Inaug.-diss.--Kiel. / Vita.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, 2005. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-08, Section: A, page: 2919. Adviser: Matthew R. Christ. Title from dissertation home page (viewed Oct. 5, 2006).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-11, Section: A, page: 4170. Adviser: Howard Jacobson. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 141-156) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Classical Studies, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-05, Section: A, page: 1721. Adviser: William Hansen. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed June 20, 2007)."

The subject of this dissertation is the reception of Euripidean tragedy in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In Chapter 1 I offer a general survey of the afterlife of Euripidean drama in the major mediating intertexts between Euripides and Ovid, namely Hellenistic poetry, Roman Republican tragedy, and Virgil’s Aeneid, as well as a review of the pervasive presence of the Greek tragedian in the Ovidian corpus. Chapter 2 focuses on the reception of Euripides’ Bacchae in the Metamorphoses. The starting point of my analysis is Ovid’s epic rewriting of the Euripidean play in the Pentheus episode. Next, I argue that Ovid makes use of the allusive technique of “fragmentation”, in the sense that he grafts elements of the Bacchae in the narratives of the Minyads and Orpheus. The final section examines Ovid’s portrayal of Procne, Medea, and Byblis as maenads and their evocation of the Virgilian Bacchants Dido and Amata. In Chapter 3 I begin by investigating Ovid’s intertextual engagement with Euripides’ Medea in the Medea narrative of Book 7, which is read as an epicized “mega-tragedy” encompassing the Colchian’s entire mythical career. In the second part of the chapter I discuss the Roman poet’s reworking of the Euripidean tragedy in other episodes of the Metamorphoses and argue that Procne, Althaea, and Deianira constitute “refractions” of Euripides’ Medea. Chapter 4 examines Ovid’s epic refashioning of Euripides’ Hecuba, which he merges with Virgil’s alternative variant of the Polydorus myth in Aeneid 3. The Roman poet reshapes the main plot components of the Greek play, but also makes subtle allusions to the Virgilian version of the story. Chapter 5 is devoted to the episode of Virbius in Metamorphoses 15. Ovid produces a novel version of the myth by melding together his Euripidean model with Virgilian and Sophoclean intertexts. The Roman poet adapts Virgil’s Virbius story in Aeneid 7 by altering its context from a catalogue of Latin warriors into an exchange between Virbius and the nymph Egeria. Moreover, the Ovidian narrative draws on Euripides’ two Hippolytus plays, the extant Hippolytos Stephanephoros and the fragmentary Hippolytos Kalyptomenos, as well as on Sophocles’ Phaedra. / Classics

This dissertation investigates how Roman authors, especially of the Augustan period, comment on their literary relationship with their Greek literary predecessors through the complex character of Odysseus. It argues that Roman writers emphasize Odysseus’ deceptive qualities to distance themselves from the Greek literary tradition, and at the same time to underscore their own inheritance of and indebtedness to that tradition. Odysseus’ multi-faceted character and wide-ranging travels, I suggest, made him an ideal lens through which Roman authors, spanning from Livius Andronicus in the 3rd century BCE to Juvenal in the 1st century CE, could consider their own position as poets in a simultaneously Greek and Roman literary tradition. The dissertation focuses on Odysseus as he is portrayed in extended scenes of Latin poetry and considers the evolution of Odysseus’ Roman character chronologically, beginning with Livius Andronicus’ translation of the Odyssey and the establishment of the Latin literary tradition. His next major appearance is in Plautus’ Bacchides, where he serves as an exemplum for the tricky slave as well as the playwright himself. Odysseus is later picked up in the comedic vein by Horace in Satire 2.5, in which the hero acts as a model for the duplicitous figure of the inheritance hunter. After Horace, Ovid employs Odysseus in two different works, first as the ideal Roman orator in Metamorphoses 13 and then later as a foil for the poet’s own trials and travails throughout his exile poetry. Lastly, there is a return to satire, where Odysseus is brought in by Juvenal as an antithesis to his own poetic authority in Satire 15. All of these examples of Odysseus in Latin literature demonstrate how Roman authors use this particular Homeric epic hero to articulate issues that are temporally and culturally specific to Rome. Roman authors furthermore reimagine Odysseus in Roman terms and contexts in an effort to construct and tear down bridges between their own Roman culture and that of their Greek predecessors, which in turn renders Odysseus as a stand-in for the Latin literary tradition vis-à-vis the Greek literary tradition. / Classics

This dissertation analyzes Ovid’s Metamorphoses through the lens of praise and blame poetry and focuses on Pindar and possible allusions to epinician poetry. In particular, I look at the Apollo and Daphne episode (Met. 1.452–567), Lycaon’s transformation (Met. 1.163–252), the armorum iudicium (Met. 12.620–13.398), and Ovid’s praise (or not) of Julius and Augustus Caesar during the end of Metamorphoses 15 (Met. 15.745–879). In Chapter 1, I discuss how reading the Apollo and Daphne episode in the context of Pythian 9 and the founding of Cyrene illuminates darker aspects of Roman Ktisissagen by altering the epinician paradigm. Chapter 2 concerns the Lycaon episode and the way in which Jupiter takes on the role of an iambic poet. Chapter 3 consists of an analysis of Ulysses’ speech and structural correspondences with praise poetry in Ovid’s account of the armorum iudicium. In my conclusion, I consider Ovid’s use of epinician topoi during the end of the Metamorphoses. When read through a Pindaric lens, these episodes illuminate Ovid’s use of praise and blame poetry and his relationship with Augustus at this point in his career. / Classics

Abstract Not Available.

This thesis lays the foundation for a new edition of the pseudo-Virgilian Culex. Fifty manuscripts containing the text are gathered along with all relevant information which would assist a scholar in locating, identifying and tracing the history of each one. The findings are presented in the form of a catalogue. Next, the manuscripts are collated in detail and their variant readings are entered into a computer program which is specifically designed to determine the relationship between manuscripts. The results prove that some manuscripts belong to the Florilegium Gallicum or Iuuenalis Ludi Libellus groups which have been defined by previous researchers. Others have been copied from printed books and are valuable only for conjectures as they add nothing to the construction of a stemma. The data from the manuscripts forms the basis for an apparatus criticus along with many readings from incunabula. The main goal of the thesis is to present late manuscripts which have not been sufficiently studied as well as incunabula and other rare books which are not readily accessible to scholars. During the composition of the apparatus, it becomes apparent that old conjectures have been improperly attributed to some scholars and that more work needs to be done to assess the contribution of certain individuals. Once the apparatus is complete, the task of editing the text begins. Professor Clausen's Oxford Classical Text serves as the starting point but original conjectures and changes proposed by other scholars are also inserted into the text. Finally, these alterations as well as issues of grammar and scansion are discussed in a commentary at the end of the work.

The Semiotics of Time Travel: Studies in Simulation and Causality is a study of the philosophical/literary idea of simulation as defined mainly by Jean Baudrillard. The thesis, however, does not aim to be a commentary on Baudrillard. It uses his ideas as a starting point, and then proposes its own definition of simulation, with emphasis on temporality and causality. Specific cases of simulation are traced in Oedipus Rex, Macbeth, Italo Calvino's short stories, and Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy. In each case, a detailed literary analysis of the work is used to advance the theoretical argument. The approach is best described as interdisciplinary, covering a range of ideas in philosophy, semiotics, and literature. The strong unifying thread in all the chapters is a semiotic analysis of temporal paradoxes, as well as the underlying definition of temporal paradoxes as a subset of simulation, a connection whose various aspects are explored in the different chapters. The thesis also seeks to broaden the definition of simulation, making connections between simulation and other concepts, such as analytical statements (Hans Reichenbach), performative statements (Stanley Cavell), scientific observation (John Searle), narrative structure (Aristotle), and the nature of signs (Umberto Eco). The aim is a philosophical platform for the analysis of simulation as a tool for a semiotic analysis of temporal and causal paradoxes.