Defining Greek Narrative by Douglas Cairns

Defining Greek Narrative by Douglas Cairns

The ‘Classic’ narratology that has been widely applied to classical texts is aimed at a universal taxonomy for describing narratives. More recently, ‘new narratologies’ have begun linking the formal characteristics of narrative to their historical and ideological contexts. This volume seeks such a rethinking for Greek literature. It has 2 closely related objectives: to define what is characteristically Greek in Greek narratives of different periods and genres, and to see how narrative techniques and concerns develop over time. The 15 distinguished contributors explore questions such as: how is Homeric epic like and unlike Gilgamesh and the Hebrew Bible? What do Greek historians consistently fail to tell us, having learned from the tradition what to ignore? How does lyric modify narrative techniques from other genres? This study will appeal to students and scholars of classics as well comparative literature and literary theory

This collection is unparalleled, whether as individual essays or as a wholeWe could of course isolate this or that article according to personal interest, but the whole book is an exceptional opportunity to cross narrative Greek literature in all its genres, from Homer to Heliodorus, from epic to lyricism, to tragedy, to historiography and the novel, and to extend it towards the ancient Orient (Bible, Mesopotamia) and even Japan until modern times. The authors' reflections and arguments are of consistently high quality, and the bibliographic arsenal (especially Anglophone) is well supplied. (Translated from French) -- Françoise Létoublon, University Grenoble Alpes (Emerita) * Agora *
This volume offers original and compelling treatments of the ‘Greekness’ of Greek narrative, and it is a provocative beginning to what promises to be a long and exciting conversation… Tradition and innovation meet in this collection, and most stimulating are those essays that combine methodologies, wedding formal analysis with literary interpretation… This is a valuable book, both for the quality of the individual essays and the scholarship that it is sure to generate. -- Robin J. Greene, Providence College * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
The more Greek literature is viewed against the background of the great West Asian literary traditions, the stranger it looks. This audacious volume, a landmark work in the emerging fields of historical narratology and comparative literary history, probes the roots of that strangeness, and how distinctively Greek ways of telling stories came about. * Nick Lowe, Royal Holloway, University of London *

Douglas Cairns (FRSE, FBA, MAE) is Professor of Classics in the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Aidôs: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature (1993), Bacchylides: Five Epinician Odes (2010) and Sophocles: Antigone (2016). His most recent edited volumes include A Cultural History of the Emotions in Antiquity (2019), Emotions through Time: From Antiquity to Byzantium (with M. Hinterberger, A. Pizzone and M. Zaccarini, 2022), Contempt, Ancient and Modern (2023), and In the Mind, in the Body, in the World: Emotions in Early China and Ancient Greece (with C. Virág, 2024). Ruth Scodel is D. R. Shackleton Bailey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan. She has written Credible Impossibilities: Conventions and Strategies of Verisimilitude in Homer and Greek Tragedy (1999), Listening to Homer (2002), Epic Facework (2008), (with Anja Bettenworth) Whither Quo Vadis? Sienkiewicz's Novel in Film and Television, and An Introduction to Greek Tragedy (2010).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780748680108
ISBN 10	0748680101
Title	Defining Greek Narrative
Author	Douglas Cairns
Series	Edinburgh Leventis Studies
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Edinburgh University Press
Year published	2014-03-24
Number of pages	392
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.