Inaug.-diss.--Univ. Marburg. / Cover-title. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Presented as author's proefschrift, Utrecht, 1926. / Includes bibliographical references and footnotes.

Thèse--Faculté des lettres de Paris.

Thesis--University of Chicago. / "Partial list of works consulted": p.3.

Thesis--Leipzig, 1910.

Thesis (doctoral)--Leopold-Franzens-Universität, 1952.

Current studies on the topic of sexuality in the ancient Greek world tend to favour the active/passive paradigm of understanding sexual relations which was originally proposed in Kenneth Dover's Greek Homosexuality (1978) and Michel Foucault's three volume History of Sexuality (1978, 1985, and 1986). In Dover and Foucault, the sexual behaviour of the classical Athenian male takes primacy, so much so that the reader of either scholar can be left with the impression that the role of the active partner was available only to adult citizen males. Alciphron's Letters of Courtesans (Book 4 of his works) depict a group of desiring female subjects who demonstrate that sexual agency, the assumption of the active role in a sexual relationship, need not be the exclusively masculine phenomenon that Dover and Foucault describe. Letters of Courtesans prove that female sexuality can be portrayed as active and therefore that women in literature can be sexual agents. Additionally, these letters demonstrate the limits of the approaches of Dover and Foucault, that sexuality need not be defined as exclusively active or exclusively passive. By approaching Letters of Courtesans from this perspective, we are able to see that ancient Greek literature includes depictions of active female sexuality that Dover and Foucault overlooked. Letters of Courtesans are therefore a way to challenge and develop the work on ancient sexuality that has followed from these two landmark studies. Because of their fictional nature and their epistolary format, Letters of Courtesans lay bare the process of Alciphron's construction of sexuality and gender. I shall therefore show that Alciphron's Letters of Courtesans are an ideal locus for a discussion of these topics. This study will establish that Letters of Courtesans ought to occupy a place of importance in any discussion of ancient ideas of sexuality and gender. / Arts, Faculty of / Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, Department of / Graduate

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This thesis explores the relationship between the genre of Greek poetry called parôidia and parody as a literary mode. I argue that the poetics of parôidia as genre are inextricably linked to the poetics of parody as mode. This argument produces a new methodological approach to the concept of parody, which recognizes its idiosyncratic nature. Since everyone has different ideas about what parody is, there is no absolute definition of parody. Instead, I use approaches drawn from cognitive linguistics and poetics to illuminate the parodic script, a set of terms commonly used to explain parody’s effect but which in themselves do not define parody. This methodology is supported by an appendix that analyses the terminology of parody in Greek (!αρῳδία, !αρῳδή, etc.). I argue that the noun !αρῳδία is only ever found with a generic meaning before the first century BC. The main body of the thesis examines six poems from this genre, parôidia, to demonstrate how this genre influenced Greek ideas about parody. This thesis is the first literary study of all of the major poems belonging to the genre. Furthermore, it is the first study of parody to appreciate fully the importance of this genre for notions of parody. While most studies of parody have centred on Greek Comedy, I show that this genre, which has been almost entirely left out of discussions of parody, is essential for the development of parody as a mode. As the first detailed literary study of the genre parôidia, the central chapters provide new interpretations of the genre’s most important poems. In several of these, I show how the poems engage in different kinds of satire. For instance, Timon uses Sceptic philosophy against the dogmatic sophists, and Archestratus uses tropes drawn from the figure of the comic mageiros. In other chapters, I argue that the humour of the poems derives in part from their manipulation of the audience’s expectations. Thus the Batrachomyomachia leads us to anticipate divine intervention, but uses this expectation to create humorous reveals at the end of the poem. In each chapter, I aim to show specifically how the poem’s parody of epic contributes to its construction of meaning. The conclusion then brings these chapters together to present the bigger picture of Greek conceptions of parody that emerge from these discussions. What links the poetry of a Sceptic philosopher and a shit-stained nobody from Thasos? Are there any similarities between the espousal of fine cuisine in Archestratus and the absurdification of the Batrachomyomachia? I conclude by making three claims: 1) parody’s allusive form must be understood as multifaceted and can be approached through several frameworks; 2) parody is not inherently critical of the text it parodies, but can use the process of parody as a framework for satirizing other figures; 3) although frequently regarded as a “low” or “playful” form, parody incorporates its supposedly inferior literary position into its construction of meaning. Parôidia, I argue, is not only a product of its specific literary and cultural context but also contributes to the shaping of parody in Greek thought.