Homer the Theologian

by Lamberton, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780520066076
• ISBN10: 0520066073
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1989-06-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr on Demand

Summary

Here is the first survey of the surviving evidence for the growth, development, and influence of the Neoplatonist allegorical reading of theIliadandOdyssey.Professor Lamberton argues that this tradition of reading was to create new demands on subsequent epic and thereby alter permanently the nature of European epic. The Neoplatonist reading was to be decisive in the birth of allegorical epic in late antiquity and forms the background for the next major extension of the epic tradition found in Dante.

Author Biography

Robert Lamberton is Assistant Professor of Classics at Princeton University

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
List of Abbreviations	p. xv
The Divine Homer and the Background of Neoplatonic Allegory	p. 1
Homer's Pretensions	p. 1
Interpretation, Allegory, and the Critics of Homer	p. 10
Homer as Theologos	p. 22
The Pythagoreans	p. 31
Middle Platonism and the Interaction of Interpretive Traditions	p. 44
Philo of Alexandria	p. 44
Numenius	p. 54
Clement and Origen	p. 78
Plotinian Neoplatonism	p. 83
Plotinus	p. 83
Porphyry	p. 108
Julian and Sallustius	p. 134
The Interaction of Allegorical Interpretation and Deliberate Allegory	p. 144
Proclus	p. 162
Introduction	p. 162
Language as a System of Meaning	p. 164
Myths or Texts?	p. 174
The Major Exegesis of Homer in the Commentary on the Republic	p. 180
The Meaning of the Iliad and Odyssey	p. 197
The Transmission of the Neoplatonists' Homer to the Latin Middle Ages	p. 233
The Paths of Transmission	p. 233
The Arabic Tradition	p. 236
The Greek East	p. 241
The Latin Tradition	p. 249
The Late Middle Ages and Dante	p. 282
Afterword Preconception and Understanding: the Allegorists in Modern Perspective	p. 298
An Interpretation of the Modest Chariclea from the Lips of Philip the Philosopher	p. 306
Proclus's Commentary on the Timaeus of Plato, 1.341.25-343.15	p. 312
A Sampling of Proclus's Use of Homer	p. 315
The History of the Allegory of the Cave of the Nymphs	p. 319
Works Cited: Ancient and Medieval Authors	p. 325
Modern Authors	p. 330
Ancient and Medieval Passages Cited	p. 341
Index of Greek Terms	p. 353
General Index	p. 355
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.