Description
Experience, Narrative, and Criticism in Ancient Greece pursues a new approach to ancient Greek narrative beyond the taxonomies of structuralist narratologies. Focusing on the phenomenal and experiential dimension of our response to narrative, it triangulates ancient narrative with ancient criticism and cognitive approaches, opening up new vistas within the study of classical literature while ably deploying the ancient material to demonstrate the value of a historical perspective for cognitive studies. Concepts such as immersion and embodiment help to establish a more comprehensive understanding of ancient narrative and ancient reading habits, as manifested in Greek criticism and rhetorical theory. The thirteen chapters presented here tackle a broad range of narrative genres, broadly understood: besides epic, historiography, and the novel, tragedy and early Christian texts are also considered alongside non-literary media, such as dance and sculpture. Authored by international specialists in the language, literature, and culture of ancient Greece, each chapter utilizes a rich set of theoretical and methodological tools drawn from cognitive studies, phenomenology, and linguistics that place them at the vanguard of a strong new current in classical scholarship and literary criticism more generally.
About the Author
Jonas Grethlein holds the Chair in Greek Literature at Heidelberg University. He has been awarded the Maier-Leibnitz Prize, received an ERC starting grant, and was a Gerda Henkel Fellow at Brown University and a Fellow at Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin. His monographs include Aesthetic Experiences and Classical Antiquity: The Significance of Form in Narratives and Pictures (CUP, 2017), Die Odyssee: Homer und die Kunst des Erzahlens (C. H. Beck, 2017), Experience and Teleology in Ancient Historiography: Futures Past from Herodotus to Augustine (CUP, 2013), and The Greeks and their Past: Poetry, Oratory and History in the Fifth Century BCE (CUP, 2010). Luuk Huitink is currently employed as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Classics at Leiden University. He has previously been a Postdoctoral Researcher on the ERC Project 'Ancient Narrative' at Heidelberg University, Leventis Research Fellow in Ancient Greek at Merton College, Oxford, and Spinoza Visiting Fellow at Leiden University. His work focuses on classical Greek prose, and in particular on intersections between linguistics, narratology, and cognition. Aldo Tagliabue is currently an Assistant Professor in Classics at the University of Notre Dame. He has previously been a Postdoctoral Researcher on the ERC Project 'Ancient Narrative' at Heidelberg University, a Postdoctoral Researcher in Classics at the University of Milan, and a Teaching Fellow at the University of Lampeter. His work focuses on ancient Greek narratives, and in particular on the Greek novels and the intersections between narrative, the divine, and experience.
Reviews
the volume successfully introduces significant concepts of cognitive narratology into classics by covering diverse areas (ancient narratives, rhetorical treatises, sculpture, pottery). It is hoped that this volume in the series 'Cognitive Classics' will be the beginning for other, equally stimulating volumes. * Christos Chatzigiannis, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
I learned something new from every essay, all of which were, for the most part, admirably clear of jargon and engagingly written. Faced with a feast of such uniformly high quality, it is invidious to single out any one dish over another. That said, the stand-out essay, for me, is Alex Purves' wonderfully imaginative exploration of sticky, textural language in Homeric epic and its cognitive effects on the reader, which will form a core text in my Homer courses from now on. But it is a microcosm for the volume as a whole, which is a triumph in slow criticism. * Karen ni Mheallaigh, GNOMON *
This is a carefully prepared, clearly written and convincingly argued work with many worthy contributions, which offer fresh and exciting insights into a promising area of current research related to the cognitive sciences. * Anna Novokhatko, Classical Review *
Book Information
ISBN 9780198848295
Author Jonas Grethlein
Format Hardback
Page Count 354
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 684g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 160mm * 26mm
About the Author
Jonas Grethlein holds the Chair in Greek Literature at Heidelberg University. He has been awarded the Maier-Leibnitz Prize, received an ERC starting grant, and was a Gerda Henkel Fellow at Brown University and a Fellow at Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin. His monographs include Aesthetic Experiences and Classical Antiquity: The Significance of Form in Narratives and Pictures (CUP, 2017), Die Odyssee: Homer und die Kunst des Erzahlens (C. H. Beck, 2017), Experience and Teleology in Ancient Historiography: Futures Past from Herodotus to Augustine (CUP, 2013), and The Greeks and their Past: Poetry, Oratory and History in the Fifth Century BCE (CUP, 2010). Luuk Huitink is currently employed as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Classics at Leiden University. He has previously been a Postdoctoral Researcher on the ERC Project 'Ancient Narrative' at Heidelberg University, Leventis Research Fellow in Ancient Greek at Merton College, Oxford, and Spinoza Visiting Fellow at Leiden University. His work focuses on classical Greek prose, and in particular on intersections between linguistics, narratology, and cognition. Aldo Tagliabue is currently an Assistant Professor in Classics at the University of Notre Dame. He has previously been a Postdoctoral Researcher on the ERC Project 'Ancient Narrative' at Heidelberg University, a Postdoctoral Researcher in Classics at the University of Milan, and a Teaching Fellow at the University of Lampeter. His work focuses on ancient Greek narratives, and in particular on the Greek novels and the intersections between narrative, the divine, and experience.
Reviews
the volume successfully introduces significant concepts of cognitive narratology into classics by covering diverse areas (ancient narratives, rhetorical treatises, sculpture, pottery). It is hoped that this volume in the series 'Cognitive Classics' will be the beginning for other, equally stimulating volumes. * Christos Chatzigiannis, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
I learned something new from every essay, all of which were, for the most part, admirably clear of jargon and engagingly written. Faced with a feast of such uniformly high quality, it is invidious to single out any one dish over another. That said, the stand-out essay, for me, is Alex Purves' wonderfully imaginative exploration of sticky, textural language in Homeric epic and its cognitive effects on the reader, which will form a core text in my Homer courses from now on. But it is a microcosm for the volume as a whole, which is a triumph in slow criticism. * Karen ni Mheallaigh, GNOMON *
This is a carefully prepared, clearly written and convincingly argued work with many worthy contributions, which offer fresh and exciting insights into a promising area of current research related to the cognitive sciences. * Anna Novokhatko, Classical Review *
Book Information
ISBN 9780198848295
Author Jonas Grethlein
Format Hardback
Page Count 354
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 684g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 160mm * 26mm
