Browsing CHS Classical Inquiries by Title
Now showing items 174-193 of 279
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Pausanias as novelist: a micro-sample
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2018-07-20)In this post, dated 2018.07.20, I have put together a working retranslation of the sad story of Komaithο, priestess in love, as retold by Pausanias at 7.18.8–7.20.2. Some essential parts of this story have already been ... -
Pausanias at Sounion: why no mention of Poseidon?
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2020-06-12)t the very beginning of the Description of Greece as narrated by Pausanias (1.1.1), when the ship carrying our traveler approaches the east side of the akrā or ‘headland’ of Sounion, he must have been struck by the view ... -
Pausanias Tries to Visualize the Three ‘Graces’ of Orkhomenos in Boeotia
(Center for Hellenic Studies, 2021-03-20) -
Percy Jackson’s visit to Lotus Hotel, viewed through a Homeric lens
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2020-10-09)As I was reading through the first volume of Rick Riordan’s five-volume series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Lightning Thief (2005), the story that is told there about a visit to “Lotus Hotel” by Percy and his companions ... -
A personal checklist of memorable wordings in Albert B. Lord’s The Singer of Tales
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2019-04-05) -
A personal checklist of memorable wordings in Parts I and II of Richard P. Martin’s Mythologizing Performance
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2019-04-12)In an earlier posting, Classical Inquiries 2017.12.09, I have already expressed the intellectual debt I owe to Richard P. Martin’s book, Mythologizing Performance (Cornell University Press 2018). In the present posting, I ... -
Picturing Archilochus as a Cult Hero
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2018-06-06) -
Pindar's Homer is not "our" Homer
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2015-12-24)I argue that the figure of Homer in the lyric songmaking of Pindar is envisioned as the poet of all epic, not only of the Iliad and the Odyssey as we know them. At the core of my argumentation here is the earliest ... -
A placeholder for the hero Amphiaraos
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2018-05-04)Amphiaraos, a hero who is most prominently featured in ancient Greek epic narratives about the so-called Seven Against Thebes, has a special place in the writings of Pausanias, as we can readily see from a search for this ... -
A placeholder for the love story of Phaedra and Hippolytus: What’s love got to do with it?
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2018-06-21)When Phaedra sees Hippolytus for the very first time, she is already falling in love with him. That is what Pausanias seems to be saying as he retells the myth. The ancient Greek word that he uses in this context is ... -
A placeholder for the White Goddess
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2018-05-25)The Greek name for the mythological figure whom we recognize as the White Goddess was Leukotheā—a name that actually means ‘white goddess’. In the ancient myths that tell about this figure, however, she was not always a ... -
A plane tree in Nafplio: decorating a reader for travel-study in Greece, March 2018
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2018-03-22) -
Poetics of Repetition in Homer
(Harvard Univeristy, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2005)Repetition in Homeric poetry is a matter of performance, not only composition. I argue that this observation applies to the Homeric phenomenon of “repeated utterances.” This argument is part of a larger project, which ... -
Poetry Incarnate: Puccini’s Mimì as metonymy and metaphor combined
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2018-11-09)This essay is linked with a lengthy book I published in 2015, Masterpieces of Metonymy. There I argued that metonymy and metaphor, as they are known in verbal art, are analogous respectively to horizontal and vertical ... -
A preview of Mages and Ionians revisited
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2018-12-21) -
Previewing a concise inventory of Greek etymologies, Part 1: Introduction by Gregory Nagy 2016.01.15 to the shape of things to come
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2016-01-15) -
Previewing an essay on the shaping of the Lyric Canon in Athens
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2018-12-06) -
Prospects of an Odyssean homecoming for Percy Jackson after his sojourn in Lotus Hotel: 75 minutes of intergenerational conversations with Rick Riordan
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2020-10-16)The minutes that I have written up for this post are a record of 75 real minutes of conversations during “Hour 10” of the Harvard College course “The Ancient Greek Hero,” which took place “live” on October 13, 2020. A ... -
A pseudo-Homer gets exposed by Homer
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2015-06-24) -
A question of “reception”: how could Homer ever outlive his own moments of performance?
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2021-08-30)In the cover illustration for this essay, a painter is picturing Homer at a moment of performance. Or, I could even say that we see Homer here in—not just at—a moment of performance. Homer sings, accompanying himself on ...