After Antiquity

by Alexiou, Margaret

• ISBN13: 9780801433016
• ISBN10: 0801433010
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-07-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

With the publication of Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, widely considered a classic in Modern Greek studies and in collateral fields, Margaret Alexiou established herself as a major intellectual innovator on the interconnections among ancient, medieval, and modern Greek cultures. In her new, eagerly awaited book, Alexiou looks at how language defines the contours of myth and metaphor. Drawing on texts from the New Testament to the present day, Alexiou shows the diversity of the Greek language and its impact at crucial stages of its history on people who were not Greek. She then stipulates the relatedness of literary and "folk" genres, and assesses the importance of rituals and metaphors of the life cycle in shaping narrative forms and systems of imagery. Alexiou places special emphasis on Byzantine literary texts of the sixth and twelfth centuries, providing her own translations where necessary; modern poetry and prose of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and narrative songs and tales in the folk tradition, which she analyzes alongside songs of the life cycle. She devotes particular attention to two genres whose significance she thinks has been much underrated: the tales (paramythia) and the songs of love and marriage. In exploring the relationship between speech and ritual, Alexiou not only takes the Greek language into account but also invokes the neurological disorder of autism, drawing on clinical studies and her own experience as the mother of autistic identical twin sons.

Author Biography

Margaret Alexiou is George Seferis Professor of Modern Greek Studies at Harvard University.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi
Gregory Nagy
Acknowledgments	xv
A Note on Transliteration and Translations	xvii
Introduction: Forward to the Past	1	(1)
Aims and Scope	1	(1)
Some Preliminary Definitions	2	(6)
The ``Continuity Question'' Revisited: Old Debates and New Approaches	8	(11)
PART I. LANGUAGE
Greek Polyglossia: Historical Perspectives	19	(24)
Distinctive Features of the Greek Language	20	(2)
Diversity and Change: From Ancient Greek to Koine	22	(1)
Conflicts of Language and Style in the Byzantine Period	23	(4)
The Emergence of Dialect Literature: Cyprus and Crete	27	(2)
Forms of Greek in the Ottoman Period	29	(3)
After National Independence: Struggles for Hegemony	32	(4)
From ``Diglossia'' to ``Standard Modern Greek''?	36	(7)
The New Testament and Its Legacy	43	(23)
Voices from the Past	43	(2)
The New Testament	45	(7)
The Emergence of a Byzantine Genre: The Kontakion and Romanos	52	(3)
Precursors and Precedents	55	(4)
Romanos' Kontakia On the Nativity and On the Resurrection	59	(7)
Nonliterary Genres: Some Private and Public Voices	66	(30)
Writing Home	66	(11)
Of Purple Pants and Chamber Pots: The Imperial Baggage Train	77	(4)
Fragments of a Byzantine Tradition of Oral Song?	81	(15)
New Departures in the Twelfth Century	96	(55)
Texts and Contexts	96	(4)
The Timarion	100	(11)
Eros and the ``Constraints of Desire'' in Hysmine and Hysminias	111	(16)
Prodromos and the Politics of Hunger	127	(24)
PART II. MYTH
The Diversity of Mythical Genres	151	(21)
From Speech Genres to Mythical Genres?	151	(1)
What Is Myth?	152	(4)
Linking Past and Present: Myth and History	156	(1)
Averting Danger: Myth, Ritual, and Religion	157	(2)
Dialogic Ethics: Parables and Fables, Proverbs and Riddles	159	(2)
Songs and Tales: Myth and Fantasy	161	(3)
From Myth to Literature	164	(1)
How Do Myths Mean?	165	(2)
The Nereid ``Kalypso''	167	(5)
Myth in Song	172	(39)
Ideology and Folklore: Greek Songs and European Models	172	(4)
The Greek Canon, the Ballad, and the Muses	176	(4)
Toward New Approaches?	180	(3)
Form and Structure: Melody and Narrative	183	(6)
Focal Conflicts: Life beyond the Grave	189	(22)
Magic Cycles in the Wondertales	211	(55)
The Cinderella of Greek Folklore?	216	(5)
Spinning Yarns and Narrative Contingency	221	(10)
Teasers, Twisters, and Movers: Metanarrative and Paranarrative	231	(4)
Weaving Pictures: The Interpenetration of Themes and Images	235	(14)
Metamorphosis: Cyclical Images of Body and Cosmos	249	(4)
Cosmology and Morality	253	(7)
The Tree of Life and the Cosmic Cycle	260	(2)
Concluding Comments	262	(4)
Between Worlds: From Myth to Fiction	266	(51)
The Greek Novel, c. 1830-1880	267	(8)
Paralogic Fiction: The Case of Georgios Vizyenos	275	(2)
Ethnicity and Sanity	277	(9)
Antithesis as a Strategy of Reading/Writing	286	(10)
Ekphrasis: Between Time and Place	296	(14)
Coda: After Vizyenos	310	(7)
PART III. METAPHOR
The Resources of Ritual	317	(32)
Ritual and Metaphor	317	(2)
Contextualizing Ritual: Everyday Life	319	(6)
Autistic Rituals	325	(3)
Ritual and Reciprocity	328	(4)
Rituals of the Life Cycle: Separation, Transition, and integration	332	(13)
Greek Texts: Resources of the Past	345	(4)
Metaphors in Songs of the Life Cycle	349	(62)
Journey	352	(9)
Clothes and Gems	361	(11)
Hair	372	(2)
The Garden of Love	374	(3)
Dangerous Spaces: Hunting and Hunted	377	(4)
Burning and Withering	381	(3)
Tears and Poison, Blood and Water	384	(5)
Plants and Fruits of the Earth	389	(7)
Hunting Birds	396	(3)
The Tree of Love and Life	399	(6)
What Is Love?	405	(2)
Who Is Speaking?	407	(4)
Conclusion: Backward to the Present	411	(4)
Appendix: Romanos the Melodist (Fifth to Sixth Centuries A.D.)	415	(38)
Notes	453	(50)
Key to References to Songs and Tales	503	(2)
Bibliography	505	(42)
General Index	547	(16)
Index of Themes and Images	563