Classical Inquiries

Guest Post
Guest Post

Hélène et le chant rituel : « mythe » et performance poétique en Grèce archaïque (une perspective anthropologique)

2016.05.01 | By Claude Calame “In the vast treasury of the myths, the (Greek) poet chose in turn the legend more adapted to the ceremony he wanted to celebrate”—so Bruno Gentili in a study of 1966 with the title “Poeta—committente—pubblico.” The example of Helen as cause of the Trojan war through the abduction by Paris gives the best opportunity to illustrate the adaptation of the heroic narrative to the circumstances… Read more

Guest Post

Helen, Counter-Ambush Expert

2016.05.01 | By Mary Ebbott and Casey Dué In addition to her superlative beauty, Helen in the Iliad and Odyssey has exceptional talents. Here we will add two skills that she has not received enough credit for: Helen knows both how to spot an ambush in the making and how to tell a great ambush story. Read more

Guest Post

Song, interrupted

2016.04.28 | By Keith DeStone Further thoughts on the singing of songs of Sappho, inspired by the collegial conversations and shared research that led to the earlier posts by Gregory Nagy and Andromache Karanika and to the more recent post by Ioanna Papadopoulou. Read more

Guest Post

Penelope’s great web: the violent interruption

2016.03.10 | By Ioanna Papadopoulou In the absence of Odysseus Penelope’s fate becomes unstable. Her weaving and unweaving the famous web is emblematic of this instability. Being at the same time a married woman and a numphē (young girl at the age of mariage), and refusing to solve this aporia, she invests weaving with its full metaphorical potential: Penelope rules over the destiny of Ithaca by “analysing” her web each… Read more