2016.07.21 / updated 2018.09.08 | By Gregory Nagy The Trojan War is being fought here as if for the very first time. There is a sense of novelty at first in contemplating all the violent woundings and deaths yet to follow. Of special interest is all the beautiful detail lavished on the wounding of Menelaos: it is as if his bleeding wound here could be pictured as the original trauma… Read more
2016.07.07 / updated 2018.08.16 | By Gregory Nagy The Master Narrator of the Homeric Iliad is looking here at Helen for the very first time—or, to say it more accurately, as if for the very first time. Just as Rhapsody 2 needed a new Catalogue of Ships—or, again to say it more accurately—a renewed Catalogue, so also Rhapsody 3 needs a new look at Helen. It seems as if the… Read more
2016.07.01 / updated 2018.08.16 | By Gregory Nagy The narrative of Rhapsody 2 now follows up on the dire consequences of the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon as narrated in Rhapsody 1. Achilles has already withdrawn from the war because of his anger. So, now that this greatest hero of the Achaeans is out of the picture, what will happen next? How will the absence of Achilles affect the story… Read more
2016.06.09 / updated 2018.08.16 | By Gregory Nagy The comments I offer in Classical Inquiries 2016-2017 on Iliad Rhapsody 1 through Rhapsody 24, starting here with Rhapsody 1, are selected from seven books that I indicate in the bibliographical abbreviations: BA, GMP, H24H, HC, HPC, HQ, HR, MoM, PasP, PH. Each one of these books has its own index locorum. My colleague Anita Nikkanen, an Associate Editor for the online… Read more
2016.02.04 | By Gregory Nagy In the postings for 2015.11.27 and 2016.01.21 and 2016.01.28, I translated and commented on Chapters 1 and 2 and 3 of Aristotle’s Poetics. In the posting here for 2016.02.04, I continue by translating and commenting on Chapter 4. But now I experiment with a new format. Read more
2016.02.02 | By Coleman Connelly How can the Syriac and Arabic tradition of Aristotle’s Poetics help editors of the Greek text at Poetics 1447b7–9? In Part 2 of my comment, I walk the reader through this thorny textual problem, and demonstrate the dangers of ignoring lost Syriac intermediaries when editing Greek texts on the basis of Arabic translations. Read more
