Archilochus

By Gregory Nagy

A scenario for exchanges of comments on a planned monograph about the ancient reception of Sappho

2019.03.08 | By Gregory Nagy As the title of this posting for 2019.03.08 indicates, I am planning to produce a monograph about the ancient reception of Sappho, and part of the plan is to organize a system for exchanging comments about this monograph, the text of which is I think not yet ready for publication in print. In this posting, I attempt to get the conversation started by making selected… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

Homo ludens at play with the songs of Sappho: Experiments in comparative reception theory, Essay Seven

2019.03.01 | By Gregory Nagy §0. This posting for 2019.03.01 is Essay Seven of a long-term project that started with Essay One at 2019.01.08. The numbering of my paragraphs here in Essay Seven continues from §110 of Essay Six, posted 2019.02.22, continuing from earlier posts. In Essay Seven here, I attempt to round out my findings, as of now, about the reception of Sappho’s songs in the ancient world. Most… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

Homo ludens at play with the songs of Sappho: Experiments in comparative reception theory, Essay Five

2019.02.08 | By Gregory Nagy This posting for 2019.02.08 is Essay Five of a long-term project that started with Essay One at 2019.01.08 and continued since then till now. The numbering of my paragraphs here in Essay Five continues from §77 of Essay Four. The primary examples in Essay Five here, as earlier in Essay Four, come from the poetry of Catullus. In my comments on this poetry so far,… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

Erotic desecration and sacralization in Greek myth and ritual

2018.07.06 | By Gregory Nagy §0. The brief remarks in this post, dated 2018.07.06, pick up from where I left off in the post that is dated 2018.06.30. In my more lengthy remarks there, at §10, I started to argue that the erotic activity as narrated by the first-person speaker in the so-called First Cologne Epode of Archilochus, F 196a W, is ultimately not an act of desecration but rather… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

Sacred Space as a frame for lyric occasions: The case of the Mnesiepes Inscription and other possible cases

2018.06.30 | By Gregory Nagy The three terms sacred space and frame and lyric occasions in the primary title of this presentation all need to be questioned for their meanings, which depend in each case on the overall meaning of the title that combines these terms. As for the words case and cases in the secondary title, they refer to specific examples that give context to my questioning of the… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

Picturing Archilochus as a cult hero

2018.06.06 | By Gregory Nagy This posting in Classical Inquiries for 2018.06.06 picks up from where I left off in a posting for 2016.03.03, the title of which was “Picturing Homer as a cult hero.” I now turn to a close parallel, which is a picturing of Archilochus as a cult hero in the island state of Paros. Read more