Timon of Athens has been the subject of conflicting interpretations and evaluations. Those who have found it somewhat unsatisfactory have outnumbered those who have approved it. To explain its more troubling features critics have advanced two theories: first, that the play is written by Shakespeare in collaboration with another author; and second, that the play is all Shakespeare's but lacks final revision. This thesis reviews the critical history of the play, supporting the current general tendency to reject the theory of dual authorship and seeing design in the form of the play and consistency in the development of character and plot. The writer investigates the themes presented in the play, noting relationships to themes in other plays of the canon. The marked similarities in ideas, imagery, and diction between Timon of Athens and other Shakespearian dramas supports the view of those who regard the play as entirely Shakespeare's. In particular, the treatment given the themes of justice, mercy, grace, and regeneration and the manner in which death is shown to affect character demonstrates that the play is a link between the tragedies and the final tragi-comedies. The writer believes that the play is satisfactory and understandable if it is regarded as depicting the movement of the soul from the finite to the infinite conception of being. Timon is accordingly viewed as a type of Everyman. Biblical imagery and echoes are noted, particularly those lines recalling passages (in both the Old and New Testaments) dealing with atonement. The principal characters of the play, other than the soldier Alcibiades and the faithful steward, exemplify various phases of worldliness and material-mindedness. Alcibiades stands in a special relationship to Timon in that he remains loyal to him, punishes Timon’s enemies, purges the state, and finally restores order. However, Alcibiades is not above criticism for his actions involve the evils of civil war and disease. The steward, also, remains loyal to Timon. Through his pure love he is able to touch Timon and thus penetrate his misanthropy. As Timon grows towards death there are hints of his moving into a state in which sin is absolved and all faults forgiven. Some attention has been given to the stage history of Timon of Athens, in particular to the 1965 Royal Shakespeare Company production which proved theatrically successful. The treatment of themes similar to those of Timon in other plays is discussed from a theatrical point of view in an attempt to explain the greater popularity with theatre audiences of plays such as King Lear. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This thesis explores the roles played by secretaries in Athens and the Peloponnese. Secretaries are present in some form in all documents produced by the Athenian boule. They are often named as the writer of a stele, or their existence is inferred from the existence of the document itself. However, little is known about the daily duties of these individuals, as the means of writing and setting up of inscriptions is limited to brief, epigraphic formulae lacking in procedural detail, and any other information about an office is confined to passing references in ancient authors and bald statements in ancient lexica. These issues are even more pronounced in the Peloponnese, where the existence of a secretary can be limited to a single word – his job title or designation – in an inscription, and many unique types of Peloponnesian secretary are absent from ancient historical works and lexica altogether. This thesis takes both a quantitative, and analytical approach to the question ‘what does it mean to be a secretary in ancient Greece?’. It examines all sources from Athens and the Peloponnese which refer to any type of secretary, or specify that an officer is to write something (i.e. perform some or all of the duties of a secretary). It categorises secretaries using various criteria (such as their activities, the duration of their appointment and collegial environment, and their public profile), and thus provides a catalogue of characteristics and duties which fall under the remit of the secretary. Using these criteria, these offices are analysed both geographically and chronologically, to illustrate how the work of the secretary could differ from location to location, and over time. This thesis constitutes the first comprehensive work on the secretaries of Athens in over one hundred years, and the first work of its kind on the secretaries of the Peloponnese.

No description available.

Because of their abundance and because of the insight into the ancient world offered by the depictions on their decorated surfaces, Attic painted ceramics are an extremely valuable source of material evidence. Knowing the identities and personalities of the artists who painted them not only helps us understand the paintings, but also helps in the process of dating them and, in the case of sherds, reconstructing them. However, few of the artists signed their wares, and the identities of the artists have to be revealed through a close analysis of the style in a process called attribution. The vast majority of the attributions of archaic Attic vases are due to John Beazley whose monumental works set the stage for the dominance of attribution studies in the scholarship of Greek ceramics for most of the 20th century. However, the number of new scholars trained in this arcane art is dwindling as new avenues of archaeological research have gained ascendency. A computer-aided technique for attribution may preserve the benefits of the art while allowing new scholars to explore previously ignored areas of research. To this end, the present study provides a theoretical framework for computer-aided attribution, and using the corpus of the Princeton Painter - a painter active in the 6th century BCE - demonstrates the principal that, by employing pattern recognition techniques, computers may be trained to serve as an aid in the attribution process. Three different techniques are presented that are capable of distinguishing between paintings of the Princeton Painter and some of his contemporaries with reasonable accuracy. The first uses shape descriptors to distinguish between the methods employed by respective artists to render minor anatomical details. The second shows that the relative positions of cranial features of the male figures on black-figure paintings is an indicator of style and may also be used as part of the attribution process. Finally a novel technique is presented that can distinguish between pots constructed by different potters based on their shape profiles. This technique may offer valuable clues for attribution when artists are known to work mostly with a single potter. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

Thesis--Cornell University. / Reprint of the 1893 ed. published for Cornell University by Macmillan, New York. Includes bibliographical references (p. [235]-241).

No description available.

A tirania é um dos elementos mais marcantes das Histórias e da escrita da história das Histórias. Dentre as várias vertentes de estudo que debatem este aspecto da obra do autor de Halicarnasso, há uma querela específica que discute se ele tinha uma visão pejorativa ou neutra em relação à tirania. A partir, em especial, de meados do século XX, as novas tendências da historiografia passaram a valorizar aspectos marginalizados da história até então, e os estudos herodotianos passaram a ser (re)vistos em conformidade com essas mudanças. À luz desta tendência atual, que entende o texto herodotiano como unidade textual, proponho uma leitura desta controvérsia pelo viés da ambigüidade e da tragédia. Dentro desta perspectiva, reis e tiranos têm um importante papel na narrativa ao compor a forma através da qual Heródoto expressa seu pensamento político na obra, pensamento este relacionado com suas preocupações em torno do exercício do poder. / Tyranny is one of the most remarkable elements of the Histories and of Histories\' historiography. Among many academic approaches which discuss this aspect concerning the narrative of this Halicarnassos author, there is a specific discussion about the possibility of a pejorative or a neutral vision of tyranny. From the middle of the twentieth century on, the new historiographical tendencies have valued marginal aspects of history, so, the herodotean studies started to be reviewed according to these changes. In the light of this current tendency, that understands the herodotean text as a textual unity, I propose a reading of this controversy through the perspective of ambiguity and tragedy. In this perspective, kings and tyrants have an important role in the narrative by composing the form through which Herodotus expresses his political thought in his work, a thought related to his concerns with the exercise of power.

A tirania é um dos elementos mais marcantes das Histórias e da escrita da história das Histórias. Dentre as várias vertentes de estudo que debatem este aspecto da obra do autor de Halicarnasso, há uma querela específica que discute se ele tinha uma visão pejorativa ou neutra em relação à tirania. A partir, em especial, de meados do século XX, as novas tendências da historiografia passaram a valorizar aspectos marginalizados da história até então, e os estudos herodotianos passaram a ser (re)vistos em conformidade com essas mudanças. À luz desta tendência atual, que entende o texto herodotiano como unidade textual, proponho uma leitura desta controvérsia pelo viés da ambigüidade e da tragédia. Dentro desta perspectiva, reis e tiranos têm um importante papel na narrativa ao compor a forma através da qual Heródoto expressa seu pensamento político na obra, pensamento este relacionado com suas preocupações em torno do exercício do poder. / Tyranny is one of the most remarkable elements of the Histories and of Histories\' historiography. Among many academic approaches which discuss this aspect concerning the narrative of this Halicarnassos author, there is a specific discussion about the possibility of a pejorative or a neutral vision of tyranny. From the middle of the twentieth century on, the new historiographical tendencies have valued marginal aspects of history, so, the herodotean studies started to be reviewed according to these changes. In the light of this current tendency, that understands the herodotean text as a textual unity, I propose a reading of this controversy through the perspective of ambiguity and tragedy. In this perspective, kings and tyrants have an important role in the narrative by composing the form through which Herodotus expresses his political thought in his work, a thought related to his concerns with the exercise of power.

No description available.

The modernist polykatikia typology (translating to multi-dwelling) arose in Athens after the population boom of the 1960s. Now sixty years later, the demands of the city have changed. No longer is there a need to build houses for people, but a need to focus on the workplace. As economic turmoil is pressuring Greece towards larger, more efficient operations, the thesis seeks to signify the importance of micro-economies of informal Athens. Given that energy and vibrancy are defining characteristics of the city, it considers how the workplace can intersect with public space to create new relationships in Athens. By curating talent, people and expertise which already exist in Athens, the aim is to propose workplaces based on resource sharing within underutilized zones in the city: an urban gesture which re-imagines the city blocks of Athens as a system of micro-agoras.