Classical Pasts

by Porter, James I.

• ISBN13: 9780691089416
• ISBN10: 0691089418
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-10-28
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

The term "classical" is used to describe everything from the poems of Homer to entire periods of Greek and Roman antiquity. But just how did the concept evolve? This collection of essays by leading classics scholars from the United States and Europe challenges the limits of the current understanding of the term. The book seeks not to arrive at a final definition, but rather to provide a cultural history of the concept by exploring how the meanings of "classical" have been created, recreated, and rejected over time. The book asks questions that have been nearly absent from the scholarly literature. Does "classical" refer to a specific period of history or to the artistic products of that time? How has its definition changed? Did those who lived in classical times have some understanding of what the term "classical" has meant? How coherent, consistent, or even justified is the term? The book's introduction provides a generous theoretical and historical overview. It is followed by eleven chapters in which the contributors argue for the existence not of a single classical past, but of multiple, competing classical pasts. The essays address a broad range of topics--Homer and early Greek poetry and music, Isocrate, Hellenistic and Roman art, Cicero and Greek philosophy, the history of Latin literature, imperial Greek literature, and more. The most up-to-date and challenging treatment of the topic available, this collection will be of lasting interest to students and scholars of ancient and modern literature, art, and cultural history.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations and Table	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
List of Abbreviations	xi
INTRODUCTION
What Is "Classical" about Classical Antiquity?
James I. Porter	1	(68)
PART I The Deep Past: Bronze Age Classicism
CHAPTER 1 "No Greater Marvel": A Bronze Age Classic at Orchomenos	69	(20)
Susan E. Alcock and John F. Cherry
PART II Classical Innovations
CHAPTER 2 Intimations of the Classical in Early Greek Mousike	89	(17)
Armand D'Angour
CHAPTER 3 Rehistoricizing Classicism: Isocrates and the Politics of Metaphor in Fourth-Century Athens	106	(21)
Yun Lee Too
PART III Baroque Classics
CHAPTER 4 Baroque Classics: The Tragic Muse and the Exemplum	127	(46)
Andrew Stewart
PART IV Latin Letters
CHAPTER 5 From ΦIotaΛOmicronΣOmicronΦIota&Alapha;into PHILOSOPHIA: Classicism and Ciceronianism	173	(31)
John Henderson
CHAPTER 6 The Concept of the Classical and the Canons of Model Authors in Roman Literature
Mario Citroni	204	(33)
PART V Roman Art
CHAPTER 7 Greek Styles and Greek Art in Augustan Rome: Issues of the Present versus Records of the Past	237	(33)
Tonio Hölscher
CHAPTER 8 Classicism in Roman Art	270	(31)
Jas Elsner
PART VI Imperial Prose
CHAPTER 9 Feeling Classical: Classicism and Ancient Literary Criticism	301	(52)
James I. Porter
CHAPTER 10 Quickening the Classics: The Politics of Prose in Roman Greece	353	(24)
Tim Whitmarsh
CODA Looking Back, and Beyond
CHAPTER 11 Athens as the School of Greece	377	(12)
Glenn W. Most
Bibliography	389	(42)
Contributors	431	(4)
Index	435