REFLECTIONS ON DOMESTICATION: “TAME” AND “WILD” IN THE AESOPIC ANIMAL FABLES

Author(s): Tua Korhonen / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2017

The focus of this paper is a complex literary genre – the Aesopic fables – where animals are portrayed as agents, and the basic question rests on how “the animal’s point of view” and the “animality” of its depiction of animals are manifested. By using philosopher Clare Palmer’s conceptualizations, it is to be shown that although the Aesopic animal fables function as moral allegories,they may also explicate and reveal differing kinds of views on domestication and of such categoriesas “tame” and “wild” – especially the versions that are told by Babrius. Domestic animals can be depicted as a part of the household with different roles and different statuses, but domestication can also be represented as a form of slavery for animals in contrast to the human-free existence of the wild animals, and the reason for domestication is that humans have more or less cheated animals into working for them (as an aetiology of domestication).

THE GOLDEN FLEECE AND THE GOLDEN-FLEECED RAM: TESTIMONY AND INTERPRETATION OF ANCIENT LITERARY SOURCES

Author(s): Vita Paparinska / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2017

The Golden Fleece figures in Greek mythology as the objective of the voyage of the Argonauts. The incompatability of the object of the search with the effort invested in its acquisition has furthered discussion of the real meaning of the Golden Fleece, which has generally been accepted to be a metaphor since antiquity. Modernity, especially at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, has been productive and inventive in the decipherment attempts of the metaphor’s hidden meaning. A number of interpretation theories has been developed, which, though interesting and well argumented, are sometimes highly divergent from the interpretation of the Golden Fleece in the ancient sources. A proper understanding of the original or close to original meaning of the metaphor of the Golden Fleece requires a scrupulous look at ancient Greek and Roman testimony, an overview of which the paper intends to provide.

Graikiško Odarion’o (1604) šv. Kazimiero garbei autorystės problema

Author(s): Tomas Veteikis / Language(s): Lithuanian Issue: 3/2006

The present article focuses on the question of the authorship of the Greek Odarion to St. Casimirus, one of the most outstanding pieces of Greek poetry in Early Modern Lithuania, recently famed for its dual versification. This amusing piece of work, located in the collection of the panegyrical texts to the same saint, carrying the title THEATRVM S. CASIMIRI, IN QVO IPSIVS PROSAPIA, VITA, MIRACVLA, & illustris pompa in solemni eiusdem apotheoseos instauratione, Vilnae Lithuaniae Metropoli V. Id. Maij, Anno D[omi]ni M. DC. IV. instituta graphice proponuntur. […] Editum ibidem [sc. Vilnae], eodem anno [sc. 1604], operis Typographicis Academiae SOCIETATIS IESV, was performed orally during the solemnities that took place 10–12 May in 1604 in Vilnius due to the recent canonization of this saint. The true author of this collection is actually unknown and the same is applicable to the Odarion. Gregorius Swięcicki, the member of Vilnius chapter, whose name appears in several parts of the convolute (especially, under the short introductory letter Author Lectori), is generally being taken as an author’s name for the whole printed collection (including Odarion). This position was recently questioned due to the detection of one more important part of the convolute, the so-called Pompa Casimiriana written by certain Quirinus Cnoglerus Austrius. The main idea of this article is to reveal the complicated cultural, educational and confessional surroundings of such a litterary composition as Odarion and give several suggestions concerning the personalities who might be called its authors. First of them is Austrian “philhelenic” humanist and probably convertite Quirinus Cnogler, the author of the panegyrical oration (sermo panegyricus) Pompa Casimiriana (s. l., s. a. [=Vilnae 1604?]) and a number of occasional, publicistical, polemical writings of different scope. Another “candidate” is Swedish poet Laurentius Boierus (1561–1619), the author of Carolomachia (Vilnae, 1606) and meanwhile unknown, not-extant poem Pompa Casimiriana (Brunsbergae, 1604), mentioned by various Jesuit bibliographies. Finally, the third of the „candidates“ is Ioannes Kraykowski of Polish/Lithuanian origin, the student of rhetoric at Vilnius Jesuit college, the author of various occasional Latin and Greek verses and one larger poem, Epos de S. Casimiro (Vilnae, 1604), composed for the mentioned solemnities of S. Casimirus and dedicated to his patron Fabian Plemięcki. The article doesn’t solve the problem of the authorship of Odarion completely and leaves the question open. Nevertheless, a certain strand of tentative conclusions is to be drawn. First of all, the authorship of Gregorius Swięcicki is to be reduced, reserving him only the name of the organizer or co-author of the whole collection (Theatrum S. Casimiri). The role of all the professors and students (especially the members of pious congregations and rhetorical/poetical ‘academies’) of Vilnius Jesuit academy is to be stated more firmly, too. Certain lexical and methodological affinities between Odarion and a couple of Greek compositions of Ioannes Kraykowski (including his Greek Odarion, written in dactylic tetrameters) enable us to state the hypothesis that he was its actual author. Nevertheless, the outstanding “philhelenism” of Quirinus Cnoglerus and the intricate manner of the self-camouflage (writing suppresso nomine) of Laurentius Boierus still remain as a serious claim for the name of the author of Odarion.

„Великият Левантинец“ или за границите на безграничното

Author(s): Malamir Spasov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2018

On September 2, 1901, in Brăila, Romania, was born Andreas Embirikos (1901-1975), one of the most significant Greek poets who, along with Seferis, belonged to the so-called Generation of the ‘30s – an important representative of Greek modernism who introduced surrealism in Greek context, confirmed revolutionary of the word, great visionary, and heretic from his first poetry collection. In addition, professional psychoanalyst, enthusiastic photographer, and literary critic. The Great Eastern (Ό Μέγας Ἀνατολικός) is his magnum opus – the mega-novel of Embirikos, he has been working on for more than two decades, and was published only after his death. The Great Eastern contains 100 chapters, unfolding upon more than 2000 pages. The novel was released in 8 volumes only in the 1990s. There has been no comprehensive translation of the novel so far. The Great Eastern was on the verge to become the great unpublished of Embirikos and, unfortunately, remains the great untranslated of Embirikos. The Great Eastern is actually the name of a giant transatlantic steamship, a veritable Titanic‘s predecessor, which made several courses from Liverpool to New York and back in the second half of the nineteenth century. In a nutshell, in The Great Eastern Embirikos reveals a ten-day voyage of the giant steamship in May 1867 as a journey through hedonism and beyond, during which her passengers devote their selves to love without boundaries and generally to all kinds of crossing the boundaries. The Great Eastern is a transgressive novel. It represents literature that many would call dangerous. This is a good reason for speculating over the concept of transgressive. Boundaries and boundlessness are a matter of perspective. The real question is what goes beyond the boundaries of boundlessness.

О семантических связях между басней и ее моралью (на материале басен Эзопа)

Author(s): Elena Viktorovna Padučeva / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/1977

Любое исследование басни исходит из того, что человек способен осознавать соответствие между басней и моралью. Во всяком случае, на гипотезу о наличии такой способности опирается любое доказательство несоответствия между содержанием басни и моралью. Возьмем, например, известный анализ басен Крылова, проведенный Л. С. Выготским [1], который обнаруживает, в частности, что содержание басни «Ворона и лисица» не соответствует тезису Лесть гнусна ( = ‘Льстец гнусен’); что басня «Стрекоза и муравей» не убеждает в моральном превосходстве муравья, поскольку наши симпатии полностью на стороне стрекозы; что в басне «Лебедь, щука и рак» дело вовсе не в том, что в товарищах согласья нет и т. д. Ясно, что этот анализ может быть обращен только к такому человеку, который обладает интуитивным представлением о соответствии между басней и моралью.

Efterpi Mitsi. Greece in Early English Travel Writing, 1596–1682. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 206. ISBN 978-3-319-62611-6. ISBN 978-3-319-62612-3 (e-Book)

Author(s): Ludmilla Kostova / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

CONSTANTINE LASCARIS, HIS MANUSCRIPTS AND HIS ETHICAL CONCERNS

Author(s): Juan Felipe Gonzalez-Calderon / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

This article aims to examine Constantine Lascaris’s work on Aristoteles’ ethical corpus. We consider evidence from the textual witnesses of the Nicomachean Ethics, the Eudemian Ethics, the Magna Moralia, and some other minor ethical writings, which belonged to Lascaris, in order to reconstruct his working methods. We also explore Lascaris’ own statements about virtuous life; a life devoted to the service of the common good, to philosophy and to the study of texts. For him philosophy was a way of life, rather than simply a discourse. We look at the link between written culture and philosophical life and propose further research into how Byzantine and Renaissance scholars understood their own intellectual activities to be a special kind of spiritual exercise intended to promote moral improvement in both individuals and societies.

The Slavic Homer: From Grigorios Stavridis to Grigor Prličev

Author(s): Małgorzata Borowska / Language(s): English Issue: 10/2021

In 1860 Stavridis/Prličev’s poem Armatol unexpectedly won him the University of Athens poetry competition, which met with opposition from part of the Greek community and a smear campaign in the press. Despite his declarations of having a “Hellenic heart”, the author from Ohrid was not well received by Athenian society. He took part in the competition once more two years later, this time trying to match Homer himself and presenting an extensive though unfinished epic poem with Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg as the protagonist. The paper, which serves as an introduction to the Polish translation of Skanderbeg, contains extensive excerpts from the reports of both competition committees, chaired by Alexandros Rangavis, especially the second one, when the judges justified why they could not award Stavridis the prize despite being impressed with his poem. His disappointment at his cool reception and his failure in the competition most likely contributed to a radical change in the attitude of the Slavic Homer, who not only stopped “serving Greece” but began vigorously eliminating any Greek influences in his native Ohrid.

The Marginalised Romani Culture in Greek Society and Its Portrayal in Greek Children’s Literature

Author(s): Meni Kanatsouli,Rosy-Triantafyllia Angelaki / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

In Greek children’s literature, very few books deal with Roma children, especially in a protagonist role – therefore, the aim of this article is to examine literary representations of Roma children. The four books presented in this paper help the youngest readers understand how marginalised this social group is in the context of Greek society. Adopting the basic principles of multicultural literature as well as the method of imagology or cultural iconology, it can be said that prejudices and stereotypes are projected through literary characters. In addition, the perpetual persecution of the Roma people is revealed in the works analysed herein, including their genocide during the Second World War. The ideological stance of the books is one of friendliness towards Roma children, even though the racist and suspicious attitude of non-Roma is not in any way glossed over or concealed. In conclusion, according to the authors of the article, what is missing in Greek and European children’s literature is the authentic portrayal of Roma and the authentic voices of Roma writers.

The difference between the optative and the “modal” indicative in Homeric Greek: four case studies. Part 1: The optative

Author(s): Filip De Decker / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2022

In epic Greek both the optative and the indicative (the so-called “modal indicative”) can be used in contexts where the degree of realization is uncertain or even impossible, while in Attic Greek only the indicative is used. In these two articles I discuss whether there is a difference between the optative and the modal indicative in these contexts and/or if it can be determined which was the original mood. As there are about 1500 optatives and 250 modal indicatives in Homer, it is not possible to discuss them all and, therefore, I focus on the passages in which aorist forms of γιγνώσκω, βάλλω and of ἴδον appear, and those conditional constructions in the Odyssey in which the postposed conditional clause is introduced by εἰ μή with either a “modal” indicative or optative. The corpus comprises 100 forms (80 optatives and 20 indicatives), but in each example I also address the other modal indicatives and optatives in the passages, which adds another 50 forms to the corpus. In this part (part 1) I address the optative. First, I provide an overview of the research on the optative in Homeric Greek, discuss the different suggestions for the co-existence of the optative and indicative in these uncertain and/or unreal contexts, explanations which can be summarized into two categories, those assuming that the indicative replaced the optative and those arguing that both moods were original, but had different meanings. Then I explain why this corpus was chosen, prior to the analysis that focuses on two elements, namely the temporal reference (does the mood refer to the past or not) and the degree of possibility (is the action described likely, possible, remotely possible or unlikely/impossible). Initially I consider the optatives with a past reference, then the optatives that could be interpreted as remotely possible or unlikely/impossible (“irrealis” in the terminology of Classical Philology) and conclude by discussing two passages that have been reused in the epics in different contexts with different protagonists and, consequently, with different modal meanings for the same forms. The conclusion of the first part of the article is that the optative was at the most unreal extreme of the irrealis-continuum and could initially refer to the present and future, as well as the past, but that the instances in which there was an exclusive past reference were (very) rare.

Цветовете в поезията на Дионисиос Соломос

Author(s): Teofana Angelieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2008

Неоконченный труд Фукидида

Author(s): Dmitri Panchenko / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2022

Thucydides' statement that he described the entire war up to the surrender of Athens (V, 26, 1) must be taken in strict accordance with his words. On the whole, his work was completed; all that remained was to fix, supplement, decorate. The fact that in the published version the text breaks off at the presentation of the events of 411 is due to the following circumstances. During his stay in Athens, where he returned in the early summer of 404 after almost twenty years of exile, Thucydides introduced individual parts of his work to those who wish. There was a rumor about the work of Thucydides. The attention of Lysander's friends and henchmen was attracted by the presence in the work of detailed information about the establishment in Greek cities of political clientele, who were much more dependent on Lysander than on the Spartan state. The kings and other persons in the Spartan government, pushed into the background by Lysander, saw these actions of Lysander as the basis for the gradually carried out coup d'état by him. Authoritative information about the clientele founded by Lysander could pose a great danger to his career. Meanwhile, Thucydides, for some reason, returned to his Thracian possessions. Lysander went there too. In the fall of 404, Thucydides was murdered, and the manuscript of his work was stolen. Everything that seriously compromised Lysander was removed from it; the rest was saved and taken to Sparta. In the spring of 395, Lysander died in a battle. In the fall of 394, Agesilaus, who had returned to Sparta from Asia, searched the house of Lysander in order to find materials revealing that he was preparing a coup d'état. Along with the planted fake, books of the history of Thucydides were also discovered. After making sure that they did not contain anything fundamentally harmful to Spartan politics, Agesilaus handed the manuscript to Xenophon, an officer of his army, an Athenian exile and a credible writer. Xenophon published the intact part of the manuscript as it was, without editing it. The materials of the damaged part formed the basis of the first two books of his Hellenica.

Язык в эсхатологической перспективе и перевод Писания на греческий в сборнике мидрашей Деварим рабба

Author(s): Uri Gershowitz / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2022

Eschatology is one of the most important themes of Talmudic literature. With all the variety of end-time concepts and the abundance of research on the subject, the connection between universal deliverance and language remains overshadowed. This article is analyzing a composition from Debarim Rabba 1:1 that expresses the idea of improvement of the human language as a sign of the future world. What will lead to this improvement? One of the possible answers: translation of the Scripture into Greek. This answer, rather unexpected for the Sages of Talmud, will be analyzed in the context of the history of the attitude towards the Greek language in the Jewish culture of Late Antiquity. An image of a river, flowing out of the Temple from Ezekiel's prophecy (ch. 47), as an improved language of the universe, will be compared with Philo of Alexandria's concept of language.

BEDEN SOSYOLOJİSİNE KARŞILAŞTIRMALI BİR BAKIŞ: ARİSTOFANES’İN LİSİSTRATA ESERİ VE ŞALVAR DAVASI FİLMİ

Author(s): Özlem Özen,Nuray Tuğçe TOKSOY / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 56/2022

It is seen that the social, historical, and sociological place of the woman is subject to many different disciplines. Especially the studies about women in sociology highlight the situation of women both in private and public spaces. Sociology of the body which is seen as a subbranch of sociology, is subject to various research both within the borders of Turkey and in outer geographies, particularly in the West. Sociology of the body, which has been systematically started to be researched since the end of the twentieth century, studies the formation of the body in historical and social processes and it is also employed in different fields such as sports, medicine, and literature. The method of this study is the sociology of the body which is evaluated under sociological criticism that is frequently applied in order to analyse the fictional worlds and characters in literary works. The subjects of this research are Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, written in the 5th century BC, and Şalvar Davası which was adapted from this work and directed by Kartal Tibet, in 1983. This essay aims to analyse the situation and the motivations of the female characters that are fictionalized in the works. In both works, the struggle of the female characters over their bodies in order to get involved in the political and public spaces is going to be studied. This study aims to determine the similarities between two different dominions by carrying on a comparative study and to reflect how the female characters in the works reinforce the patriarchal culture that they push its limits at the end of their struggle.

Reception of Sophocles’ Antigone in the Baltic States

Author(s): Maria-Kristiina Lotman,Līva Bodniece,Jovita Dikmonienė / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2022

This paper analyzes the translations of Antigone by Sophocles and later authors and the performances based on them in the theaters of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It investigates the necessity to translate the Antigone dramas by Sophocles, Jean Anouilh and Janusz Głowacki into national languages and stage them in theaters. The article analyzes how these works are related to the history of the Baltic countries. This paper is divided into three subparts that match the historical periods from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. The most important performances of Antigone in the Baltic countries are analyzed, highlighting the individual style of each director and their attention to the form and expression of the performances. The main themes revealed by the artists of the Baltic countries are conscious self-sacrifice for one’s neighbor and individual resistance to conformity and tyranny.

Szarańcza z Apokalipsy św. Jana – owad zwykły czy niezwykły? Eksperyment filologiczny: od natury do nanotechnologii

Author(s): Grzegorz Ojcewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 11/2023

In the author’s opinion, locusts mentioned in the Book of Revelation by no means represent the species of common insects classified in the family Acrididae, also known from the Book of Exodus and its description of the plagues of Egypt. As far as the locusts in the Old Testament are concerned, they were a destructive force completely in line with their biological nature; however, the “locusts” in Saint John’s vision are depicted rather as smart micro-robots created by wielders of highly advanced technologies – most probably by extraterrestrials. The author claims that Saint John, limited by the then state of knowledge about the universe, was unable to express his thoughts in the categories of advanced technologies; therefore, he found names and images for his visions, which were understandable primarily to himself. Hence, the comparison of nanotechnological “insects” to locusts and scorpions the apostle was familiar with, as these animals are native to the area where he lived, and he must have been well aware of their natural habits.

ИЗОБРЕТАЯ ВАРВАРСТВО: ПЕРЕВОДЫ, КОММЕНТАРИИ И ТРАКТОВКИ EUR. IT 74–75

Author(s): Yana Leonidovna Zabudskaya / Language(s): Russian Issue: 7/2023

The goal of the paper is to clarify the meaning of lines 74 and 75 in Euripides’ tragedy Iphigenia in Tauris. The novelty of the work lies in the comparison of commentaries and translations of the fragment and the comprehensive analysis of materials and “extratextual” factors, while the relevance is due to the appearance of new translations of Euripides. The word “heads” present in the translated description of the altar of the Temple of Artemis in IT 74–5, which appears in a number of editions, does not stem directly from the text (the dictionary meaning of σκῦλα is “armor”, while ἀκροθίνια means “the best part”). But it is supported by the reports of Herodotus and Ammianus Marcellinus, as well as by some visual evidence. Herodotus’ narrative, however, differs from Euripides’ version and is not suffi cient for unambiguous interpretation. Considering the Italian localization of the visual evidence (a vase from Campania and a Roman sarcophagus), we can assume that the heads on the walls of the temple appeared in one of the South Italian stagings or became part of the visual realization of the plot of Iphigenia and Orestes’ rescue under the infl uence of the Etruscans. Thus, the word “heads” is not a translation, but a culturological interpretation, one of the elements of the reception of Euripides’ dramas in Italy, forming an image of a barbarian country opposed to Hellas. So, there are two solutions here: we either allow σκῦλα or ἀκροθίνια to have an explicit meaning of “head” – and then we need the corresponding specification in the dictionaries; or we consider this meaning as a late interpretation formed under the influence of several factors, but nevertheless not an integral part of the content and acceptable not in translation, but only in commentary.

ГОМЕР В ПОЭЗИИ ПОТОМКОВ «СЛАВНЫХ СОЛИМОВ»

Author(s): Elena Vladimirovna Prikhodko / Language(s): Russian Issue: 7/2023

The inhabitants of Termessos, one of the three largest cities in Pisidia, considered themselves the descendants of the Solymoi twice mentioned by Homer. Following the conquests of Alexander the Great, Pisidia fell under the profound sway of Greek culture. Hellenization permeated every facet of the indigenous population’s existence, and by the time of the Roman Empire, there had developed a society, whose life combined the elements of local and Greek cultures. While the level of architectural Hellenization can be evaluated by the ruins of cities, it is more difficult to assess the level of literary education. There were no famous poets in Pisidia, and the literature of this region remains almost unexplored. The aim of the article is to ascertain the educational attainment of the urban elite in Termessos. This is achieved through the lexical and grammatical analysis of three randomly selected funerary inscriptions written in hexameter. The main educational texts were the poems of Homer, therefore, in the structure of each epitaph the author reveals all the elements that may indicate the acquaintance of Termessian poets with the Homeric verse: words belonging to the epic tradition, Homeric formulas, and grammatical forms characteristic of the epic. As a result, the author shows that 43.6 % of the text of these epitaphs was borrowed from the epic tradition and concludes that the educated inhabitants of Termessos knew Homer’s poems well and even used his formula for their ethnic self-expression, proudly calling themselves the “glorious Solymoi”.

HOMER: ἄσβεστος γέλως (două episoade: Iliada, I, 597; Odiseea VIII, 459)

Author(s): Anton Adămuț / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 52/2023

I have often wondered, like many others, where the expression “Homeric laughter” comes from and what is hidden behind it. The spectacular career of the expression, which naturally does not appear in the Homeric epics, can be traced right back to the Iliad and Odyssey. I have insisted on two episodes in which the expression occurs (ἄσβεστος γέλως), one at the end of book I of the Iliad, the second in the Odyssey, book VIII. The gods are involved, Hephaestus in both situations, Ares and Aphrodite in the episode of the Odyssey, and people are also involved for whom this kind of laughter is not characteristic. What is Homeric laughter? The classical expression is ἄσβεστος γέλως, it can be translated by “inextinguishable” or “irrepressible mirth”. The phrase seems to come in English from German – “Homerisches Gelächter”, “unauslöschliches Gelächter” and in German from French: “le rire homérique”, as it appears for the first time in the memoirs of Baroness d’Oberkirck: “le rire inextinguible”. Homeric laughter is, therefore, “inextinguishable”, “unquenchable”, we owe the Latin formula to Ovid, the one from Metamorphoses - superi risere. As for Homer, we know he had no good reason to laugh, Homer couldn’t laugh in a Homeric manner anyway.

Between archaic and modern: σκύθαι and πατζινάκοι in The Alexiad of Anna Komnene

Author(s): Adrian-Gabriel Mateșan / Language(s): English Issue: IX/2023

Since the emergence of Byzantine culture, the influences of Ancient Greece stood out due to the authors' desire to be inspired by the erudition of classical works. For this reason, medieval Greek literature is the product of a classicizing style that intertwines with modern tendencies. This practice had the merit of increasing the artistic quality of the chronicles but simultaneously caused numerous confusions. Frequently, authors borrow classical terminology to name contemporary ideas or concepts, but sometimes they even use ancient and modern terminology in the same phrase. The reasons behind the writers' intention to alternately use a common and a scholarly language are challenging to discern, especially since the complexity of some works such as The Alexiad makes the terminology used highly open to interpretation. The situation becomes much more complicated when, for three Eurasian nomadic peoples (Pechenegs, Uzes, and Cumans) different naming techniques are applied.