Trainers played an immensely important role in ancient sports. Yet, they often disappear in the descriptions of great athletic feats in epinician poetry, the poems of praise that celebrated great athletes in the ancient world. This paper examines the manner in which trainers fade from epinician narrative and argues that their disappearance may have to do with the nature of the body and the role of trainers and physicians in the Greek world. Admitting the importance of trainers (...) might challenge the notion that the greatness of athletes stemmed from birth and breeding. The fact that trainers sold their services as commodities would exacerbate this. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Age of Grace: “Charis” in Early Greek PoetryDana R. SmithThe Age of Grace: “Charis” in Early Greek Poetry, by Bonnie MacLachlan; xxi & 192 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992, $29.95.Bonnie MacLachlan has two concerns in this book. First, she sees early charis, conventionally and inadequately translated as “grace,” as the result of feeling, concrete action, and sometimes concrete objects, fused in such a way that (...) early Greeks did not clearly distinguish these as separate aspects. Second, she focuses on the experience of beauty or pleasure as a crucial part of reciprocity in charis, and argues that many of the now-fashionable models from the social sciences, such as those dealing with reciprocal exchange of goods and favors, are insufficient to account for this particular dynamic of allurement. What later ages sensed, and what we sense, as two or more different kinds of charis “may not have been sensed as such by the archaic Greek mind.” Rather, the early Greeks possessed an integrated sense of these fragments as part of a single experience. “A charis-event, provoked by moral or aesthetic beauty, was disarming; it broke down the barriers of the self, and it demanded that the beneficiary reach out to another.” This study combines extremely able discussions of different sides of this crucial concept with a large vision of their integration into a coherent whole: “[Charis] was the moral glue of their society, linking such other central moral ideas as timê [“honor,” “prerogative,” “price”], dikê [“due portion,” “justice”], themis [“unwritten law”], xenia [“requital of gifts and hospitality”], and aidôs [“reverence,” “awe”].”How well does MacLachlan demonstrate this twofold idea? She deserves high praise for setting forth the essential passages of her authors clearly and succinctly, for giving numerous insights into them, for adducing much pertinent scholarship, and certainly for furthering the development of her important thesis. Her discussion of the earliest conception of charis (chap. 2, “The Charis of Achilles”), focused mainly on Homer, with material from the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod, gives a sensitive and persuasive account of relations among charis, timê, and dikê. She makes excellent points about specific perceptions of beauty, especially visual, although one comes away a bit uncertain as to how these aspects all cohere, and also as to whether there are differences in charis between the Iliad and the Odyssey. Her discussion of the cult dimensions of charis (chap. 3, “The Charites”), while fascinating in itself, contains little direction for using this information so as to understand the thesis. She gives careful readings of her examples of erotic and social charis (chaps. 4 and 5, “Erotic Charis” and “Social Charis”), clearly identifying types that contrast with the earlier prototypical experience, although sometimes her criticism of these is more implicit than stated. A more forceful definition of the “problem” of erotic charis, for example, would have helped unify this discussion with that of erotic charis in Aeschylus. Her discussion of Pindar and Bacchylides (6, “Epinician Charis”), perhaps the high point of the book, shows the richest ties to the multi-dimensional Homeric charis; here we return clearly to the topic of [End Page 172] beauty, see the pertinence of some of the cult information, and sense the transformational dynamics of charis as profoundly important for this genre of poems. She leaves somewhat open, however, the question of whether charis is a single thing in Pindar. The chapter on Aeschylus (7, “Charis in the Oresteia”) presents a powerful reading of different kinds of charis in conflict, private versus public, resulting in a unified view of the trilogy as a whole. Once more we note different senses of charis, but in a way that highlights their collision: the duality of charis is further brought into relation with other dualities, such as that of dikê. This chapter connects well with other parts of the book; erotic and false charis become important issues.If there is a criticism to make of this book, it is that MacLachlan does not do quite enough to work out the relations between her provocative thesis and her discussions of particular poems. Some sections are too dissertation-like in presenting evidence, and more thought about the... (shrink)

By convention epinician poetry claims to be both obligatory and truthful, yet in the intersection of obligation and truth lies a seeming paradox: the poet presents his poetry as commissioned by a patron but also claims to be unbiased enough to convey the truth. In Slater's interpretation Pindar reconciles this paradox by casting his relationship to the patron as one of guest-friendship: when he declares himself a guest-friend of the victor, he agrees to the obligation ‘a) not (...) to be envious of hisxenosand b) to speak well of him. The argumentation is:Xeniaexcludes envy, I am axenos, therefore I am not envious and consequently praise honestly’. Slater observes that envy may foster bias against the patron, but the problem of pro-patron bias remains: does the poet's friendship with and obligation to his patron produce praise at the expense of truth? (shrink)

This book examines Greek engagements with the past as articulations of memory formulated against the contingency of chance associated with temporality. Based on a phenomenological understanding of temporality, it identifies four memorializing strategies: continuity , regularity , development, and acceptance of chance. This framework serves in pursuing a twofold aim: to reconstruct the literary field of memory in fifth-century bce Greece; and to interpret Greek historiography as a memorializing mode. The key contention advanced by this approach is that acts of (...) memory entailed an “idea of history” that was articulated not only in historiography, but also in epinician poetry, elegy, tragedy, and oratory. The book offers a rich account of poetic conventions and contexts through which each of these genres counterbalanced contingency through the use of exemplary and traditional modes of memory. This fine analysis highlights the grip of the present on the past as a significant feature of both historiographical and nonhistoriographical genres.The essay argues that this work fills a disciplinary gap by extending the reflection on memory to a new period, Greek antiquity. The retrospective positioning of this period at the outset of Western historical thought brings Grethlein's investigation to the center of debates about memory, temporality, and the meaning history. In engaging with the book's argument, the essay suggests that historiographical memory emerged in Greece not as a first-order encounter with time, but as a second-order encounter with forgetting. This confrontation marked a certain separation of historiography from other memorializing genres. Whereas poetic and rhetorical memories were posited against contingency, historiography sought to retrieve those aspects of the past that may otherwise have been irretrievably lost and forgotten. In doing so, it formulated the historiographical imperative as a negation of forgetting that problematized the truth-value of memory and the very act of remembering the past. (shrink)

Pindar's victory songs teem with divinity. By exploring them within the lived religious landscapes of the fifth century BCE, Hanne Eisenfeld demonstrates that they are in fact engaged in theological work. Focusing on a set of mythical figures whose identities blur the boundaries between mortality and immortality, she newly interprets the value of immortality in the epinician corpus. Pindar's depiction of these figures responds to and shapes contemporary religious experience and revalues mortality as a prerequisite for the glory found (...) in victory. The book combines close reading and philological analysis with religious historical approaches to Pindar's songs and his world. It highlights the inextricability of Greek literature and Greek religion, and models a novel approach to Greek lyric poetry at the intersection of these fields. (shrink)

Este artículo se dedica al estudio de Afrodita en los poemas del poeta mélico tardo-arcaico Baquílides, específicamente en el Fr.20 B, el Ditirambo 17 y en el Epinicio 5. Se toma como base la representación de la diosa en la mélica griega arcaica, con excepción de Píndaro, a fin de observar semejanzas y diferencias en su diseño en el poeta de Ceos y en el modo en que el erotismo figura en el pequeño corpus considerado, principalmente en el tercer texto (...) indicado. This article turns to the study of Aphrodite in the three melic poems of the late archaic Greek poet Bacchylides, where she is found: Fr. 20B, 17 th Dythiramb and 5 th Epinician ode. The background for the commentary will be the representation of the goddess especially in archaic Greek melic poetry, except for Pindar, and a comparative perspective will be sustained throughout, so that similarities as well as differences may be observed in the Cean poet's drawing of the goddess and in the way eroticism is present in the corpus defined for this paper - mainly in its third song. (shrink)

This article argues that in Pindar's epinicians first-person statements may occasionally be made in the persona of the chorus and the athletic victor. The speaking persona behind Pindar's first-person statements varies quite widely: from generic, rhetorical poses—a laudator, an aoidos in the rhapsodic tradition (the “bardic first person”), an Everyman (the “first person indefinite”)—to strongly individualized figures: the Theban poet Pindar, the chorus, the victor. The arguable changes in the speaker's persona are not explicitly signalled in the text. This can (...) lead to significant ambiguities concerning the identity of the speaker (“blurred quotation,” “indeterminate speech boundaries”). The lack of a concern always to distinguish clearly the primary from the secondary narrators relates to a desire to confuse diegetic and mimetic forms; the practice of the fifth-century choral lyric poets in this regard is compared to that of other ancient Greek writers. The main challenge is to indicate how it is possible, in theory and in practice, for the athletic victor to be identified as the speaker when this is not explicitly signalled in the text; and, if this is possible, to suggest how it is possible for an audience to recognize when the speaking persona subsequently reverts to laudator or poet. An attempt is made to consider whether any formal, structural, or thematic tendencies can be observed in those passages in choral lyric where the chorus or the victor are tacitly introduced as speaking personae: such effects, it is argued, occur especially when links of ritual or genealogy enable the ode to “zoom” from the mythical past to the present occasion of the performance. The main passages discussed in the article are Pind. P.8.56–60, P.9.89–92, N.7.85, Pae. 2.73–79, and Bacch. 3.84–85. But the phenomena discussed are related broadly to other phenomena in Greek literature, in Latin poetry, and, especially, in Cicero's forensic oratory. (shrink)

As a technology of commemoration, epinician song was a late archaic innovation. To gain acceptance for this innovative genre, Pindar works to anchor it to Greek epic and encomiastic poetry, that is, to demonstrate its continuity with these genres. But Pindar also regularly vaunts his poetry on the grounds that it is novel and inventive, potentially undermining his efforts at anchoring. This paper studies Olympian 13 as an example of a text in which Pindar’s habits of anchoring (...) his poetry and advertising its inventiveness are effectively reconciled. I argue that the ode’s central Bellerophon myth, a pointed rewriting of Homer’s account of Bellerophon (Il. 6.119-211), and the ode’s hybrid meter are showpieces of poetic innovation that demonstrate the worth and originality of Pindaric epinician to the ode’s Corinthian audience, while at the same time anchoring this genre to Homeric epic and dithyrambic song. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue S1, Page S18-S21, March‐April 2022.

Fabi and Goldberg raised important considerations regarding both research and funding priorities in the field of bioethics and, in particular, the field’s misalignment with social justice. W...

Resumen: En el presente ensayo se expone y discute la idea de que el lenguaje, más allá de ser un medio de comunicación, se manifiesta como poesía; esto en el sentido de que es en el lenguaje donde diariamente se configura el mundo con sentido humano. Poesía del lenguaje aparece como una expresión que busca dar cuenta de la energía creadora del lenguaje a la hora de instituir la realidad en la dimensión lingüística de esta. La discusión toma la forma (...) de comentarios y diálogo con tesis de pensadores como Heidegger, Saussure, Benjamin, Maturana, y de poetas como Novalis, Neruda, Huidobro, con el propósito de elucidar la dimensión poética del lenguaje y sus efectos prácticos y morales en la vida social.: In this essay we explain and discuss the idea that language, beyond its quality of being a means of communication, manifests itself as poetry; in the sense that it is in language where the daily configuration of a world with human meaning takes place. The poetry of language appears as an expression that thrives to explain the creative energy of language, as it institutes reality in its linguistic dimension. The discussion take shape in the form of comments on, and dialogue with, thinkers such as Heidegger, Saussure, Benjamin, Maturana, and with poets such as Novalis, Neruda, Huidobro, with the purpose of elucidating the poetic dimension of language and its practical and moral effects on social life. (shrink)

In 2009 the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil established a conflict resolution mechanism to help rural communities address their grievances against palm oil companies that are RSPO members. This article presents the broadest ever comprehensive assessment of the use and effectiveness of the RSPO conflict resolution mechanism, providing both overviews and in-depth analysis. Our central question is: to what extent does the RSPO conflict resolution mechanism offer an accessible, fair and effective tool for communities in Indonesia to resolve conflicts with (...) companies? Our aim is not only to provide a ‘reality check’ of this mechanism but also to contribute to the wider debate on how communities can seek access to justice when engaged in intractable conflicts with palm oil companies. For data collection, we took three steps. First, we used our own database of 150 conflicts between communities and companies in Indonesia. We identified 64 conflicts that involved RSPO member companies, of which 17 prompted communities to convey their grievances to the RSPO’s conflict resolution mechanism. Second, we used the database of the RSPO, which handled 85 complaints against companies in Indonesia in the period 2009–2020. Third, we conducted fieldwork, in total, about 6 months of fieldwork and extensive interviews on three conflicts involving RSPO companies to identify mechanisms leading to both failed and successful instances of conflict resolution. For our assessment, we used three criteria to assess the conflict resolution mechanism of the RSPO: accessibility, procedural justice, and the outcomes of the process. We conclude that—on all counts—the conflict resolution mechanism is biased in favor of companies. The result of these biases is that the actual capacity of the RSPO’s mechanism to provide a meaningful remedy for rural communities’ grievances remains very limited. This unequal access to justice sustains conflicts between companies and communities over land. (shrink)

Purpose. To consider the uniqueness of Descartes’ way of interpreting poetry as a type of philosophizing that makes it possible to comprehend the metaphysical nature of man. Its implementation involves the consistent solution of the following tasks: a) understanding methodological changes in the philosophy of the 20th century in the process of actualization of anthropological interest; b) argumentation of the importance of poetic thinking for early Descartes in the process of addressing modern historians of philosophy and the thinker’s texts. (...) Theoretical basis. I rely on the conceptual positions of phenomenology, existentialism and hermeneutics. Originality. Finding of the study is that poetic thinking is the most authentic way of meaningful comprehension of the metaphysicity of man. The paper outlines the nature of the expression of this correlation in the philosophizing of the 20th-21th centuries and substantiates the thesis about the importance of the poetic principle for understanding the phenomenon of man in early works by Descartes. Conclusions. The paper examined the methodological shifts in anthropologically oriented philosophizing of the 20th-21th centuries and focused on the manifestations of related moments in the philosophical legacy of Descartes. The latter demonstrates the existence of a still underestimated version of interpreting the metaphysical foundations of human existence, the form of understanding of which is poetic thinking. It is a form of caring for the humane in man. (shrink)

The starting point of this essay is the logical and political objection that Plato made against poetry, as well as the lack of distinction that he specified as the origin of its dangerousness, and which modernity converted into the condition of possibility of certain egalitarian forms of sensible experience and material life. I will then look at the function that the historical rearticulation of Platonic idealism has fulfilled from Romanticism to the present day in the age-old dispute between philosophy (...) and poetry, paying particular attention to the different readings of Hölderlin and Mallarmé carried out by Benjamin, Lacoue-Labarthe, and Agamben as symbols of the disfiguration of poetry. I will analyze the tension between sense and sound as the founder of an irreducible territory that opens a potentiality indicative of its political force. Lastly, I will turn to Michel Foucault’s The Government of Self and Others to analyze the function of messianism and parrhesia in the contemporary characterization of political poetry and its conflicts with the truth-telling of philosophy. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This absorbing study of Plato's criticism of poetry offers a new interpretation based upon central features of both the pre-Platonic conception of poetry and previously neglected features of Plato's various discussions of poetry and the poets. Professor Mitscherling's analysis is unique in that he concentrates on the philosophical significance of Plato's distinction between dramatic and nondramatic sorts of poetry. Mitscherling shows that this distinction proves in fact to be central to the conception of poetry that (...) Plato consistently elaborates throughout his dialogues. Mitscherling also makes a unique contribution by outlining a possible Platonic aesthetics, which draws on current work in phenomenology and hermeneutics in such a way as to promise an entirely new direction for current work in continental aesthetics. The author employs Gadamer's analyses of the ontology of the work of art, in conjunction with a phenomenological analysis of the aesthetic experience, in the construction of a foundation for aesthetics that is consistently Platonic. Mitscherling concludes with the hypothesis that Plato's criticism of poetry did not apply to poetry itself, nor was it directed to art in general or the educational system, or the Sophists. Rather, Plato was specifically against the techn? of mim'sis, that is, the technique of persuading by appearing to be what one is not, or by merely appearing to speak the truth. (shrink)

This dissertation addresses the ontological significance of poetry in the thought of Martin Heidegger. It gives an account of both his earlier and later thinking. The central argument of the dissertation is that poetry, as conceptualised by Heidegger, is beneficial and necessary for the living of an authentic life. The poetry of T. S Eliot features as a sustaining voice throughout the dissertation to validate Heidegger's ideas and also to demonstrate some interesting similarities in their ideas. Chapter (...) one demonstrates how effectively certain concepts from Heidegger's 'Being and Time' can be applied in an analysis of T.S. Eliots celebrated poem 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'. The reading involves concepts such as angst, authenticity, inauthenticity, the they and idle talk as they appear in 'Being and Time' and then relates these to aspects of T.S Eliot's poem. Chapter two is an exegesis of Heideggers essay 'The Origin of the Work of Art' in order to understand the meaning of poetry as he describes it. The essay centres on the interpretation of a painting by Vincent van Gogh, and what the experience of the painting reveals to someone authentically engaging with the artwork. Heidegger attempts to establish what the essence of a thing is (the artwork as thing), for the 'origin' of the artwork resides in its 'thingliness'. He creates an important distinction between equipment and the artwork, as well as earth and the world in order to justify the unique, originary position that the artwork occupies. This leads Heidegger to create a new understanding of poetry (which is expanded to encompass all art forms) and to emphasise the importance of the human agent in both the creation and preservation of the artwork. Chapter three is an exploration of language in both the Heidegger of 'Being and Time' and the later Heidegger's thought. The aim is to explore the ontological effect that Heidegger's conception of language has for our existence. He places language within a primordial role arguing that it is not us who speak language, but language that speaks us. This conception has important consequences for our relationship with Being, and the way in which we understand our existence. The final chapter unifies the various themes of the dissertation into a cohesive argument. The chapter begins with a discussion on the meaning of our existence following the later Heidegger. This is nothing less than the guardianship of Being which can only be understood in its relation to our dwelling within the fourfold. In conclusion it is through the measure of the language of poetry that we can realise the possibility of authentic dwelling. (shrink)

Literary trauma theory has traditionally been a humanist concern, and the concept of witnessing, so central to the theorization of trauma, has focused on human experience and relationships. This article stages an interdisciplinary intervention by conceptualizing trans-“species” trauma testimony as a literary encounter involving a double-layered witnessing; the human artist witnessing nonhuman animals’ witnessing to the failings and crises brought about by human society. Focusing on a selection of contemporary Australian poems, a view emerges of poetic witnessing and testimony that (...) exceeds and complicates the sub-genre lenses of old such as “nature poetry,” “ecopoetry,” and “protest poetry.” I propose a new conceptual category that testifies to traumatic structures and consequences of human practices. I explore how this testimony proceeds through a two-way channel of witnessing in which nonhuman animals are active witnessing agents and not merely witnessed by humans. I concentrate on witnessing as primarily experiential, as a corporal, affective operation in which the senses figure centrally. I argue that when poets witness nonhuman animal experience in poetry, testimony advances as an ethical engagement in an act of solidarity and advocacy. Poetry offers productive potential in this respect due to its affinity for engagement with the senses, its capacity to communicate heightened affect, and its scope for expression, articulation, and evocations of meaning outside of conventional sense-making and the limits of rational understanding. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to read the poetic principle behind the Tammuzi movement of modern Arabic poetry through the lens of speculative poetics. While speculative-poetic accounts of modern poetry, such as those provided by Allen Grossman, blazed new paths connecting poetry to personhood in modernity, their application to the development of modern poetry outside of Europe remains limited by their self-avowed focus on European history. This paper will outline a critical corrective to speculative poetics which, (...) I argue, can be of value in extending its domain of application to Arabic projects of poetic modernity, particularly the two tendencies of "free verse" and "commitment" poetry that emerged out of the Tammuzi movement. (shrink)

There are many moral values that the Arab writers have written about either in prose or poetry. This emphasis on morality in classical Arabic literature has also been the subject of many academic studies. The abundance of the literary material in this field has attracted the attention of researchers. One of these is the emphasis on "naturalness" which we have seen in classical Arabic literature. In the Arab society which social ties are very strong the moral values have been (...) summarized with the concept of al-murūah/chivalry over time. In these sources that is including poems, parables and anecdotes about morality allthings on the moral values are brought together. Hereunder the main thing in the moral maturity is the naturality. Criticism of ostensible behaviors has taken place in an important part of these works. For example, ancient perception of morality is a predestination that comes from creation has found its response in Arabic poetry. Many Arab poets have stated that one's innate character will beat and the reason will be defeated. On the other hand, some poets tried to establish a balance between character and wisdom. Accordingly, it has been stated that people are innately inclined to falses but they also have the potential to restrain their innate evil tendencies with the ability of mind given to them. These poets liked to explain this balance through the simile stating he ambitious horse that wants to run at full speed is restrained with a bit. According to this simile the man is like a person on the back of a raging horse with the evil inclinations cultivated in his nature. The soul he carries wants to take him wherever it wishes. However, he has a mind that is like a bridle in return for the soul inside him. On the other hand, when we look at the encyclopedic sources of Arabic proverbs we see that there are proverbs comparing many moral attributes with animals. In Turkish proverbs, cunning is identified with the fox and industriousness with the ant, and in Arabic proverbs a very rich human character-animal pairings stand out. These proverbs are based on the idea that people's character is the product of nature. Because each animal species has appreciated characteristics and these features occur without learning and education. In addition, the issue of the naturalness of morality was also used for the purpose of praise and satire in the classical Arabic poets. The poet makes his reproach or anger towards someone through his character. When describing his lover he states that the beauties that adorn him come from creation. Therefore, it can be said that the emphasises of character/nature/temperament in the poems in which these and similar emotions are aroused, are the motifs that serve the purpose of the poet. Finally Arab writers have offered many recommendations in literary form on issues such as brotherhood, solidarity and cooperation for the healthy continuity of social relations in the Muslim society, and they have included anecdotes and poems within the framework of the subject. The study is mainly based on the descriptive method, however, the way the authors handled the subject is analysed when it is deemed to be appropriate. Considering that there is no specific study in Turkish and Arabic literature within the framework of the present study, it is aimed to investigate the literary material in the subject in question. (shrink)

We rarely acknowledge the achievements of doctoral candidates who fought with all they had but still lost the battle and dropped out – we know so little about what becomes of them. This reflective article is about the betrayals of PhD supervisors in one institution, the trauma and stigma of withdrawing from that institution, writing poetry as a coping mechanism and the triumph in completing a Thesis by Publication (TBP) in another institution. Thus, I build on Lesley Saunders’s idea (...) about using poetry to operate on ‘a personal capacity’ in educational research. Accordingly, I present an original autoethnographic poem and other poetic artefacts as well as reflections to sharpen the sociological eye of my story. In it, I merge two different segments of experiences in poetry – trauma and triumph – to draw an image of my doctoral journey, in the moment and in retrospection. By doing so, I illuminate the struggles involved in becoming an independent researcher. I also encourage practitioners to conceive that their negative experiences in doing educational research can be transformed into an achievement depending on the stand they take when faced with it. Certainly, poor academic performance can be closely associated with abandoning doctoral studies, but that is not always the case. Therefore, it is my hope that this autoethnographic work may instill hope in doctoral candidates who are still in the struggle to find a voice. (shrink)

This article reconsiders the methodological issues posed by the reception of archaic and classical poetry in imperial rhetorical texts. It argues that references to ancient poems and poets in the works of imperial sophists are always already the product of appropriation and rewriting, and that the study of sophists’ engagement with poetry should go beyond Quellenforschung to explore how and why poetic models were transformed in light of their new rhetorical and imperial contexts. To illustrate this approach and (...) its contribution to our understanding of both ancient-reception phenomena and imperial rhetorical culture, the article focusses on Himerius of Athens, a fourth-century c.e. sophist and teacher of rhetoric whose fondness for lyric poetry has caused his Orations to be used as a quarry for lyric fragments and testimonia. Himerius’ treatment of carefully chosen lyric models is here discussed with attention to his self-presentation and rhetorical agenda to show how the sophist appropriated the voices of diverse lyric icons to promote his school and negotiate his position in relation to the imperial administration. This analysis restores Himerius’ intellectual significance within late imperial culture and society, but it also demonstrates how a more in-depth study of the reception of ancient poetry in imperial sophistic literature has the potential to illuminate the strategies of cultural politics used by imperial authors to (re)construct Greek tradition. (shrink)

The importance of music for epinician, as for all other types of choral performance in Archaic and Classical Greece, has long been recognized, but the exiguousness of the evidence for the compositional principles behind such music, and for what these poems actually sounded like in performance, has limited scholarly enquiries. Examination of Pindar's texts themselves for evidence of his musical practices was for a long time dominated by extensive and often inconclusive debate about the relations between metres and modes. (...) More recently scholars have begun to explore Pindar's relations to contemporary developments in musical performance, and in doing so have opened up new questions about how music affected audiences as aesthetically and culturally significant in its own right, and how it interacted with the language of the text. This article will investigate the performance scenarios of two of Pindar's epinicians, arguing that in each case the poems contain indications of specific musical accompaniments, and use these scenarios as a starting point for engaging with wider interpretative questions. The self-referential dimension of these compositions will be of particular importance; I shall argue that Pindar deployed a type of musical intertextuality, in which his compositions draw on pre-existing melodic structures, utilizing their cultural associations for the purposes of his own pieces, a process crucial to the dynamics of performance of the poems concerned. By doing so I shall attempt to reach a better understanding of the roles played by music in epinician performance and of Pindar's place in relation to the musical culture in which he worked. (shrink)

A review of Peter Steele’s: The Whispering Gallery: Art into Poetry, in which Steele writes poems on and to paintings and the sculpture Black Sun (By Inge King) in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. Each work on which there is a poem is reproduced. In this book Steele writes more to the ‘contour’ of the topic-work than he did in Plenty. His poems – as ever sidenoted – are tensed between the topicality of the work of art (...) in question, and Kant’s aesthetic which involves ‘the free play of the cognitive faculties’. In ths tension lies the particular pleasure of Steele’s poetry. (shrink)

Like Plato, Protagoras held that young children learn virtue from fine examples in poetry. Unlike Plato, Protagoras taught adults by correcting the diction of poets. In this paper I ask what his standard of correctness might be, and what benefit he intended his students to take from exercises in correction. If his standard of correctness is truth, then he may intend his students to learn by questioning the content of poems; that would be suggestive of Plato’s program in Republic (...) III. But his standard is more likely to be the accurate use of language; in that case he would intend his students to learn to express their thoughts clearly enough that their audience would understand what they were saying. That standard would be independent of the truth of what they are saying; and that would be a precursor to modern techniques by which we try to teach speaking and writing. Truth is not so easy to escape, however, and we shall see that Protagoras’ exercise must assume that the poet is trying to tell the truth. (shrink)

Why have poets played such an important role for contemporary philosophers? How can poetry link philosophy and political theory? How do formal considerations intersect with philosophical approaches? These essays seek to establish a dialogue between poetry and philosophy. Each essay contributes to our understanding of the relationships between theory and lived experience while providing new insight into important poets such as Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Victor Hugo, and others. The broad range of metaphysical, phenomenological, aesthetic, and ethical approaches (...) announce important new paths for a reinvigorated study of lyric poetry in the decades to come. (shrink)

The central questions addressed in this article are: 1) Can writing poetry be both a process, and a product of research? and 2) How can writing poetry be therapeutic to the writer and reader? The author has developed his own theories of poetry as research and poetry as therapy by action research into his writing. He argues that in thinking about the process of writing verse, he has come to see that some poetry is a (...) form of research, and way of knowing. He has observed and recorded ways in which writing has been therapeutic for both the writer and for the reader or listener. The article develops and supports the notion of poetry as research by referring to a growing literature on poetic enquiry. The author then analyses and illustrates how poetry can be therapeutic to the writer and to readers. In a similar way, the article draws on a different literature on poetry as therapy to support his argument. (shrink)

Poetry is a literary art, and is often examined alongside the novel, stories, and theater. But poetry, much of it, has more in common with music, in important respects, than with other forms of literature. The emphasis on sound and rhythm in both poetry and music is obvious, but I will explore a very different similarity between them. All or almost all works of literary fiction have narrators—so it is said anyway—characters who, in the world of the (...) fiction, utter or write the words of the text thereby reporting the events of the story. But there is a very different way of understanding literary works, one applicable especially to poetry. Much music can be understood in a similar manner, and doing so nicely explains several important characteristics of listen-ers’ experiences. (shrink)

Poetry evokes mental imagery in its readers. But how is mental imagery precisely related to poetry? This article provides a systematic treatment. It clarifies two roles of mental imagery in relation to poetry—as an effect generated by poetry and as an efficient means for understanding and appreciating poetry. The article also relates mental imagery to the discussion on the ‘heresy of paraphrase’. It argues against the orthodox view that the imagistic effects of poetry cannot (...) be captured by prosaic paraphrase, but points to features of poetry that can shape aspects of mental imagery that are liable to be lost in paraphrase. (shrink)

The author attempts to encompass the self, or a self, that, while at some times appears to be his own, at other times not, thus encompassing and continually morphing. It is a mixture of poetry and prose.

In the Netherlands, the poet Herman Gorter is mostly known as the author of the neo-romantic poem May and the “sensitivistic” Poems, but internationally he became famous as a propagandist of radical Marxism: the author of influential brochures and of an “open letter” to comrade W.I. Lenin in 1920. During the 1890s, Gorter became increasingly dissatisfied with his poetry, considering it as ego-centric, disinterested and “bourgeois”, unconnected with what was happening in the real world. He wanted to put his (...) poetry on a scientific footing, notably by endorsing a dialectical materialist worldview. In the communist society he envisioned, science would become poetry and poetry would become science. In his opus magnum Pan, two terms are rather prominent, namely heelal and kristal. These signifiers not only reflect important themes, but also two friendships which began around 1900, namely with prominent astronomer and marxist Anton Pannekoek and with Ada Prins, the first woman in the Netherlands who acquired a PhD in chemistry, specialised in liquid crystal research. Whereas Ada Prins is mostly remembered as one of Gorter’s secret lovers, she was first and foremost his educated guide into the complex and enigmatic world of twentieth-century chemistry research. Liquid crystal chemistry became an important source of inspiration for Gorter’s work and the main objective of this paper is to demonstrate her influence on Gorter’s Pan as a scientific poem After presenting the two heroes of this paper, and their work in poetry and chemistry respectively, I will analyse the role of liquid crystals in Herman Gorter’s Pan, highlighting important connections with Ada Prins’ research into liquid crystal chemistry. (shrink)