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16 results

  • Chapter 7 - A ‘Revival’ of the ‘Epyllion’ as a ‘Genre’?

  • from Part 2 - Late Antique ‘Genres’ and ‘Genre’ in Late Antiquity
  • Edited by Berenice Verhelst, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Tine Scheijnen, Universiteit Gent, Belgium
  • Book:
    Greek and Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity
    Published online:
    16 June 2022
    Print publication:
    30 June 2022, pp 132-150

  • Summary

    This chapter focusses on a genre, which in recent scholarship has been unmasked as a modern invention: the ‘epyllion’. About the definition of this highly problematic term no consensus can be reached (metre? length? topic? structure?). Literary histories claim that the genre was born in the Hellenistic period and flourished again in Catullus’ time, with his Poem 64 as its main representative. Generally, they do not provide any examples of the ‘genre’ from Late Antiquity. And yet, one could argue in favour of a late antique ‘revival’, with both Latin (Dracontius, Reposianus, Ausonius, Aegritudo Perdicae) and Greek (Triphiodorus, Musaeus, Colluthus, Orphic Argonautica) representatives. This chapter looks at the ways these poems reflect genre awareness through an analysis of prefaces, prologues and other passages which stand out as (potentially) metapoetic. How do these late antique poems engage with their grand epic models? To what extent do they present themselves as a different (sub)genre and as traditional or innovative? Is the shortness thematised? If it was not a distinctive genre yet in Hellenistic times, did the epyllion, perhaps, become a genre in Late Antiquity?

  • Introduction

  • Edited by Berenice Verhelst, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Tine Scheijnen, Universiteit Gent, Belgium
  • Book:
    Greek and Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity
    Published online:
    16 June 2022
    Print publication:
    30 June 2022, pp 1-10

  • Summary

    In the past few years, it has been possible to notice parallel developments in the study of both Latin and Greek late antique poetry, two neighbouring and growing scholarly fields. Recently published studies reveal an increased focus on the contemporary context and, in relation to that, on the ‘otherness’ of late antique aesthetics, when compared with the poetics of earlier periods that classically trained scholars have been taught to admire.1 Long considered poetry of bad taste from a period of decline, late antique poetry fascinates classicists today mainly because of its otherness, its productive reception of the classical period, its innovations in terms of literary forms, and the creativity with which it responds to the ‘seismic cultural changes’2 of late antique society.

Greek and Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity
  • Form, Tradition, and Context
  • Edited by Berenice Verhelst, Tine Scheijnen
  • Published online:
    16 June 2022
    Print publication:
    30 June 2022
  • Although Greek and Latin poetry from late antiquity each poses similar questions and problems, a real dialogue between scholars on both sides is even now conspicuously absent. A lack of evidence impedes discussion of whether there was direct interaction between the two language traditions. This volume, however, starts from the premise that direct interaction should never be a prerequisite for a meaningful comparative and contextualising analysis of both late antique poetic traditions. A team of leading and emerging scholars sheds new light on literary developments that can be or have been regarded as typical of the period and on the poetic and aesthetic ideals that affected individual works, which are both classicizing and 'un-classical' in similar and diverging ways. This innovative exploration of the possibilities created by a bilingual focus should stimulate further explorations in future research.

  • Teaching Translation Theory and Practice

  • Stijn Praet, Berenice Verhelst
  • Journal:
    Journal of Classics Teaching / Volume 21 / Issue 42 / Autumn 2020
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    09 December 2020, pp. 31-35
    • Article
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  • It is safe to say that, across the globe, translation is still heavily relied on as a tool for teaching classical languages and texts that are written in them, both in secondary and higher education. Indeed, translation exercises are perhaps the most common method to train and evaluate Greek and Latin text comprehension, grammar, syntax and vocabulary. Some teachers and textbooks also make use of existing translations to complement and supplement the (more or less) original texts that they are tackling in class. Given that translation plays such a prominent role in Classics, is it not remarkable, then, that students generally spend very little time reflecting on the act of translation itself, not just as a shift between different languages, but as a transfer and transformation of meaning and form between different cultures?