I.J.F. de Jong

Narrators, Narratees and Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature

Discusses the definition and boundaries of narrative, and the roles of its producer, the narrator, and recipient, the narratees.

Time in ancient Greek literature

This is the second volume in a series of volumes which together will provide an entirely new history of ancient Greek (narrative) literature. Its organization is formal rather than biographical. It traces the history of central narrative devices, such as the narrator and his narratees,time, focalization, characterization, and space. It offers not only analyses of the handling of such a device by individual authors, but also a larger historical perspective on the manner in which it changes over time and is put to different uses by different authors in different genres. The present volume deals with time: changes in the order of events (analepsis versus prolepsis), the speed of narration (events may be recounted scenically or in the form of a summary), and frequency (events may be recounted once, repeatedly, or not at all).

The Homeric Narrator and his own kleos

The Homeric narrators celebrated reticence about his own person, work, and aspirations has led scholars to call him modest. In this paper I argue that there are enough implicit or indirect signs which point at a Homeric narrator himself aspiring to kleos, just like the heroes he celebrates.

Convention Versus Realism in the Homeric Epics

The Homeric epics are generally called realistic. The first part of this paper investigates what is meant by this label. It appears that there are in fact several forms of realism: historical, ontological, daily-life, and descriptive realism. In the second part it is shown that underneath this realistic surface many conventions lie hidden: highly stylized type-scenes form the basis of daily-life realism; the many speeches for which Homer is famous are possible because all the characters speak Greek and all the warriors on the Iliadic battle field know each others name; the innumerable single fights of the Iliad are not the result of a special fighting method, but of the narrative convention of selective focus.

Pluperfects and the Artist in Ekphrases: From the Shield of Achilles to the Shield of Aeneas (and Beyond)

This study discusses the figure of the artist in classical ekphrases, in particular the pluperfects of verbs of making of the type ἐτέτυκτο, ἤσκητο, ἐκeκόσµητο, ἐτeτeίχιστο, caelaverat, fecerat, struxerat which evoke that artist. After setting up a framework of the various other ways in which the artist can be represented in ekphrases, I zoom in on the pluperfects and show how they are used differently in Greek and Latin ekphrases: in Greek the medio-passive pluperfect describes a finished object while at the same time acknowledging the act of making and hence the maker; in Latin the active pluperfect occurs in analepses which evoke the act of making by a maker as an event of the past. I end with the remarkable use of the pluperfect by Vergil in the shield of Aeneas in Aeneid 8. He uniquely combines the Greek epic tradition of the refrain of verbs of making with the Latin analeptic force of the tense, in order to keep reminding the narratees of the maker of the shield, Vulcan, and his prophetic powers and of the earlier, crucial scene of the divine smith forging the shield.

The Homeric Hymns

There is hardly a genre in Greek literature in which space is more important than that of the Homeric hymns. Two hymns are even devoted entirely to aetiological stories of how a god founds one of his sanctuaries: Delos and Delphi in the Hymn to Apollo and Eleusis in the Hymn to Demeter. Hymnic gods not only have cult sites but also cult objects. The combination of the miraculous divine and the anthropomorphic (route) is typical for the conception of the gods in Greek literature. There is one hymn which contains an exceptionally long reference to the narrators space, which turns out to be the same as the setting of its narrative: the island of Delos in the Hymn to Apollo. The most radical case is the island of Delos in the Hymn to Apollo, the depiction of which constantly switches between the physical and the anthropomorphic. Keywords:Apollo; Delos; Greek literature; homeric hymns; hymnic gods

[Review of: A.D. Morrison (2007) The narrator in Archaic Greek and Hellenistic poetry]

Inevitably, reading is one of the requirements to be undergone. To improve the performance and quality, someone needs to have something new every day. It will suggest you to have more inspirations, then. However, the needs of inspirations will make you searching for some sources. Even from the other people experience, internet, and many books. Books and internet are the recommended media to help you improving your quality and performance.

'Sophocles Trachiniae 1-48, Euripidean Prologues, and their Audiences'

In this paper, the author discusses two (groups of) dramatic texts which are generally considered monologues: Sophocles Trachiniae 1-48 and Euripidean prologues. Using a combined set of narratological and linguistic criteria he points out a considerable number of signs of the narratee, which make the qualification of monologue questionable. In the case of the Trachiniae the allusive narrative style, clearly meant for an insider, and the presence of the Nurse on stage, who moreover in her opening speech reacts to Deanira’s words, suggest that Deanira’s speech is part of a dialogue and that she expects the Nurse to identify with this narratee. In the case of Euripidean prologues their detailed nature and the absence of possible interlocutors on stage points at the spectators as the ones who are supposed to identify with this narratee. Rather than monologues tout court he suggests to call Euripidean prologues ‘diaphonic’ monologues. Keywords: Deanira; Euripidean prologues; linguistic criteria; narratological criteria; Sophocles Trachiniae

The Practical Use of Historiography: From Haffner to Herodotus

In 1938 a young German civil servant flees to England in order to be able to marry a Jewish wife. He takes on a pseudonym, Sebastian Haffner, and writes a brief but trenchant introduction to his country, called Germany: Jekyll and Hyde (published in 1940; translated into German in 1996). Its purpose is to provide his new compatriots with accurate information about the enemy, to be used for propagandistic purposes, or, as he himself writes, in the graphic style which would become his hallmark: