Iambic Ideas

"With its judicious sampling of topics, each developed in impressive detail, Iambic Ideas itself rates as a perfectly brilliant idea. The book provides a much-needed sense of 'iambic' as a self-standing generic enterprise within the literatures of Greece and Rome, poetry that both writes and plays by its own rules. The book is thus a first of its kind, and fundamental to the study of verse invective in antiquity. -- Kirk Freudenburg, Ohio State University The collection is strong and provocative in both its breadth and its depth. Iambic Ideas is nicely produced, organized, and balanced. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review * Iambic Ideas offers a rich selection of essays from a range of international experts...Each contribution is of considerable value on its own merits, and the collection as a whole reveals both the coherence and the diversity of the 'genre.' * Greek and Rome, Oxford Academic Journals * The collection as a whole is useful and important. * Journal Of Roman Studies * Iambic Ideas is a must read for anyone interested in Greek and Roman poetry. These twelve thought-provoking essays are constructed to move beyond formal generic classifications and to focus on the broader continuities, interactions, and significance of the iambic impulse from the archaic to late antique. The temporal span of these essays enables the readers to gain access to material that might otherwise be unfamiliar and allows for a far richer understanding of poetic processes in play" -- Susan Stephens, Stanford University.

A long overdue study of the genre of Greek iambic poetry from the 7th to the late 4th centuries BCE. Employing the evidence of ancient testimonies, Andrea Rotstein also considers the more general question of how literary genres were perceived in ancient Greece.

Classicizing Christian poetry has largely been neglected by literary scholars, but has recently been receiving growing attention, especially the poetry written in Latin. One of the objectives of this volume is to redress the balance by allowing more space to discussions of Greek Christian poetry. The contributions collected here ask how Christian poets engage with (and are conscious of) the double reliance of their poetry on two separate systems: on the one hand, the classical poetic models and, on the other, the various genres and sub-genres of Christian prose. Keeping in mind the different settings of the Greek-speaking East and the Latin-speaking West, the contributions seek to understand the impact of historical setting on genre, the influence of the paideia shared by authors and audiences, and the continued relevance of traditional categories of literary genre. While our immediate focus is genre, most of the contributions also engage with the ideological ramifications of the transposition of Christian themes into classicizing literature. This volume offers important and original case studies on the reception and appropriation of the classical past and its literary forms by Christian poetry.

The volume explores how Greek and Latin authors perceive and present their own (real or metaphorical) exile and employ exile as a powerful trope to express estrangement, elicit readerly sympathy, and question political power structures.

Ancient peoples, like modern, spent much of their lives engaged in and thinking about competitions: both organised competitions with rules, audiences and winners, such as Olympic and gladiatorial games, and informal, indefinite, often violent, competition for fundamental goals such as power, wealth and honour. The varied papers in this book form a case for viewing competition for superiority as a major force in ancient history, including the earliest human societies and the Assyrian and Aztec empires. Papers on Greek history explore the idea of competitiveness as peculiarly Greek, the intense and complex quarrel at the heart of Homer's Iliad, and the importance of formal competitions in the creation of new political and social identities in archaic Sicyon and classical Athens. Papers on the Roman world shed fresh light on Republican elections, through a telling parallel from Renaissance Venice, on modes of competitive display of wealth and power evident in elite villas in Italy in the imperial period, and on the ambiguities in the competitive self-representations of athletes, sophists and emperors.

Prudentius is one of the major Latin poets of antiquity. A Christian living and writing in Spain in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, he was thoroughly imbued with the whole tradition of Latin poetry. The Hamartigenia is a didactic poem exploring the origins of evil and how it operates in the world. It is full of echoes and reworkings of earlier poems by Lucretius, Virgil and others, but is also a serious contribution to this important theological issue which was much discussed in Church circles of the day. This is a major new study of the Hamartigenia in the context of Prudentius' work as a whole and is striking for being as seriously interested in its theological as in its literary contribution.

This volume offers a range of innovative approaches to Solon of Athens, legendary law-giver, statesman, and poet of the early sixth century B.C. In the first part, Solon’s poetry is reconsidered against the background of oral poetics and other early Greek poetry. The connection between Solon’s alleged roles as poet and as politician is fundamentally questioned. Part two offers a reassessment of Solon’s laws based on a revision of the textual tradition and recent views on early Greek lawgiving. In part three, fresh scrutiny of the archeological and written evidence of archaic Greece results in new perspectives on the agricultural crisis and Solon’s role in the social and political developments of sixth-century Athens. Originally published in hardcover

Enchantment and Creed in the Hymns of Ambrose of Milan offers the first critical overview of the hymns of Ambrose of Milan in the context of fourth-century doctrinal song and Ambrose's own catechetical preaching. Brian P. Dunkle, SJ, argues that these settings inform the interpretation of Ambrose's hymnodic project. The hymns employ sophisticated poetic techniques to foster a pro-Nicene sensitivity in the bishop's embattled congregation. After a summary presentation of early Christian hymnody, with special attention to Ambrose's Latin predecessors, Dunkle describes the mystagogical function of fourth-century songs. He examines Ambrose's sermons, especially his catechetical and mystagogical works, for preached parallels to this hymnodic effort. Close reading of Ambrose's hymnodic corpus constitutes the bulk of the study. Dunkle corroborates his findings through a treatment of early Ambrosian imitations, especially the poetry of Prudentius. These early readers amplify the hymnodic features that Dunkle identifies as "enchanting," that is, enlightening the "eyes of faith."

A major new collection of use to all students and scholars working on Hellenistic Greek poetry

The revised third edition of the 'Oxford Classical Dictionary' is the ultimate reference on the classical world containing over 6,200 entries. The 2003 revision includes minor corrections and updates and all Latin and Greek words in the text are now translated into English.