Epic History

Herausgeber: Konstan, David; Raaflaub, Kurt A

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Heroic epics have existed in many cultures, from antiquity to the modern day, offering an important means by which societies commemorate the past and transmit memories over time. Yet few attempts have been made to compare these epics systematically or to establish a typology of heroic epic. Nor is it always clear to what extent heroic epics reflect history, or what methodologies might be used to retrieve historical information from epics. Addressing these issues, Epic and History invites comparison across a broad variety of cultures in which traditions of epic - oral and written - existed and continue to exist. It makes a unique and conscious effort to take full advantage of this cross-cultural comparison to enhance our understanding of this important topic, presenting crucial insights into how history is treated in narrative poetry. Contributors are leading scholars on epic and heroic poetic traditions. They base their analyses on profound knowledge of the wide range of cultures discussed throughout the book, from the ancient Near East and South Asia, the Greco-Roman world, and medieval Europe - from Scandinavia to Spain - to today's Egypt, Southern Africa, and Central America.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Wiley
• Seitenzahl: 456
• Erscheinungstermin: 19. Januar 2010
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 250mm x 175mm x 29mm
• Gewicht: 966g
• ISBN-13: 9781405193078
• ISBN-10: 1405193077
• Artikelnr.: 31698801

Autorenporträt

David Konstan is the John Rowe Workman Distinguished Professor of Classics and the Humanistic Tradition at Brown University; he is also a Professor in Comparative Literature, and a member of the Graduate Faculty of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies. He is the author of Roman Comedy (1983); Sexual Symmetry (1994); Greek Comedy and Ideology (1995); Friendship in the Classical World (1997); Pity Transformed (2001); The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks (2006); Terms for Eternity: Aiônios and aïdios in Classical and Christian Texts, (with Ilaria Ramelli, 2007); and A Life Worthy of the Gods: The Materialist Psychology of Epicurus (2008). Kurt A. Raaflaub is David Herlihy University Professor, and Professor of Classics and History at Brown University. His numerous publications include The Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece (2004) and Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece (2007, co-authored with Josiah Ober and Robert Wallace). He is also the editor of Social Struggles in Archaic Rome (Blackwell, 2005), and War and Peace in the Ancient World (Blackwell, 2007), and co-editor of Democracy, Empire, and the Arts in Fifth-Century Athens (1998), War and Society in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (1999), A Companion to Archaic Greece (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), and Geography and Ethnography: Perspectives of the World in Premodern Societies (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).

Inhaltsangabe

Series Editor's Preface.

Notes on Contributors.

Introduction.

Maybe Epic: The Origins and Reception of Sumerian HeroicPoetry.

Historical Events and the Process of Their Transformation inAkkadian Heroic Traditions.

Epic and History in Hittite Anatolia: In Search of a LocalHero.

Manly Deeds: Hittite Admonitory History and EasternMediterranean Didactic Epic.

Epic and History in the Hebrew Bible: Definitions, "EthnicGenres," and the Challenges of Cultural Identity in the BiblicalBook of Judges.

No Contest between Memory and Invention: The Invention of thePaava Heroes of the Mahabharata.

From "Imperishable Glory" to History: The Iliad andthe Trojan War.

Historical Narrative in Archaic and Early Classical GreekElegy.

Fact, Fiction, and Form in Early Roman Epic.

The Song and the Sword: Silius' Punica and theCrisis of Early Imperial Epic.

The Burden of Mortality: Alexander and the Dead in Persian Epicand Beyond.

Slavic Epic: Past Tales and Present Myths.

Historicity and Anachronism in Beowulf.

The Nibelungenlied - Myth and History: A Middle High German EpicPoem at the Crossroad of Past and Present, Despair and Hope.

Medieval Epic and History in the Romance Languages.

Roland's Migration from Anglo-Norman Epic to Royal FrenchChronicle History.

A Recurrent Theme of the Spanish Medieval Epic: Complaints andLaments by Noble Women.

History in Medieval Scandinavian Heroic Literature and theNorthwest European Context.

Traditional History in South Slavic Oral Epic.

Lord Five Thunder and the Twelve Eagles and Jaguars of RabinalMeet Charlemagne and the Twelve Knights of France.

History, Myth, and Social Function in Southern African NguniPraise Poetry.

Epic and History in the Arabic Tradition.

Comments.

Index.

Rezensionen

"The reader will surely find useful and insightful comparativematerial in all the essays." (Bryn Mawr ClassicalReview, February 2011)

"I would recommend this volume both for scholars of epic andheroic literature (especially if they have interests in comparativeliterature or in questions of orality and historicity), who will nodoubt enjoy its generally succinct essays with pertinentbibliography for each tradition." (Bmcreview, 9 February 2011)

"Essential. Graduate students and researches." (Choice, October2010)"A remarkably wide-ranging collection, deeply learned, ecumenicalin spirit, and diverse in its approaches."
Martin Mueller, Northwestern University

"This book is an 'epic' undertaking in its ownright, extending across four millennia in time, and most of theglobe in setting. The challenging mosaic of studies takesshape as an exploratory chart of how memory, story-telling and thedesire for heroes may relate to what we might want to call'History'".
Oliver Taplin, Magdalen College, OxfordUniversity

"Answers come and go. Questions persist. One of the manyvirtues of this volume of collected essays is its ability tore-open some fundamental discussions about epic, history, genre,and memory. It does so in a sophisiticated, learned, and wideranging manner. This book problematizes the relationships betweenliterary form, fact, and tradition in a way that will inform andexcite scholars in many fields for many years."
Ahuvia Kahane, Royal Holloway, University of London