Habilitationsschrift -- Universität Freiburg (Breisgau), 1992. / Includes footnotes, bibliography and indexes.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1996. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 203-217).

Thesis (doctoral)--Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation is about how dominant identity is constructed through the centering and incorporation of marginal and subaltern subjectivities in Ancient Greek thought, with some preliminary consideration of the Classical Age but chiefly devoted to a study of Hellenistic poetic aesthetics at Ptolemaic Alexandria. The thesis argues ultimately for a specifically Queer and Afrocentric reading of the ArgonautikaI use postcolonial methods, tactics, and strategies to theorize the genealogical intersection(s) of gender and race, and explore the ancient roots of racism. I am indebted in my work to Critical Race Theory, Gender and Queer Theory, Intersectionality Theory and Decolonial Studies. Guided by the millennial discourses of the Coloniality of power and the contributions of Aníbal Quijano and his intellectual heirs to critical thought and theory—positing the fundamental and central functions of epistemological thought, knowledge-production and the control and regulation of knowledge within oppressive social orders as specifically and particularly interrelated practices in the European colonialism of Modernity, and enabling us to deconstruct out of our contemporary knowledge and social practices the oppressive consequences in Modernity as a result of the aftermath of Old World regimes in the New World—the argument throughout this dissertation subjects monuments of Classical Greek literature to an analysis that traces loosely a genealogy of how ideology and identity were constructed and fabricated in imperial contexts in the aftermath of the Greco-Persian Wars, during which time Hellenic peoples were first exposed to Empire, and some great portions of the Greek-speaking world came under the dominion of the Achaemenid imperial regime. In a manner of speaking, this dissertation deconstructs the intersections of identity, including gender (and ethnicity) and “race”, at pivotal moments in the history of Greek Antiquity. Principal test-cases for this study analyze monumental texts produced in societies under the hegemony of “democratic” imperial authority at Athens in the 5th Century BCE and Ptolemaic Egypt in the 3rd Century, in the aftermath of Alexander’s conquests. This dissertation explores how the control and regulation of racialized and ethnic marginalities and subalternities is critical to civic and political structures in the Classical Age, as well as how the interrelated concept of the gendered other, in artistic expressions of knowledge and authority—high literary monuments—functioned critically to reify and justify imperial and colonial practices in the Ancient Greek World. Chapter 1 consists primarily of readings of the Wesir-Heru (“Osiris-Horus”) dynastic succession myth from Egypt in representations of kingship and dynastic succession particularly in Africa and African spaces in the texts of Pindar, Herodotos, and Aiskhylos, including an exploration of the what at the instigation of Jackie Murry I call the Imagistic Poetics of Pindar and Aiskhylos in comparative consideration of Egyptian symbolic literary culture, including even the mdw-ntjr (“hieroglyphs”), and an especially instructive close reading of the center of the Agamemnon. To support my readings of Aiskhylos’ interactions with Egypt and Egyptian thought, I also consider how Aiskhylos interacted with the legacy of the Danaid myth. Situated in their proper historical contexts these readings demonstrate that during the height of the Achaemenid Empire in the Mediterranean World, which coincides incidentally with what we call the Greek Classical Age, Hellenism and Africanism were not mutually exclusive. In fact, as we see early in Chapter 1 with Pindar, Africanism is coextensive with Panhellenism. Furthermore, and critically, as part of my readings of gender as racialized—i.e., constructed under the Ancient Greek linguistic paradigms that govern “racial” otherness (genos)—I show that Blackness, beyond representing masculinity and the male body in the Greek artistic and visual imagination, is separable notionally in the Ancient Greek imagination, and in critical contrast to the modern and contemporary situation, from Africanism. In order to perform this work, I call upon archaeology and material evidence to render a more coherent picture of the networks of culture accessible in the micro- and macro-regions of an interconnected and transnational Ancient Mediterranean. In Appendixes to Chapter 1, I also provide brief readings of intertextuality in the Hellenistic reception at Alexandria of Classical Greek interactions with Egypt, Libya, and the African cultural past and show the embeddedness of that interaction in literary encounters especially, a fact evident from the Classical Greek texts. Chapter 2 explores the Hellenistic origins of Afro-Greek subjectivity in the literary record with Theokritos at Alexandria. I explore “race” in the West and the formation of Greek ethnicity in the East as a “kairological” artistic and poetic projection that exposes of the roots of 3rd-century universalist and globalist Ptolemaic imperial ideology. I also explore Space and identity, the social imaginary, and consequent(ial)ly the gendering of space in the poetry of Poseidippos. In my readings, we see texts engaged intimately with discourses about Sovereignty, and implicitly with the history of Rome and Qrt-ḥdšt (“Carthage”). Chapters 3 and 4 function as a pair or couple. After a full historical and social contextualization of Ptolemaic Alexandria in the Hellenistic Age of the 3rd Century BCE, as well as an exploration of an inclusive range of Queer (including “LGBTQ+”) subjectivities in Alexandrian poetry in Chapter 3, in Chapter 4 I argue that in the Argonautika of Apollonios Rhodios Medeia represents a Queer woman who endures systematic heteronormative and patriarchal oppression, or heterosexism. This opens up Book 4 of the Argonautika for fertile close readings of the inclusive and all-encompassing aesthetics that constitute Hellenistic poetry, including authentically Kemetic (“Egyptian”) voices. The Epilogue provides a roadmap for applying these analytic tools to the Latin Literature of Rome.

No description available.

This thesis adopts a mixed-method approach of quantitative and qualitative analysis to discuss the role of women, especially female speakers and addressees, in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica. In addition to the traditional individual mortal and divine speech roles, discourse categories such as the influence of the Muses, the presentation of female personifications, female collectives, frame and inserted speakers, and goddesses in disguise are also taken into consideration. The study shows that, despite the shared subject matter and greatly overlapping ensemble of speakers, Valerius makes significant changes in nearly all categories of female speech representation. Valerius entirely omits some of Apollonius’ female speech acts, reduces speeches from oratio recta to mere speech summaries, replaces Greek goddesses with similar, but not equivalent Roman speakers, assigns new speech roles to previously silent female characters, adds important new episodes with female speakers that do not occur in Apollonius’ epic, changes the speech contexts, the conversational behaviour and the overall characterization of speakers – in isolated individual instances as well as in more complex character portrayals. Valerius even modifies or transfers entire discourse patterns such as conversational deceit in speech and silence, or divine disguise, from one speaker group to another, usually of the opposite sex. Valerius transforms the Apollonian arrangement of a male-dominated, 'epic' first half following the invocation of Apollo and a second female, 'elegiac' half with many female speech acts and epiphanies, after a revision of the narrator’s relationship with the Muses, into a more traditional portrayal of the Muses and a much more balanced occurrence and continued influence of female speakers. The different female voices of the Argonautica, especially Juno, can continuously be heard in the Flavian epic and provide the reader with an alternative perspective on the events. Even the less prominent female speakers are part of a well-balanced and refined structural arrangement and show influences of several pre-texts, which they sometimes self-consciously address and use to their advantage. There can be no doubt that, like Apollonius, Valerius does not merely use female speech acts to characterise the male protagonists, but follows a clear structuring principle. Whereas Apollonius in accordance with his revised invocation of the Muses concentrates the female speech acts in the second half of his epic, especially the final book, Valerius links episodes and individual characterizations through same-sex and opposite-sex speaker doublets and triplets that can be ascribed to and explained by Jupiter’s declaration of the Fata. From Juno’s unofficial opening monologue to Medea’s emotional closing argument, the female voice accompanies and guides the reader through the epic. The female perspective is not the dominant view, but rather one of many perspectives (divine, mortal, female, male, old, young, servant, ruler, et al.) that complement the primary viewpoint of the poet and the male, mortal protagonists and offer an alternative interpretation.

Cette thèse propose une synthèse autour des différents rôles de la lumière et de l'obscurité dans les Argonautiques d'Apollonios de Rhodes. Ce sujet comporte une forte composante lexicale, qui fait l'objet d'une étude dans la première partie, où les vocabulaires de la lumière et de l'obscurité chez Apollonios sont comparés aux emplois homériques. Ce thème interroge également les catégories de l'espace et du temps dans la mesure où lumière et obscurité structurent la narration autant qu'elles la déstructurent et proposent un itinéraire placé à la croisée de la barbarie et de la civilisation, état d'entre-deux qui reflète bien les craintes de l'époque alexandrine. La dialectique de la lumière et de l'obscurité permet aussi de mettre en perspective la notion d'héroïsme placée au cœur de l'épopée : la brillance des armes homériques fait alors place à l'éclat de la séduction, arme principale de Jason dont la valeur se mesure surtout dans le domaine érotique. Ce transfert des valeurs traditionnelles de la lumière sur le plan masculin s'accompagne d'une affirmation des pouvoirs féminins en contexte nocturne. Une quatrième partie interroge enfin le statut littéraire des Argonautiques à l'aune de la dialectique entre lumière et obscurité : l'épopée au long cours dénigrée par Callimaque peut en effet être lue comme un recueil poétique de pièces autonomes et une galerie de tableaux correspondant aux canons de l'esthétique hellénistique. Le dieu Apollon, dieu de la lumière et de la poésie placé au centre de l'oeuvre d'Apollonios, se fait le porte-parole privilégié d'un auteur au nom si proche du sien et devient le destinataire d'une sorte d'hymne atomisé qui mêle célébration poétique et réflexions métapoétiques. / Through this thesis, we aim to prove the various roles played by light and darkness in Apollonius Rhodius'Argonautica. In the first part, a lexical study specifically explores the terms expressing the ideas of light and darkness, in comparison to the Homeric references. Our thematic also tackles the issue of the construction of space and time, a notorious one in the Hellenistic period. The epic's structure is indeed based on the light and darkness' duality, but the threat of darkness symbolizing chaos is never far from the Argonauts who constantly struggle with barbarians and on the contrary symbolize Greek enlightment and civilization. The light and darkness'couple also allows us to give a new perspective on heroism, which is a central issue in Apollonius'poem. Whereas Homeric warriors project martial light due to their armour's glistening, Jason appears as love-hero shining with his purple cloak, an Hellenistic artefact replacing Achilles'shield described in the Iliad. At the same time, we can observe a kind of empowerment on the feminine side during the scenes occuring at night. In the fourth and last part, light and darkness endorse a metapoetical value, as they build a new kind of epic, like a collection of brief literary pieces joined together by a common celebration of Apollo, god of both poetry and light. Apollonius'Argonautica can therefore be seen as a prefiguration of Philostratus'Imagines, as it is built around a succession of vivid poetical paintings.

Este trabalho pretende discutir de que forma a noção de heroísmo foi abordada nas Argonáuticas de Apolônio de Rodes em oposição ao conceito de herói presente nos poemas homéricos. A análise se baseará na distinção entre as personagens Jasão e Héracles como exemplos de modos de atuação díspares e conflitantes no poema. A tradução dos livros I e n das Argonáuticas complementa o estudo. / This work intends to discuss the notion of heroism present in Apollonius Rhodius\' Argonautica in opposition to the concept of hero in Homeric poems. The analysis is based on the distinction between the characters Jason and Heracles as examples of different and conflicting ways of action. The translation of Argonautica books I and n complements the study.

Este trabalho pretende discutir de que forma a noção de heroísmo foi abordada nas Argonáuticas de Apolônio de Rodes em oposição ao conceito de herói presente nos poemas homéricos. A análise se baseará na distinção entre as personagens Jasão e Héracles como exemplos de modos de atuação díspares e conflitantes no poema. A tradução dos livros I e n das Argonáuticas complementa o estudo. / This work intends to discuss the notion of heroism present in Apollonius Rhodius\' Argonautica in opposition to the concept of hero in Homeric poems. The analysis is based on the distinction between the characters Jason and Heracles as examples of different and conflicting ways of action. The translation of Argonautica books I and n complements the study.

This thesis is a study of embedded song in ancient Greek narrative poetry. The introduction defines the terminology (embedded song is defined as the depiction of the performance of a poem within a larger poem, such as the songs of Demodocus in Homer’s Odyssey) and sets the study in the context of recent narratological work done by scholars of Classical literature. This section of the thesis also contains a brief discussion of embedded song in the Homeric epics, which will form the background of all later examples of the motif. Chapter 1 deals with embedded song in the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod’s Theogony. It is argued that the occurrence of embedded song across these poems indicates that the motif is a traditional feature of early Greek hexameter poetry, while the possibility of “inter-textual” allusion between these poems is considered, but finally dismissed. Chapter 2 focuses on Pindar, Bacchylides and Corinna, and explores how lyric poets use this motif in the various sub-genres of Greek lyric. In epinician poetry, it is argued that embedded song is used as a strategy of praise and also to boost the authority of the poet-narrator by association with the embedded performers, who can be seen to have in each case a particular source of authority distinct from that of the poet narrator. Chapter 3 considers the Hellenistic poets Apollonius Rhodius and Theocritus, and how their interest in depicting oral poetry meshes with their identity as literate and literary poets. Appendix I gives a list of all the examples of embedded song I have found in Greek poetry. Appendix II gives an account of Pindar’s Hymn to Zeus, a highly fragmentary poem which almost certainly contained an embedded song, analysing this as an example of the difficulties thrown up by lyric fragments for a study of embedded narratives.