Synopses & Reviews
In this strikingly original and playful work, Erik Gunderson examines questions of reading the past—an enterprise extending from antiquity to the present day. This esoteric and original study focuses on the equally singular work of Aulus Gellius—a Roman author and grammarian (ca. 120-180 A.D.), possibly of African origin. Gellius’s only work, the twenty-volume Noctes Atticae,is an exploding, sometimes seemingly random text-cum-diary in which Gellius jotted down everything of interest he heard in conversation or read in contemporary books. Comprising notes on Roman and classical grammar, geometry, philosophy, and history, it is a one-work overview of Latin scholarship, thought, and intellectual culture, a combination condensed library and cabinet of curiosities. Gunderson tackles Gellius with exuberance, placing him in the larger culture of antiquarian literature. Purposely echoing Gellius’s own swooping word-play and digressions, he explores the techniques by which knowledge was produced and consumed in Gellius’s day, as well as in our own time. The resulting book is as much pure creative fun as it is a major work of scholarship informed by the theories of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Derrida.
Review
'“A sustained jeu d’ ésprit of rare verve and panache. It is also perhaps the deepest and most perceptive assault on the complex world of Aulus Gellius’s Noctes Atticae in modern scholarship: by turns playful, conversational, difficult, discursive, penetrating.”—Jas’ Elsner, University of Oxford'
Review
“Innovative both stylistically and methodologically, Butler’s outstanding book has the feel of a dual elegy—for the author, whom it seeks to resuscitate as more than an abstract theoretical concept, and for the vanishing (or at least de-materializing) page in an ever accelerating digital universe.”—James I. Porter, University of California, Irvine
Review
“A learned, moving essay in humane literary and cultural criticism. Brilliantly written, The Matter of the Page takes our own sense of reading and writing and relates it to the work of past writers and readers, showing in fascinatingly different ways how authors as diverse as Thucydides, Vergil, and Dhuoda transcended both their own mortality and the limits of material culture.”—James Tatum, Dartmouth College
Review
“Characterized by profound originality of imagination and an assured command of the spectrum of classical scholarship, the author’s dissection of select texts of Thucydides, Lucretius, Cicero, Seneca, and the female Carolingan aristocrat Dhuoda constitutes a virtuosic display of insight and analytical acuity. . . . Summing Up: Highly recommended.”—J. S. Louzonis, Choice
Review
“A smart, insightful, and ultimately persuasive book about the nature of the page from antiquity into the Middle Ages. . . . Butler has made a bold attempt to break down the blood-brain barrier between ideas and texts, signifiers and signifieds, and to suggest that the very space on/in which the text plays out informs the text that is played out there.”—Sarah Spence, Renaissance Quarterly
Review
"A great little book to grapple with, not only for its streamlined main thesis or its knotty close readings, but also for Butler's ambitious and experimental methodology that engages with how Classical texts (and by extension, Classical scholarship) are read, written and reproduced in our digitalized age. . . . I cannot recommend The Matter of the Page highly enough."—Richard Fletcher, Digressus
Review
“In a discursive style that combines a strong lyrical voice with sound classical learning, [The Matter of the Page] resembles the critical manner of Italo Calvino in his Six Memos for the Next Millennium, or Umberto Eco’s critical prose. . . . A pleasure to read, especially for its intriguing and novel ideas, for its brave attempt to rediscover the concept of the author as reader through a poststructuralist lens, and for offering variant paths to reinterpreting the work and creative drive of canonical writers.”—Laura Jansen, The Classical Review
Review
This is both a playful and a serious book that opens many doors onto the texts it studies. Students of classical literature and of the history of the book should be glad for the openings.”Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Review
“Original, thoughtful, and thought-provoking. Buchan does not get mired in scholarly argument or in proofs of his own originality or authority. Instead he goes right to work, interpreting the Iliad with great perception and imagination.”—Louise Pratt, Emory University
Review
“Full of smart, witty, and original insights, Perfidy and Passion challenges the status quo on Homeric studies, not an easy thing to do. Sophisticated, engaging, fun to read.”—Patricia Rosenmeyer, Series Editor
Review
“Buchan shows that deception and betrayal play a fundamental role in the classic poems, confirming that what is unsaid, and even the lies told, are as important as what is said.”—
ChoiceReview
andldquo;Austinandrsquo;s passionate reading will be of interest to anyone who engages seriously with this challenging work.andrdquo;andmdash;Deborah Lyons, Miami University
Review
andldquo;In this passionate and original reading of one of the greatest (but less known) of Greek tragedies, Norman Austin guides us through Sophoclesandrsquo; drama scene by scene and sometimes line by line. Whether for the student of classics, religion, philosophy, psychology, medicine, or culture, there are revelations and reverberations everywhere. Austinandrsquo;s knowledge is profound and his enthusiasm is contagious.andrdquo;andmdash;Rachel Hadas, editor of The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present
Review
andldquo;A generous work of literary criticism and an exceptional contribution to the ongoing study of what is perhaps the most perplexing of Greek tragedies.andrdquo;andmdash;Susan A. Curry, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Synopsis
Ancient and medieval literary texts often call attention to their existence as physical objects. Shane Butler helps us to understand why. Arguing that writing has always been as much a material struggle as an intellectual one, The Matter of the Page offers timely lessons for the digital age about how creativity works and why literature moves us.
Butler begins with some considerations about the materiality of the literary text, both as a process (the draft) and a product (the book), and he traces the curious history of “the page” from scroll to manuscript codex to printed book and beyond. He then offers a series of unforgettable portraits of authors at work: Thucydides struggling to describe his own diseased body; Vergil ready to burn an epic poem he could not finish; Lucretius wrestling with words even as he fights the madness that will drive him to suicide; Cicero mesmerized by the thought of erasing his entire career; Seneca plumbing the depths of the soul in the wax of his tablets; and Dhuoda, who sees the book she writes as a door, a tunnel, a womb. Butler reveals how the work of writing transformed each of these authors into his or her own first reader, and he explains what this metamorphosis teaches us about how we too should read.
All Greek and Latin quotations are translated into English and technical matters are carefully explained for general readers, with scholarly details in the notes.
Synopsis
Homer’s Iliad is often considered a poem of blunt truthfulness, his characters’ motivation pleasingly simple. A closer look, however, reveals a complex interplay of characters who engage in an awful lot of lies. Beginning with Achilles, who hatches a secret plot to destroy his own people, Mark Buchan traces motifs of deception and betrayal throughout the poem. Homer’s heroes offer bluster, their passion linked to and explained by their lack of authenticity. Buchan reads Homer’s characters between the lies, showing how the plot is structured individual denial and what cannot be said.
Synopsis
A passionate and sensitive study that examines both text and context, situating the play within the historical and political milieu of the eclipse of Athenian power.
Synopsis
Norman Austin brings both keen insight and a life-long engagement with his subject to this study of Sophoclesandrsquo; late tragedy Philoctetes, a fifth-century BCE play adapted from an infamous incident during the Trojan War. In Sophoclesandrsquo; andldquo;Philoctetesandrdquo; and the Great Soul Robbery, Austin examines the rich layers of text as well as context, situating the play within the historical and political milieu of the eclipse of Athenian power. He presents a study at once of interest to the classical scholar and accessible to the general reader. Though the play, written near the end of Sophoclesandrsquo; career, is not as familiar to modern audiences as his Theban plays, Philoctetes grapples with issuesandmdash;social, psychological, and spiritualandmdash;that remain as much a part of our lives today as they were for their original Athenian audience.
About the Author
Norman Austin is professor emeritus of classics at the University of Arizona, where he taught for twenty years, as well as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Classics at Florida Atlantic University. He is author of Meaning and Being in Myth and Helen of Troy and Her Shameless Phantom.
Table of Contents
Prefaceand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
Introductionand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160;
1. The Problem of Translationand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
2. The Strong Poet: Tradition and Originalityand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
3. The Prologue (Verses 1andndash;134)and#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
4. The Parados (Verses 135andndash;218)and#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
5. The First Episode (Verses 219andndash;673)and#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
6. The Stasimon (Verses 676andndash;729)and#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
7. The Second Episode (730andndash;826)and#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
8. The First Kommos (827andndash;864)and#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
9. The Third Episode (Verses 865andndash;1080)and#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Appendix: The Prophecy of Helenusand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
10. The Second Kommos (Verses 1081andndash;1217)and#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
11. The Exodos (Verses 1218andndash;1471)and#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
12. Heracles: Deus ex Machinaand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
Notesand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
Bibliographyand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
Index