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"We need for teaching and for the general public good books about Greco-Roman comedy, and this is one. . . . It is for ordinary literate people who would like an intelligent introduction to Ancient Comedy and direct contact with some fresh translations of four plays."--William S. Anderson, Professor Emeritus of Classics, University of California, BerkeleyMuch of what we know of Greco-Roman comedy comes from the surviving works of just four playwrights--the Greeks Aristophanes and Menander and the Romans Plautus and Terence. To introduce these authors and their work to students and general readers, this book offers a new, accessible translation of a representative play by each playwright, accompanied by a general introduction to the author's life and times, a scholarly article on a prominent theme in the play, and a bibliography of selected readings about the play and playwright. This range of material, rare in a single volume, provides several reading and teaching options, from the study of a single author to an overview of the entire Classical comedic tradition. The plays have been translated for readability and fidelity to the original text by established Classics scholars. Douglas Olson provides the translation and commentary for Aristophanes' Acharnians, Shawn O'Bryhim for Menander's Dyskolos, George Fredric Franco for Plautus' Casina, and Timothy J. Moore for Terence's Phormio. ... Read more

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Text with translation and commentary. (Aris and Phillips 1996) ... Read more

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Leading scholar Albert Russell Ascoli traces the metamorphosis of Dante Alighieri - minor Florentine aristocrat, political activist and exile, amateur philosopher and theologian, and daring experimental poet - into Dante, author of the Divine Comedy and perhaps the most self-consciously 'authoritative' cultural figure in the Western canon. The text offers a comprehensive introduction to Dante's evolving, transformative relationship to medieval ideas of authorship and authority from the early Vita Nuova through the unfinished treatises, The Banquet and On Vernacular Eloquence, to the works of his maturity, Monarchy and the Divine Comedy. Ascoli reveals how Dante anticipates modern notions of personalized, creative authorship and the phenomenon of 'Renaissance self-fashioning'. Unusually, the book examines Dante's career as a whole offering an important point of access not only to the Dantean oeuvre, but also to the history and theory of authorship in the larger Italian and European tradition. ... Read more

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Prolegomena deals with the introductory and hermeneutic sections of awide range of commentaries and studies on philosophical, scientific, biblicaland other ancient authors.Special attention is given to unclearness as a stimulus for interpretation.New light is shed on the Life of an author (e.g. Plotinus') as apreliminary to the study of his works, and on the part played by the idea thatlife and doctrine should agree with each other.The results obtained by the study of the practices as well as the avowedprinciples of ancient scholars and commentators among other things further theunderstanding of the interrelated philosophical, literary, medical andpatristic exegetical traditions, of the book of Diogenes Laertius, of Galen'sautobibliographies and of Thrasyllus' Before the Reading of the Dialoguesof Plato. ... Read more

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Part of a series describing authors of the Middle Ages, this concise reference details this poet's life and works, including his time spent as a clerk at the Privy Seal office. ... Read more

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Professor Kazhdan's approach to the study of Byzantine texts is to see them as works created by humans, for humans and about humans, not as a system of imitative exercises on ancient or biblical topics and styles. When authors reused or adapted older models, he would ask why they did that and argues that in this opposition of traditional language and new content lies one of the keys to the understanding of Byzantine culture. This approach does not exclude the use of the texts as sources for what happened, and these articles demonstrate just how much can, with care, be extracted or deduced. However, his major aim has been to analyze the historical background, the social ideas and artistic approaches of Byzantine authors as revealed in what they wrote. These authors include literary figures, and there are studies of the intellectual culture of the later Empire, but the emphasis is more particularly on the often anonymous writers of saints lives and the 8th-10th centuries. The volume ends with a section of additional notes and references and a detailed index. ... Read more

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Although detailed and full bibliographies exist for Old English word studies, this is the first specifically on Middle English lexicography, focussing on studies of individual Middle English words and groups of words which offer evidence for word meanings: ante- and post-datings for the Oxford English Dictionary and the Middle English Dictionary, missing entries and ghost words, possible proverbs, proposals for etymologies, wordplay, punning, new readings in manuscripts and the reinterpretations of textual cruces. It first presents an annotated bibliography arranged alphabetically by author's name and date of publication; the annotations include notes on the contents and approach of each article, cross-references to related work, and references to reviews. Two indexes follow, the Index of Words, an alphabetical listing of words that have attracted significant discussion with references to the author(s), publication date and notes of pages on which the words are discussed; and an Index of Authors. The introductory section offers critical analyses of the word studies. ... Read more

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"Authors of the Middle Ages" is a series, designed for research and reference. Each volume, by an expert on the subject, gives an account of the facts known about the author's life and immediate historical context, together with a review of subsequent scholarship. This is supported by citation of all known contemporary references; a dated and classified list of manuscripts and editions; and a bibliography of secondary sources. The aim is to combine, in one compact volume, a biography of a medieval author with all the information needed for further research. The series is divided into sections. The first, edited by M.C. Seymour, focuses on "English Writers of the Late Middle Ages", a second, more general section, edited by Patrick J. Geary, deals with "Historical and Religious Writers of the Latin West". ... Read more

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This book is part of an honourable tradition in the examination of influences on authors in naming characters, choosing titles, setting locale. The book's coverage is broad: literary names are examined for the Early Modern Period in England; 19th century in America; and the 20th century America, and some European influences. ... Read more

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A survey of how Greek historians explained the conditions of a state's success and the dangers of power
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Customer Reviews (1)

History and Tragedy
The wheel of fortune revolves mercilessly, simultaneously making shepherds into kings and kings into corpses.In Jacqueline de Romilly's introduction, she introduces the "tragic pattern of history."Examining Herodotus, Thucydides, and others, Romilly shows that Greek authors had no sense of historical continuity as we know it today.For them, history seemed to follow a rhythm that is fundamentally antagonistic to the rationalizations of philosophers.Even for moderns like Hegel and Marx, The History and The Peloponnesian War have little to provide for grandiose theories of historical progression.However, upon more careful, these stories do provide a universal significance that brings them closer to tragedy than previously thought.

Romilly asserts that the Greek theory of history parallels the pattern of Greek tragedy.In Sophocles play, Oedipus has qualities which make him unable to do anything but fulfill Teiresias' oracle of doom.In the same way, Croesus in Herodotus' history can do nothing but lead his kingdom into calamity.The parallel is more meaty than one would think.Greek histories overwhelmingly point towards the pathos of the unending human struggle against fortune and the inevitability of the rise and fall of states. ... Read more