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An innovative and exciting introduction to one of the most influential and controversial ancient authors. Explores Lucian's major contributions to the history of satire, comic dialogues, religion, art, and erotics against the background of the cultural politics of the Greek world in the Roman Empire.
List of contents
List of illustrations; List of contributors; 1. Introduction Simon Goldhill; Part I. 2. Lucian and the culture of criticism Richard Hunter; 3. Lucian's poetics Emma Greensmith; 4. Lucian and philosophy Peter van Nuffelen; 5. On believing in Lucian: the religious polemics Tim Whitmarsh; 6. Lucian and art history Jas Elsner; 7. Some queer entanglements in Lucian's Erotes Alistair Blanshard; Part II. 8. In praise of the fly Emily Kneebone; 9. Lucian's Phalaris Peter Thonemann; 10. Lucian the doorkeeper: inside and outside in Lucianic Poetics Marco Formisano; 11. Geographical authority and bodily entanglements in Lucian's True Histories Jason König; 12. Menippus goes to the moon: fantastical astronomy and Lucian's scientific imagination Karen ni Mhealligh; 13. Lucian and Christianity Eleni Bozia; 14. Identification and distance in Lucian's Dialogues of the Courtesans: subjects and their absences Dawn LaValle Norman; 15. 'Here's Looking at You...': the dialogues of the gods and the erotics of the visual Simon Goldhill; Part III. 16. Lucian of Samosata in renaissance Italy Irene Fantappié; 17. Lucian goes north: the Luciani opuscula of Erasmus and Thomas More James Romm; 18. From the eighteenth to the nineteenth century: Voltaire, Leopardi and a new avenue of philosophical critique Giacomo Loi; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
SIMON GOLDHILL is Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge, and Foreign Secretary and Vice President of the British Academy. His books have been translated into twelve languages and won three international prizes. He has lectured and broadcast on radio and television all over the world. His most recent book is The Christian Invention of Time (Cambridge, 2022).
