Classical Inquiries

Andromache
By Gregory Nagy, H24H

Ch’unhyang—typological comparisons from late-Chosŏn Korean song culture and modern Korean film culture

2018.09.05 | By Gregory Nagy §0. I focus here on two clips that I could describe as “lament-by-premonition” and “lament during moments of excruciating pain.” These clips will both involve a kind of comparison that is known as “typological.” Here is a working definition from H24H 3§11... typological comparison is a kind of comparative method that has to do with the study of parallelisms between structures as structures pure and… Read more

By Gregory Nagy, H24H

Cato’s daughter Porcia has herself a really good cry

2015.08.12 | By Gregory Nagy The lamentations that the sisters and the wife of Cato had performed in mourning for him are symmetrical, in their dramatic force, to the lamentations that could have been performed by Porcia, daughter of Cato, for her husband Brutus. I cite here a most revealing passage I found in Plutarch’s Life of Brutus, along with my own translation from the original Greek. We see here… Read more

By Gregory Nagy, H24H

An unnamed woman’s lament as a signal of epic sorrow

2015.06.17 | By Gregory Nagy In Odyssey 8, Odysseus sheds tears both times when he hears the two songs of Demodokos about the Trojan War, paraphrased at verses 72–83 and 487–498. As I argued in what I posted for 2015.06.10, Odysseus is weeping because he recognizes that the stories told in these songs are signals of a sorrow felt by himself and even by Achilles. Read more