also translates and comments on Nepos' preface to his lives of the Foreign Generals and on the "Letter of Cornelia", preserved by Nepos. This collection is aimed not only to illuminate the study of Cicero and the late Roman Republic, but to help awaken interest in neglected areas of Roman historical writing and intellectual life, which only in the last decade have attracted serious study.
This book assesses a narrow but vital - and so far understudied - part of Roman women's lives: puberty, preparation for pregnancy, pregnancy and childbirth. Bringing together for the first time the material and textual sources for this key life stage, it describes the scientific, educational, medical and emotional aspects of the journey towards motherhood. The first half of the book considers the situation a Roman girl would find herself in when it came to preparing for children. Sources document the elementary sexual education offered at the time, and society's knowledge of reproductive health. We see how Roman women had recourse to medical advice, but also turned to religion and magic in their preparations for childbirth. The second half of the book follows the different stages of pregnancy and labour. As well as the often-documented examples of joyous expectation and realisation of progeny, there are also family tragedies - young girls dying prematurely, stillbirth, death in childbirth, and death during confinement. Finally, the book considers the social change that childbirth wrought on the mother, not just the new baby - in many ways it was also a mother who was in the process of being conceived and brought into the world.
The second edition will present in two volumes, all that survives and has hitherto been published of pre-Alexandrian elegy and iambus, including relevant testimonia and critical apparatus. West reexamines many papyri and manuscript sources including preserved fragments in quotation from modern editions. Since its appearance in 1971-72, the work has been widely acknowledged as the standard critical edition of the early Greek iambic and elegiac poets. This first volume, thoroughly revised and brought up to date, contains the Theognidea, works by Hipponax, The Cologne Epode of Archilochus, several other fragments in a more complete or correct form, and hundreds of minor improvements.
Gathering together over 60 new and revised discussions of textual issues, this volume represents notorious problems in well-known texts from the classical era by authors including Horace, Ennius, and Vergil. A follow-up to Vegiliana: Critical Studies on the Texts of Publius Vergilius Maro (2017), the volume includes major contributions to the discussion of Horace's Carmen IV 8 and IV 12, along with studies on Catullus Carmen 67 and Hadrian's Animula vagula, as well as a new contribution on Livy's text at IV 20 in connection with Cossus's spolia opima, and on Vergil's Aeneid 3. 147-152 and 11. 151-153. On Ennius, the author presents several new ideas on Ann. 42 Sk. and 220-22l, and in editing Horace, he suggests new principles for the critical apparatus and tries to find a balance by weighing both sides in several studies, comparing a conservative and a radical approach. Critica will be an important resource for students and scholars of Latin language and literature.
This book offers a new English translation of Musaeus' poem Hero and Leander, with the original Greek on the facing page, a substantial introduction and a detailed commentary. The tragic romance of Hero and Leander has had and still has a great appeal, inspiring countless writers, painters, sculptors, and musicians. The Introduction aims at situating the poem within its literary tradition and cultural context as well as at drawing its major themes and describing the salient features of its style. Because Hero and Leander enjoyed an immense and uninterrupted popularity, the Introduction also devotes a large section to the poem's reception in literature, which crosses paths with the reception of the other main ancient poetic treatment of the legend, Ovid's Heroides 18 and 19. The commentary, which follows the Greek text and its translation, is addressed to a variety of readers: the student and the scholar of Greek literature, as well as those of other literatures in which the poem has been inspirational. This work has no precedent in the English language. This new translation will be of interest to students and scholars of Greek and late antique literature, as well as those working on mythology and classical reception.
Meineck and Woodruff's new annotated translations of Sophocles' Ajax , Women of Trachis , Electra , and Philoctetes combine the same standards of accuracy, concision, clarity, and powerful speech that have so often made their Theban Plays a source of epiphany in the classroom and of understanding in the theatre. Woodruff's Introduction offers a brisk and stimulating discussion of central themes in Sophoclean drama, the life of the playwright, staging issues, and each of the four featured plays.
Lysistrata and Other Plays centers a disgruntled woman whose attempt to end a war takes the battle from an open field to the soldier's bedroom. Wives from both camps deny their husbands basic affection in an effort to quell the violence. Set during the Peloponnesian War, the women of Greece, led by Lysistrata, create a plan to stifle the conflict between Athens and Sparta. Together, they agree to stage a sex strike, refusing to sleep with their husbands until a resolution is met. The strategy has an undeniable effect on politicians, generals and soldiers eager for a return to normalcy. It dramatically changes the focus of the warring parties, signifying the potential for peace. Lysistrata and Other Plays confronts gender norms and empowers those who are often marginalized. It's a common theme in Aristophanes' work that is also found in The Assemblywomen and Thesmophoriazusae. This political satire illustrates how fundamental needs always take precedence over superficial wants. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Lysistrata and Other Plays is both modern and readable.
Trevisa's encyclopaedia, the first to appear in English, enshrines many basic medieval ideas which are reflected in English literature well into the seventeenth century.;The two-volume text of Trevisa's translation "On the Properties of Things", published in 1975, quickly established itself as a reference work for scholars working in many disciplines on the late Middle Ages. This third volume, comprising introduction, commentary, and glossary, offers a useful tool for understanding the printed text and the manuscripts on which it is based.;Historians of the Middle Ages, and all those interested in medieval literature should find this book of great interest.
Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar is a prime source of information about people and affairs in Iceland from the 1180s to 1217, the beginning of the Sturlung Age, and the great period of creativity in Icelandic saga-writing. The first critical edition based on all the manuscripts currently available, the saga offers insightful information about daily life, seafaring, law, feud, medicine, superstition, and "sacramental" and "secular" attitudes. The volume is furnished with full textual notes, a detailed introduction, and a substantial commentary that clarifies points of content, language, and style.
In its first edition, this book was a new opening in the study of the Arabian Nights as an index of literary taste, a case study for the engagements of poets and writers, along with the common reading public, with an art that took Europe by surprise, and forced new patterns of response and writing. Borges thought of its advent as a dynamic that helped generate the romantic mode and sensibility. It certainly disturbed old habits of thought and made significant cultural inroads throughout European cultures. Almost no one in 18th-19th century literatures remained oblivious to that sweeping phenomenal appearance. The book analyzes and studies modes and patterns of reading, response, engagement, commentary, translations, claims to authentication, abridgements, and illustrations. It focuses on debates and controversies around the Arabian Nights, and shows how these happened to be at the center of a growing colonial culture. This book can never lose its significance for students, scholars, and general readership, not only in the field of comparative and cultural studies, English and French departments, but also in postcolonial studies and the basics of narrative and narratology.
Benito Perez Galdos (1843-1920) is revered as Spain's greatest nineteenth-century author. Writing in the realist tradition of Dickens, Zola and Balzac, he described life in Madrid with unequalled fidelity. In addition, he was unique among novelists of his time in his knowledge of medicine, revealed in his depictions of mental and physical disease. While critical analyses of his novels abound, this book is the first detailed study of the medicine that appears in his novels and newspaper articles. Galdos acquired his medical knowledge at a time of great changes: anaesthesia and antisepsis were developed, and the germs responsible for many human diseases identified. French medicine was especially influential, though increasing international exchange resulted in new ideas also being adopted from England, Germany and Italy. The author of this study analyses Galdos's network of medical contacts, together with some of the sources available to them. Subjects such as epidemic disease, madness and children's diseases are examined and the light they throw upon the medicine of the time is discussed. The concluding chapter of the book assesses the significance of Galdos's depictions of disease and of doctors.
The end of the twentieth century witnessed a « boom in the production, publication, readership, and scholarship of women's writing from Latin America. In fact, the emergence of women writers is perhaps the most significant phenomenon of the « post-boom« period of Latin American literary history, a phenomenon that has been influenced in turn by the burgeoning development of a number of women's movements on the continent. Within this « boom« , the short story has become an increasingly popular genre amongst women writers. This book considers the location(s) of four major women writers - Cristina Peri Rossi, Rosario Ferre, Albalucia Angel, and Isabel Allende - and their short fiction within these changing literary and social contexts. Combining close textual analysis of their fiction with a consideration of the social, historical, and geographical contexts of literary production, this book is essential reading for students and scholars in Latin American studies, women's studies, and comparative literature.
Combining the studies of modern film, traditional narratology, and Roman art, this interdisciplinary work explores the complex and highly visual techniques of Tacitus' Annales. The volume opens with a discussion of current research in narratology, as applied to Roman historians. Narratology is a helpful and insightful tool, but is often inadequate to deal with specifically visual aspects of ancient narrative. In order to illuminate Tacitus' techniques, and to make them speak to modern readers, this book focuses on drawing and illustrating parallels between Tacitus' historiographical methods and modern film effects. Building on these premises, Waddell examines a wide array of Tacitus' visual narrative devices. Tacitean examples are discussed in light of their narrative effect and purpose in the Annales, as well as the ways in which they are similar to contemporary Roman art and modern film techniques, including focalization, alignment, use of the ambiguous gaze, temporal suggestion and quick-cutting. Through this approach the modern scholar gains a deeper understanding of the many ways in which Tacitus' Annales act upon the reader, and how his narrative technique helps to shape, guide, and deeply layer his history.
Ovid's remarkable and endlessly fascinating Metamorphoses is one of the best-known and most popular works of classical literature, exerting a pervasive influence on later European literature and culture. A vast repository of mythic material as well as a sophisticated manipulation of story-telling, the poem can be appreciated on many different levels and by audiences of very different backgrounds and educational experiences. As the poem's focus on transformation and transgression connects in many ways with contemporary culture and society, modern research perspectives have developed correspondingly. Metamorphic Readings presents the state of the art in research on this canonical Roman epic. Written in an accessible style, the essays included represent a variety of approaches, exploring the effects of transformation and the transgression of borders. The contributors investigate three main themes: transformations into the Metamorphoses (how the mythic narratives evolved), transformations in the Metamorphoses (what new understandings of the dynamics of metamorphosis might be achieved), and transformations of the Metamorphoses (how the Metamorphoses were later understood and came to acquire new meanings). The many forms of transformation exhibited by Ovid's masterpiece are explored-including the transformation of the genre of mythic narrative itself.
This book presents a critical edition of a collection of liturgical manuscripts that the Augustinian friar Onofrio Panvinio (1530-1568) assembled in the 1560s for the Cardinal Alessandro Farnese as well as for Hans Jakob Fugger in Augsburg. Onofrio Panvinio is primarily known for his antiquarian studies about ancient Rome and for his edition of Bartolomeo Platina's Lives of the Popes. His preoccupation with the Roman rite, however, remains until today largely unnoticed by modern scholarship. This edition of Panvinio's Vetusti aliquot rituales libri highlights his interests in the development of Roman liturgy during the last sessions of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) by presenting the various documentary as well as cultural layers of Panvinio's collection of Roman ritual manuscripts.
Aristophanes' Wasps (422 B.C.) is an entertaining comedy that plunges us into the life of a family in classical Athens, while treating themes that readers of any time and place can appreciate. A father and son argue about politics, household servants try to please their master, a disruptive gang of the father's friends decide to intervene, a dog becomes a lightning-rod for his antics in the kitchen, attempts are made at reform and reconciliation, and it all ends with a drinking party that goes disastrously wrong. The father, Philocleon, and his friends, the chorus of wasp-like old men for whom the play is named, are some of the great creations of comic drama. The characters of the Wasps make constant references to the everyday world they are living in: its political demagogues, court system, religious rituals, social niceties, class distinctions, diseases, clothes, food, toilets, paychecks, geography, weather, household items, literary and mythological allusions, military experiences, and much more. These references give the play its immediacy, but their unfamiliarity to modern students can pose a challenge. This edition provides a full introduction devoted to the political, social, and literary background of the play, as well as notes to the text explaining historical details.
The post-classical compilation known to modern scholarship as the Latin Anthology contains a collection of a hundred riddles, each consisting of three hexameters and preceded by a lemma. It would seem from the preface to this collection that they were composed extempore at a dinner to celebrate the Roman Saturnalia. The work was to have a defining influence on later collections of riddles; yet its title (probably the Aenigmata) has been debated, and almost nothing is known about its author: questions have even been asked about his name (Symphosius?) and date (4th-5th centuruy AD?). In this edition of the riddles, the Introducion discusses the work's title and its author's identity: as well as his name and date, it considers his national origin (North African?) and intellectual background (a professional grammarian?), and argues that he was not Christian, as has been suggested. It examines the Saturnalian background to the work, setting it in its sociological context, and discusses the author's literary debts - especially to Martial. The Introduction also explores the author's ordering and arrangement of the riddles, discusses his literary style, Latinity and metre, and comments briefly on his Nachleben. It concludes with a survey of the textual tradition. The commentary on each riddle includes a translation, general notes on the object it describes (with reference, as necessary, to museums and artefacts), and discussion of how it fits into the ordering of the collection, of variant readings and, with suitable illustration, of literary, stylistic and metrical considerations. Other areas, such as history and mythology, are also covered where relevant.
An edition with facing annotated translation of the twelfth-century Medieval French popular romance Guillaume d'Angleterre. The claim to fame of this verse narrative is to have had its authorship attributed (falsely) to Chretien de Troyes, the most famous of all twelfth-century Medieval French narrative poets. This prototypical adventure romance and is representative of a literary genre that has recently seen a renewal of interest among medieval literary critics. An amusing tale of late twelfth-century social mobility, the romance tells of a bewildering series of adventures that befall a fictitious king who deliberately abandons his royal status to enter the 'real' world of knights, wolves, pirates and merchants. He and his family, dispersed by events between Bristol, Galway and Caithness, are finally reunited at Yarmouth thanks to a climactic stag hunt. The book is designed for students of French, Medieval Studies, Comparative Literature and English, and for all medieval scholars interested in having an English version of a typical medieval adventure romance. It is the first authoritative English translation of this text, and all of its critical material is new. DOI: https://doi.org/10.47788/TXVU9029 |
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