L’archive erronée dans l’œuvre d’Anne Carson enquête sur les effets que peuvent entraîner l’archive classique sur la poésie d’Anne Carson et révèle que le travail de cette dernière est issu de l’espace situé entre la critique et la créativité, ce qui génère ce qu’on appellera une « poétique de l’erreur ». La poésie de Carson se démarque par sa prédilection pour les accidents, les imperfections et les impondérables de la transmission. La présente dissertation émerge des attitudes critiques ambivalentes face à la dualité de l’identité de Carson, autant poète qu’universitaire, et leur offrira une réponse. Alors que l’objectif traditionnel du philologue classique est de reconstruire le sens du texte « original », l’approche poétique de Carson sape en douce les prétentions universitaires d’exactitude, de précision et de totalisation. La rencontre de Carson avec l’archive classique embrasse plutôt les bourdes, les mauvaises lectures et les erreurs de traduction inhérentes à la transmission et à la réception de traductions classiques. La poésie de Carson est ludique, sexuée et politique. Sa manière de jouer avec l’épave du passé classique torpille la patri-archive, telle que critiquée par Derrida dans Mal d’Archive ; c’est-à-dire cette archive considérée comme un point d’origine stable grâce auquel s’orienter. De plus, en remettant en question la notion de l’archive classique en tant qu’origine de la civilisation occidentale, Carson offre simultanément une critique de l’humanisme, en particulier au plan de la stabilité, du caractère mesurable et de l’autonomie de « l’homme ». L’archive, pour Carson, est ouverte, en cours et incomplète ; les manques linguistiques, chronologiques et affectifs de l’archive classique représentent ainsi des sources d’inspiration poétique. La présente dissertation étudie quatre dimensions de l’archive classique : la critique, la saphique, l’élégiaque et l’érotique. Grâce à ces coordonnées, on y établit le statut fragmentaire et fissuré du passé classique, tel que conçu par Carson. Si le fondement classique sur lequel la culture occidentale a été conçue est fissuré, qu’en est-il de la stabilité, des frontières et des catégories que sont le genre, la langue et le texte ? L’ouverture de l’archive critique de manière implicite les désirs de totalité associés au corps du texte, à la narration, à la traduction et à l’érotisme. En offrant une recension exhaustive de sa poétique, L’archive erronée dans l’œuvre d’Anne Carson tente d’analyser l’accueil hostile qu’elle a subi, contribue à renforcer la documentation sans cesse croissante dont elle fait l’objet et anticipe sa transmutation actuelle de médium et de genre, sa migration de la page à la scène. / The Erring Archive in Anne Carson investigates the responsiveness of Anne Carson’s poetry to the classical archive and argues that Carson works from within the space between the critical and the creative, generating what I call a “poetics of error.” Carson’s poetics is distinguished by a predilection for accidents, imperfections, and the contingencies of transmission. My dissertation also responds to and emerges from the ambivalent critical attitudes to Carson’s dual identity as both a scholar and a poet. While the traditional aim of the classical philologist is to reconstruct the meaning of the “original” text, Carson’s poetic approach self-consciously undermines scholarly pretensions to accuracy, precision, and totalization. Rather, Carson’s encounter with the classical archive embraces the mistakes, misreadings, and mistranslation inherent in classical transmission and reception. Carsonian poetics is ludic, gendered, and political. Her play with the wreckage of the classical past undermines the patri-archive, as critiqued by Derrida in Archive Fever; that is, an archive that is considered to be a stable, governing point of origin. Furthermore, by challenging the notion of the classical archive as the origin of Western civilization, Carson simultaneously offers a critique of Humanism, particularly the stability, measurability, and autonomy of “Man.” The archive, for Carson, is open, ongoing, and incomplete; the linguistic, temporal, and affective gaps of the classical archive are thus opportunities for poetic production. My dissertation examines four dimensions of the classical archive: the critical, the sapphic, the elegiac, and the erotic. By means of these coordinates, I establish the fragmentary and ruptured status of the classical past, as conceived by Carson. If the classical bedrock upon which Western culture has been conceived is fractured, what does this mean for the stability, borders, and categories of genre, language, and the text? The openness of the archive implicitly critiques related desires of totality associated with the textual body, narrative, translation, and Eros. The Erring Archive in Anne Carson is keen to analyze Carson’s own vexed reception and contributes to growing Carsonian scholarship, as it provides a comprehensive entry into her poetics and anticipates her current generic and media shift from the page to the stage.

Si la forte présence des personnages illustres et des cités antiques dans les œuvres politiques de Jean-Jacques Rousseau a été remarquée dès leur parution, leur fonction a trop longtemps été interprétée comme celle d'exemples à imiter. L'étude des multiples sources de Rousseau nous permet de mettre en lumière la complexité de ses références à l'Antiquité. Loin de présenter les grandes figures et les cités antiques comme des exemples monolithiques que le lecteur serait invité à faire revivre ou à regretter, Rousseau construit des modèles dynamiques, afin d'établir et d'explorer les « principes du droit politique», selon les termes du sous-titre du Contrat social. A partir de l'admiration pour les grands héros de Plutarque découverts dans son enfance, cette représentation se déplace dès le Discours sur les sciences et les arts vers l'étude des cités antiques, dont la réussite politique tient à ce qu'elles ont pleinement compris et exploité l'articulation fondamentale entre anthropologie et politique. C'est donc uniquement en observant comment les institutions politiques antiques prennent en charge la formation morale de l'homme que l'on peut pleinement établir les critères de fondation d'un corps politique légitime. La pensée politique antique joue ainsi un rôle considérable dans l'établissement de la distinction fondamentale entre souveraineté (pouvoir législatif) et gouvernement (pouvoir exécutif). L'étude de ces deux parties essentielles du corps politique met en évidence que la prégnance du modèle romain, plus fort que le modèle spartiate, permet à Rousseau de penser non seulement la fondation, mais encore la durée et le devenir du cor ps politique. / This dissertation conducts a systematic examination of Jean-Jacques Rousseau 's representation of Antiquity and provides a new interpretation of its meaning. Rousseau's lifelong interest in ancient Greece and Rome has so far been interpreted mainly as a personal myth, rooted in his emotional identification with examples of civic virtue. Challenging this interpretation, I analyze Rousseau's vision of Antiquity as a carefully constructed representatio n that seeks to answer key questions of early modern political thought. As he constructs his political system, Rousseau considers ancient material through a complex web of mediations, which alter his representation of Antiquity . The admiration for great men inherited from his childhood reading of Plutarch quickly turns into the construction of dynamic political models. Rousseau draws on ancient historical examples, as weil as on Plato's and Aristotle's political philosophy, to articulate his own definition of key modern political concepts such as sovereignty and body politic. In Rousseau's view ancient cities were politically successful because they fully understood the fundamental connection between anthropology and politics, placing the moral education of the citizens at the core of political action. Studying examples of ancient cities thus becomes indispensable not only to define a truly legitimate political structure, but also to design methods and practices to make it last over ti me. In this respect, the Roman Republic, whose institutions more successfully faced the challenge of history, serves as a more significant political model than Sparta. Reassessing Rousseau's representation of Antiquity thus allows usto reevaluate the place of government in his political system.

Le mythe de Médée, reçu par la première modernité comme un paradigme complet depuis la Conquête de la Toison d’or jusqu’à son retour sur le trône de Colchide, compose un prisme à multiples facettes : « Médée-tueenfant » (La Péruse), le personnage légué par la tragédie attique et devenu archétype d’une violence contrenature, y croise Médée magicienne, qui bouleverse le lignage et la ligne du temps, mais aussi la princesse orientale éprise d’un héros civilisateur. Pétrie par la culture chrétienne et admise au répertoire des arts officiels, cette figure ambivalente se rend perméable aux recherches esthétiques et aux débats éthiques des Temps modernes, en vue de l’expression de l’horreur, de l’allégorisation de la gloire, comme dans la représentation des passions.Or, la fondation de l’Ordre de chevalerie de la Toison d’or au duché de Bourgogne, en 1430, jusqu’à la fin de la Guerre de succession d’Espagne où se redessine la carte des puissances européennes, fait de la fable un miroir fictionnel privilégié des jeux de pouvoir entre les grandes dynasties européennes, en tant qu’instrument du discours programmatique du Prince. Dans le paysage culturel d’influences communes que forment les Cités-États de l’Italie et le royaume de France, cette étude montre, par la réunion de l’iconographie de Médée, l’analyse de saprésence dans les imprimés et de ses réécritures à la scène d’après l’antique, comment les échanges entre les arts visuels et les arts du texte oeuvrent à l’établissement d’un motif héroïque paradoxal. Ou comment Médée « devient Médée », renouvelant le serment que lui avait fait jurer Sénèque : « Fiam ». / The exceptional scope provided by the myth of Medea, which spans from the Conquest of the Golden Fleece to her return to the throne of Colchis, was received in its entirety by the Early Modern Arts and offers a multi-faced prism : Medea “tue-enfant” (La Péruse), the character left by the Ancient ancient Greek tragedy that became an archetypal figure of monstrous violence, crosses the path of the oriental lover of a civilizing hero, and also the enchantress who scatters lineages and timelines. Sculpted by the Christian culture and allowed into the official artistic repertory, this ambivalent figure absorbs the aesthetics and ethical debates of modernity. Indeed, Her Medea’s myth can be used for the expression of horror, allegories of glory, as well as expression of the passions.In addition, from the establishment of the Order of the Golden Fleece, by the Duke of Burgundy in 1430, to the end of the War of the Spanish Succession (which redefined the entire map of major European powers), Medea’s myth becomes one of the most efficient fictional mirrors of the political disputes between the most influential families of Europe, as an instrument of the publication of the Prince programme. Into the landscape of the cultural influences shared by the States of Early Italy and the French Kingdom, this study intends to show, by analysingthe spread of iconography of Medea, her presence in printed material and her classical performance reception and rewriting, how the exchanges between visual and literary productions work towards the definition of a paradoxical heroic standard. Where Medea “becomes Medea” and renews the oath that Seneca made her take: “Fiam”.

The theme of the dissertation is the reception of the Classical Antiquity in the Czech Literature between 1880 and 1910. The aim was to analyse the ways in which Czech culture related to the Classical Antiquity in the period of increased concern with Classical topics, motifs and forms. The first, largest part, methodologically inspired by the demythicizing perspective of Vladimír Macura and Jiří Rak, concerns with stereotypical views of the Classical Antiquity particularly prominent in the contemporary discourse: the antithetical image of noble Greece and corrupted Rome, the topos of bright Hellenic Sun and clear Sky, the ideology behind the common opinion that Ancient sculptures were all white (and the reactions to the discovery that they were, in fact, polychrome), the topos of a Greek athletic body and its employment in the policy of the Czech sports movement 'Sokol' (Falcon), and last but not least the topos of a man unspoilt by civilization and living in accordance with the Nature. Separate chapters are also devoted to two then important intermediaries of reception, grammar schools and translation. In the second part, attention is drawn to the representation of the Classical Antiquity in dramatic plays by Jaroslav Vrchlický, especially the dramatic trilogy Hippodamie, and their reception in...

This study explores the rediscovery and development of a tradition of Ciceronian academic scepticism in British philosophy between c.1660-c.1760. It considers this tradition alongside two others, recently recovered by scholars, which were recognised by contemporaries to offer opposing visions of man, God and the origins of society: the Augustinian-Epicurean, and the neo-Stoic. It presents John Locke, Conyers Middleton and David Hume as the leading figures in the revival of the tradition of academic scepticism. It considers their works in relation to those of Anthony Ashley Cooper, third earl of Shaftesbury, and Bernard Mandeville, whose writings refashioned respectively the neo-Stoic and Augustinian-Epicurean traditions in influential ways. These five individuals explicitly identified themselves with these late Hellenistic philosophical traditions, and sought to contest and redefine conventional estimations of their meaning and significance. This thesis recovers this debate, which illuminates our understanding of the development of the ‘science of man’ in Britain. Cicero was a central figure in Locke’s attempt to explain, against Hobbes, the origins of society and moral consensus independent of political authority. Locke was a theorist of societies, religious and civil. He provided a naturalistic explanation of moral motivation and sociability which, drawing heavily from Cicero, emphasised the importance of men’s concern for the opinions of others. Locke set this within a Christian divine teleology. It was Locke’s theologically-grounded treatment of moral obligation, and his attack on Stoic moral philosophy, that led to Shaftesbury’s attempt to vindicate Stoicism. This was met by Mandeville’s profoundly Epicurean response. The consequences of the neo-Epicurean and neo-Stoic traditions for Christianity were explored by Middleton, who argued that only academic scepticism was consistent with Christian belief. Hume explored the relationship between morality and religion with continual reference to Cicero. He did so, in contrast to Locke or Middleton, to banish entirely moral theology from philosophy.

During the eighteenth century, the dominant rhetorical and explanatory power of civic humanism was gradually challenged by the rise of a new organising language in political economy. Political economic thought permitted radically different descriptions of what laudable private and public behaviour might be: it proposed that self-interest was often more beneficial to society at large than public-mindedness; that luxury had its uses and might not be a threat to liberty and political integrity; that landownership was no particular guarantee of virtue or disinterest; and that there was nothing inherently superior about frugality and self-sufficiency. These new ideas about civil society formed the intellectual basis of a large body of verse written during the long eighteenth century (at mid-century in particular), in which poets engaged enthusiastically with political economic arguments and defences of commercial activity, and celebrated the wealth and plenty of Britain as a modern trading nation. The work of my thesis is to examine a contradiction in the way in which these political economic ideas were handled. Forward-looking and confident poetry on public themes did not develop pioneering forms to suit the modernity of its outlook: instead, poets articulated such themes in verse by appropriating and reframing traditional genres, which in some cases involved engaging with inherited moral values and philosophical preferences entirely at odds with the intellectual material in hand. This inventive kind of generic revision is the central interest of the thesis. It aims to describe a number of problematic meeting points between new political economic thought and handed-down poetic formulae, and it will focus attention on some of the ways in which poets manipulated the forms and tropes they inherited in order to manage – and make the most of – the resulting contradictions.

This is an investigation of the epic poetry produced in and about the Ibero-American world during the early modern period (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries) in trilingual perspective: in addition to the more familiar Spanish- and Portuguese-language texts, consideration is also––and, for the purposes of the thesis, above all––given to material in Latin. Latin was the third of the international literary languages of the Iberian imperial world; it is also by far the most neglected, having fallen between the cracks of modern disciplinary boundaries in their current configurations. The thesis seeks to rehabilitate the Latin-language component as a fully-fledged member of the Ibero-American epic tradition, arguing that it demands to be analysed with reference not only to the classical and classicising traditions but to those same themes and concerns––in this case, the centre|periphery binary––as are investigated for counterparts when in Spanish or Portuguese. The crucial difference is that––while the ends may be the same––the means of thematising these issues derive in form and signifying power from interactions with the conceptual vocabularies and frameworks of the Greco-Roman epic tradition. How is America represented and New World space figured––even produced––in a poetic idiom first developed by ancient Mediterranean cultures with no conception whatsoever of the continent of the western hemisphere? At the core is one such long neglected Ibero-American Latin-language epic by a figure who lived across the Iberian imperial world: the 'De Invento Novo Orbe Inductoque Illuc Christi Sacrificio' (Faenza, 1777) by Catalan-born Jesuit José Manuel Peramás. Peramás’s epic––which has never been the subject of a literary-critical study before––is offered as a test case: an exercise in analysing a Latin-language Hispanic epic qua Hispanic epic and setting it into Ibero-American literary-cultural context. This is to be understood in relation to the field of so-called ‘New World poetics’: an at present emergent zone of inquiry within Iberian colonial studies which until now has been developing almost completely without reference to the Latin-language portion of the corpus.

From the viewpoint of classical reception studies, I am asking what contemporary British art (by, for example, Sarah Lucas, Damien Hirst, and Mark Wallinger) has to do with the classical tradition – both the art and literature of Greco-Roman antiquity. I have conducted face-to-face interviews with some of the leading artists working in Britain today, including Lucas, Hirst, Wallinger, Marc Quinn, and Gilbert & George. In addition to contemporary art, the thesis focuses on Greco-Roman art and on myths and modes of looking that have come to shape the western art historical tradition – seeking to offer a different perspective on them from that of the Renaissance and neoclassicism. The thesis concentrates on the generation of artists known as the YBAs, or Young British Artists, who came to prominence in the 1990s. These artists are not renowned for their deference to the classical tradition, and are widely regarded as having turned their backs on classical art and its legacies. The introduction asks whether their work, which has received little scholarly attention, might be productively reassessed from the perspective of classical reception studies. It argues that while their work no longer subscribes to a traditional understanding of classical ‘influence’, it continues to depend – for its power and provocativeness – on classical concepts of figuration, realism, and the basic nature of art. Without claiming that the work of the YBAs is classical or classicizing, the thesis sets out to challenge the assumption that their work has nothing to do with ancient art, or that it fails to conform to ancient understandings of what art is. In order to do this, the thesis analyses contemporary works of art through three classical ‘lenses’. Each lens allows contemporary art to be examined in the context of a longer history. The first lens is the concept of realism, as seen in artistic and literary explorations of the relationship between art and life. This chapter uses the myth of Pygmalion’s statue as a way of thinking about contemporary art’s continued engagement with ideas of mimesis and the ‘real’ which were theorised and debated in antiquity. The second lens is corporeal fragmentation, as evidenced by the broken condition of ancient statues, the popular theme of dismemberment in western art, and the fragmentary body in contemporary art. The final chapter focuses on the figurative plaster cast, arguing that contemporary art continues to invoke and reinvent the long tradition of plaster reproductions of ancient statues and bodies. Through each of these ‘lenses’, I argue that contemporary art remains linked, both in form and meaning, to the classical past – often in ways which go beyond the stated intentions of an artist. Contemporary art continues to be informed by ideas and processes that were theorised and practised in the classical world; indeed, it is these ideas and processes that make it deserving of the art label.