Preposterous Poetics - The Politics and Aesthetics of Form in Late Antiquity

Explores how literary form changes when Christianity and rabbinic Judaism take shape. By reading little-known but hugely influential texts, this book opens a new and exciting vision of how the literature of the first millennium shaped culture.

List of contents

1. Forms of attention: time and narrative in Ecphrasis; 2. When size matters: erotics, the epyllion, and Colluthus' Rape of Helen; 3. In the beginning; 4. Preposterous poetics and the erotics of death; 5. Strange dogs: Joseph and Aseneth and the dynamics of transformation; 6. Life forms: biography and rabbinical writing coda; Acknowledgements; Bibliography. Index.

About the author

Simon Goldhill is Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of King's College. He is one of the best-known writers on Greek literature and cultures, publishing almost twenty books and numerous articles on texts and topics from the whole span of antiquity and its reception, especially in the Victorian era. He has broadcast regularly on television and radio around the world, and has been profiled in newspapers from Brazil to Australia. His books have won three international prizes and been translated into ten languages.

Summary

Explores how literary form changes when Christianity and rabbinic Judaism take shape. By reading little-known but hugely influential texts, this book opens a new and exciting vision of how the literature of the first millennium shaped culture.

Product details

• Authors: Simon Goldhill, Simon (University of Cambridge) Goldhill, Goldhill Simon
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.09.2021
• EAN: 9781108797023
• ISBN: 978-1-108-79702-3
• No. of pages: 324
• Series: Greek Culture in the Roman Wor; Greek Culture in the Roman World
• Subjects: Education and learning > Schoolbooks, general education schools; Humanities, art, music > History > Antiquity; HISTORY / Ancient / General, Christianity, Judaism, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, Ancient History, Classical history / classical civilisation, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval